Jazz drummer/vibes played Joe Chambers composed a song “Circles.” It was first recorded by Max Roach’s band M/Boom in 1984, then by Chambers himself in 2021, in the version linked below.
I KNOW I have heard this melody before, but not in a jazz context. Maybe played on a synthesizer? Same tempo as the version below. It might have even been a video game.
It’s really bugging me! I’ve googled quite a bit – no luck. Shazam couldn’t find it, either.
Anyone?
Is that the…noooo…it couldn’t be?
The Theme from “Love Boat” ?
Surely not.
Other than that it reminds of a Android ringtone, if you pushed “jazzy tone”.
I think I know what you mean but it’s horns doing the melody.
Good guess with Love Boat (similar melody), but no.
Is there a way I could hear the Android ring tone? It could be (synthesized) horns I’m thinking of. I only have an iPhone now, but my first smartphone was an Android, circa 2010.
Blinded Me with Science?
That’s it!!! Thank you!
How odd that I seem to be the first in the interwebs to notice this.
It seems Dolby came up with it first (1982). He recreates the moment of invention at 6:20 in this video (he calls it an “oriental” bit). I’m thinking it got into Joe Chambers’ head (and a million others), and came out subconsciously in his tune soon thereafter.
There is a ringtone connection — supposedly, Dolby developed the software to allow cell phones to have multiple ringtones (according to a YouTube comment — easy enough to verify or refute, but I gotta go.)
Speaking of ringtones, and melodies appearing in unexpected places…check out the second half of the second phrase of this 1860s Spanish tune. It’s the default Nokia ringtone we heard all over the place, about ten to twenty years ago!
(Okay, now I’ll ask a mod to close this thread).
Hearing things inside other things (or nothing) is usually a curse and I’m glad it was useful for once.
I recognized the pattern immediately but couldn’t place it beyond the ‘Science!’ interjection. I looked up science song and found a zillion wrong tunes and it wasn’t until a few minutes later that I remembered the ‘Poetry in Motion’ line and was able to find the name of the song. I’d never heard the jazz ones.
I know the song from listening Classic Rock Radio, I didn’t know the name Thomas Dolby until yesterday. The Roland award presentation video is great (I play keyboards myself), he seems very, very cool. I also didn’t know that the Science! guy was actually a celebrity presenter already and he looks every bit as wacky as I hoped.
Nice. I was twelve in 1982, so the video was familiar. I, too, was happy to just find out that the old man in it was sort of the '70s UK equivalent of Bill Nye or Neil Degrasse Tyson, in our time and place.
It’s interesting that Dolby sketched out the video before he composed the song. Talk about peak MTV!
You may appreciate this as fresh info, then:
“She Blinded Me With Science” was a huge US hit, of course, and made Dolby a household name with the MTV generation.
Where most Americans first heard Dolby’s keyboard work was on Foreigner’s longtime #2 hit “Waiting For a Girl Like You” (US Hot 100, #2,10 weeks, 1981).
Dolby appeared on stage with Foreigner for some shows in 1981-82. I’m curious whether this could Dolby on this video (Oct 3, 1981, Foreigner “4” Tour, Dallas, TX) to singer Lou Gramm’s right. I don’t think it much resembles Dolby, but the video is just fuzzy enough to be uncertain. Skip to about 0:24 and 1:53 for the best shots of the keyboard player.