Take the "A" Train Take the "A" Train "Take the 'A' Train" is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that was the signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra. The use of the Strayhorn composition as the signature tune was made necessary by a ruling in 1940 by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). When ASCAP raised its licensing fees for broadcast use, many ASCAP members, including Ellington, could no longer play their compositions over radio, as most music was played live on radio at the time. Ellington turned to Billy Strayhorn and son Mercer Ellington, who were registered with ASCAP
Duke Ellington and pneumonia, a few weeks after his 75th birthday. At his funeral, attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day. A genius has passed." He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, New York City. Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington, in cities from New York and Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. Ellington is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City. In Ellington's birthplace, Washington, D.C., the Duke Ellington School of the Arts educates talented students, who are