What happens when you repeat something? Studies have shown that the more we do or experience something, the greater our ability to understand or repeat it. In jazz, repetition leads to innovation. It is a genre historically centred around reworking existing melodies. The standard. Tin pan alley songs invented for early dance floor culture or Broadway plays reimagined. A song transformed over time into a showcase of self-expression.

‘Body and Soul’ is one of the most recorded jazz standards of all time. Composer Johnny Green wrote the song in 1930 for British singer Gertrude Lawrence, in collaboration with lyricists Edward Heyman, Rober Sour and Frank Eyton. The song got more traction in the States in a Broadway revue ‘Three’s a Crowd’. By the end of the year, at least 11 bands had recorded versions. The lyrics’ sexual nature made it quite risqué at the time. The track’s protagonist pining and longing for their lover’s body and soul. The song was banned from the radio for a year – which perhaps helped make it even more popular. Coleman Hawkins’ October 11 1939 recording was possibly the most popular take. (It was also the title and soundtrack to a boxing film starring John Garfield release in1947.)

The list of artists who has recorded it is mind blowing. First there are the saxophonists and trumpet players – John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong. Then there are the singers – Billie Holliday, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, Eddie Jefferson. Then there are the pianists – Art Tatum, Charlie Mingus, Thelonius Monk, Herbie Hancock, Johnny Green, Erroll Garner, Walter Norris, Barry Harris.

Repetition is in built into Body and Soul’s structure – an 8-bar melody, 8-bar bridge, and returning 8-bar melody. The tonal shift in the centre of the song is part of what makes it so unusual. It is also ripe for improvisation. Hawkins’ take is possibly the first jazz track that pushed hard away from swing rigidity to bee bop freedom. The song has been repeated but Hawkins presented it as material to express individuality.

Listening to the recurring melody again and again, the song morphs into material. Like paint or clay. Our thinking moves between the visceral and the conceptual. We feel the track, we understand the shifts. We are listening to interpretation. We are understanding how choice reflects character. The song itself becomes and metaphor for all songs.

Francesca Gavin is the Editor in Chief of EPOCH. Gavin has written ten books on art and visual culture and has curated exhibitions including Mushrooms at Somerset House, The Art of Mushrooms at Fundação de Serralves, The Dark Cube at Palais de Tokyo, and co-curated the Manifesta11 biennial. She is a contributing editor at Twin and Beauty Papers, and regularly writes for publications including the Financial Times HTSI, Cura, Hero and Frieze. She has a monthly radio show Rough Version on NTS Radio on art and music which has been running for over 8 years (here).