Yet other Ellington vocalists don't fall into any familiar patterns. The band's all-time biggest hit was undoubtedly Strayhorn's "Take the A Train," which soon became its theme-song and, in 1952, served as the basis for an expanded concert treatment. Referring little to his original 1941 arrangement, Strayhorn organizes this eight-minute retake (which opens the classic album Ellington Uptown) in three sections, beginning with his own very-modern piano and ending with one of the earliest of sax star Paul Gonsalves's tenor rhapsodies (it could be called "Diminuendo and Crescendo in A Train"). In between, Betty Roche, who sang with Ellington in 1943-'44 and again in 1952-'53, supplies two choruses of brilliant modern jazz vocalizing. Instigating an Ellington tradition later carried on by Ray Nance, Roche first sings Strayhorns word's and music more or less as written, and then bebops off into a set of inspired improvisations, scat variations and unlikely quotations.
Unlike and friend and one-time rival Jimmie Lunceford, Ellington and Strayhorn only rarely had their bandsmen double as bandsingers. Sonny Greer occasionally put down his drumsticks to step up to the mike (and recordings do exist of The Duke, Strayhorn and original manager Irving Mills all playing crooner), but Ray Nance succeeds as the most adept singer from the band's own ranks. Another Beggar's Holiday item, "Women," a "character" song from the score which doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of Mr. Ellington or CBS Records, spotlights "Floorshow" Nance on both trumpet and vocals (he could also play violin and tap dance). Ellington also employed non-verbal vocal sounds in a semi-classical sense via three different vocalistes, none of whom sound remotely alike, Adelaide Hall, Kay Davis (heard "On a Turquoise Cloud" here) and Alice Babs (on the '60s Sacred Concerts).
