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What About Jazz "Earworms"?


Dan Gould

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OK we all know pop "hooks" that get stuck in our heads. Some may be pleasurable, some probably invoke feelings of disgust and maybe, a touch of nausea too. :g

But what about jazz themes you can't get out of your head?  What tunes stay with you because those themes are just so damn irresistible?

For me it is "Highest Mountain", bar none. Been "hearing" it for the last day or so in fact.

So let's hear yours. Maybe it will help me get that damn tune to stop. :g

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If you include straight-ahead SWING tunes then there are plenty. Of course some of these are standards but anyway ... (they have become jazz chestnuts long ago)

Off the top of my head, a scant few personal all-time jazz earworm favorites:

Four Brothers

Stompy Jones

Perdido

Jumpin' At The Woodside

Caldonia (in fact, a lot of Louis Jordan tunes) - do I hear someone say "too pop-ish"? Well, YOUR loss! :lol:)

Turkey Hop

Blue 'n' Boogie

Zoot (not the Hans Koller composition, the other one ...)

Sax No End

1 hour ago, Scott Dolan said:

The intro to So What when the horns come in.

Ha, another one for the list - but not your "So What"  (Miles Davis, right?) but the Gerry Mulligan tune also known as "Apple Core" ;)

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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1 hour ago, bertrand said:

How does that one go? I only know the one on Sorcerer :)

Obviously my contribution to "Friday The 13th"  :D .... actually it was for me a close call between the intros of both "Prince Of Darkness" and "Nefertiti" resulting in this senior moment execution ....

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4 hours ago, rostasi said:

I very frequently whistle "Hot House" while shopping at the Kroger
(and "Ornithology" would be second most).

I was in a Stop and Shop a while ago, and this guy was whistling 'Well, You Needn't' over and over again.

I stalked him for a few aisles, and then confronted him.

"You know you're whistling Thelonious Monk?"

"Oh yeah, I like that tune."

"Are you a musician?"

"No, I just like that tune.'

I pondered bringing him into the lab to perform some experiments on him to account for this anomaly, but he disappeared by the frozen food aisle.

Dr. Warren Kruger

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A Sonny/Wilbur/Elvin Worm!

 

Ok, the thing is, when you listen to solos to learn the vocabulary, there are a lot of phrases that become earworms. This one was full of them. Little phrases that grab hold. You hear them everywhere, but sometimes, in one solo, they just grab extra hard. Doesn't have to be anybody's greatest solo, or even a particularly good one, they just grab hold.

This one too.

So...I get how the mixologists can pull out an isolated thing or two. Totally get that. Where they get my respect is by taking those little pieces and building a full piece out of it. Even though it's quite often not really all that good, it impresses me that they can even begin to think that way, an earworm montage/collage, and the longer people think that way, the greater the odds that it will evolve. I couldn't even begin to think like that, not like that.

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6 hours ago, sgcim said:

I was in a Stop and Shop a while ago, and this guy was whistling 'Well, You Needn't' over and over again.

I stalked him for a few aisles, and then confronted him.

"You know you're whistling Thelonious Monk?"

"Oh yeah, I like that tune."

"Are you a musician?"

"No, I just like that tune.'

I pondered bringing him into the lab to perform some experiments on him to account for this anomaly, but he disappeared by the frozen food aisle.

Dr. Warren Kruger

You shouldn't have let him get away. He may never be seen again. 

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The head to Joe Henserson's "Shade of Jade" is one that pops into my brain a good bit for no reason, now and then.

And that long, lugubrious head to "Stolen Moments" is another (which, oddly, I first heard/learned from Frank Zappa's live take from his 1988 tour (specifically Broadway The Hard Way).

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