For a long time I wanted to learn about jazz, but didn’t know where to start. One day I was listening to the Twin Peaks soundtrack and thought “Jeez, it’s hard to imagine jazz getting any better than this, so why bother going further?” and I’m proud to say I didn’t!
The soundtrack is by a guy named Angelo Badalamenti. At first, I thought he was some classy Italian composer that wears a tux and summers in Monaco. But, as it turns out, he’s just a working-class wiseguy from Brooklyn, just like me! Va fangool! Even so, what he does with his little electric piano is pure magic.
What really makes the soundtrack jazzy is when the drummer uses a brush on the snare. At least I think he does. I’m not wealthy enough to truly understand jazz.
Sure I could learn about improvisation, call and response, and syncopation, like so-called jazz experts talk about. But at the end of the day, Badalamenti plays happy jazz at the happy parts of the show, and scary jazz when the show is scary. Get outta here! So good. I never saw Cab Calloway or whoever do that.
My personal favorite songs from the soundtrack are “Falling,” “The Nightingale,” and “Into the Night,” because the lyrics really help me understand what the songs are about, you know? I also really like “Audrey’s Dance,” but that’s mainly because I’d like to dance with Audrey myself, if you know what I’m saying!
“Dance of the Dream Man” is really jazzy too, because the bass walks like “bam bam bam bam-bam bam bam,” and also has a saxophone or a trumpet or something. Maybe a clarinet? Not sure which. Plus the song has snapping, which seems like a jazz thing to do.
“The Bookhouse Boys” is a good song too, and just because I wish I was a Bookhouse Boy myself. How great would it be to see another member of a secret society out in public and salute them from your temple as a secret greeting? Plus that song has a piano, I think, like a lot of jazz is supposed to.
In conclusion, I’m sure jazz artists like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, and Miles Davis are super important or whatever; but, with all due respect, the jazzy sounds of the Pacific-Northwest town of Twin Peaks are all I really care to know about the genre.