This podcast, as well as playing some great jazz recordings with ‘quotes’ of other tunes coming from various soloists, explores the purpose of these quotes.

It’s not just jazz musicians who put quotes into their songs. There is a bird (yes…a real bird…one that flies) who does a variety of quotes, and you’ll hear that bird singing other bird’s songs. And an ornithologist very briefly explains how its function might be to impress potential mates by showing that they’ve ‘been around’.

You’ll hear music by Miles Davis, a long and amazing Jaco Pastoriious bass solo, the late Fraser MacPherson (from Victoria, B.C.), Charlie Parker, Peggy Lee, Lester Young & Nat King Cole, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, Nina Simone, and Mark Eisenman.

Also a bit of The Sound of Music, Fascinating Rhythm, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, The Woody Woodpecker Theme, Bye Bye Blackbird, and Good King Wenceslas.