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Virals, Memes, and the Lick's Circulation through Online Jazz Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

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Abstract

In 2011, Alex Heitlinger, a senior at New England Conservatory, uploaded the video ‘The Lick’ to YouTube. The 1′34″ compilation excerpted a range of performances that each deployed the same seven-note ‘lick’. This article explores the digital dissemination of videos and memes that feature the Lick, suggesting its function as a mimetic device users can deploy to signal their belonging and individuality within a larger jazz community. The Lick, in its formulaic deployment within these ‘insider’ spaces, moves away from improvisation and becomes a calling card for performers and listeners alike to determine a legitimate participant, on and offline. The Lick's online proliferation becomes a gimmick through its repetition, pointing to its hyper-presence and complaints about the excessive posts of the Lick becoming recycled into over-repeated jokes. I argue the Lick serves as the basis for a study of humour and gimmickry in jazz identity formation.

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Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 19 , Special Issue 3: Listening In: Musical Digital Communities in Public and Private , October 2022 , pp. 393 - 410
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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