"Easy Street" is a

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive List ...

and

popular song Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

with lyrics and music written by Alan Rankin Jones in 1940. It was first recorded by 'Jimmy Lunceford and his Orchestra.'

Background

The term 'easy street' originated in the late 1800s and is

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

for "a state in which everything is going well and one is comfortable.” It's usually meant momentarily.

Musical characteristics

Easy Street is in thirty-two bar form and includes a

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

that moves the title line to different pitches whenever it recurs in a phrase. The song is usually played with a slow, slightly swinging melody.

References

{{authority control Jazz standards 1940 songs