Ja-Da
Song written & published in 1918
title: "Ja-Da" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1918-songs", "1910s-jazz-standards", "american-songs", "sixteen-bar-sections"] description: "Song written & published in 1918" topic_path: "arts/music" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ja-Da" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Song written & published in 1918 ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Ja-da_-_ja_da,_ja_da,jing_jing_jing!(IA_jadajadajadajing00carl).pdf" caption="1918 sheet music"] ::
"Ja-Da (Ja Da, Ja Da, Jing, Jing, Jing!)" is a hit song written in 1918 by Bob Carleton. The title is sometimes rendered simply as "Jada." The song has flourished through the decades as a jazz standard.
In his definitive American Popular Songs, Alec Wilder writes about the song's simplicity:
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Selected renditions
- Player piano roll, Vocalstyle Company, #11302. Vodvil Series, as played by Cliff Hess
- 1918 — Original New Orleans Jazz Band
- 1918 — Arthur Fields
- 1938 — Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet
- 1939 — Alice Faye sings it in the musical film Rose of Washington Square (1939)
- 1945 — Bunk Johnson and Don Ewell
- 1947 — Frank Sinatra & Peggy Lee
- 1947 — Muggsy Spanier
- 1954 — Big Chief Jazzband (on the 78 rpm record His Master's Voice A.L. 3401)
- 1955 — Marian McPartland - At the Hickory House
- 1957 — Pee Wee Hunt
- 1958 — Ted Heath Orchestra
- 1961 — Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons
- 1966 — The Fireballs
- 1982, 1986, and 1987 — Musical entertainers Sharon, Lois & Bram & The Mammoth Band, recorded live and in studio
- Al Hirt
- Oscar Peterson
- Erroll Garner
- Louis Armstrong
- Al Jarreau
- Hot Tuna as "Keep On Truckin'"
- Johnny and The Hurricanes
- Bobby Hackett
- God-des and She
- Scott Walker chorus sung in song "Psoriatic" from 2006's The Drift
- Sonny Rollins 're-invented it' using the Ja-Da chords for his composition "Doxy" in 1954.
Comedy rendition
- In the 1970s, the tune was appropriated by the Canadian comedy duo Maclean and Maclean, who recorded it as their signature piece, with bawdy lyrics added.
In popular culture
In Jack Finney's 1995 novel From Time to Time, the time-traveling protagonist recalls a childhood memory of his aunt dressing up in her old flapper costume and dancing the Charleston to "Ja-Da," singing its playful refrain "Jotta, jotta, jink-jink-jing." [sic] He associates the tune with a stylish young woman he meets in 1912, whom he calls "the Jotta Girl," a character who later becomes central to the novel’s plot. (The reference is anachronistic, as "Ja-Da" was not composed until 1918.)
Notes
References
References
- Wilder, Alec. (1972). "American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950". Oxford University Press.
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6XSVaXoMC8&index=5&list=PLBohJ-Mq5mXziu3MJZ-E_WDxC7OrBCGvc "Ja-Da"] sung by Alice Faye in ''Rose of Washington Square'' (1939), audio file only, on YouTube
- "Burgers".
- "Flight Log".
- "Live in Japan". allmusic.
- (1960). "Jazz on record: a critical guide to the first 50 years, 1917-1967". Hanover Books.
- Finney, Jack. (1995). "From Time to Time". Scribner Paperback Fiction.
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