Jazz Endings, Aesthetic Discourse, and Musical Publics

The title above contains a melodic fragment from the closing bars of Billy Strayhorn's "Take the A Train". It is often called the "Ellington ending" after the composer and musician for whom the piece became a signature tune. Despite its close motivic relationship to the rest of the piece, it long ago began circulating on its own as a musical tag, and musicians still employ it in a range of contexts to signal musical closure. There are many such concluding patterns, and in the account that follows I will examine how one group of young instrumentalists mobilizes some of them (including the Ellington ending) while collectively arranging a tune. In part, then, this article explores an instance of musical bricolage, as musicians experiment with an array of formulas and come to an agreement regarding how they will establish musical closure with them.