The most famous swing instrumental was built on a melody that wasn't legally protected.

Music · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Glenn Miller’s iconic 1939 recording of In the Mood defined the swing era, yet its core riff had a murky origin. Before Miller, the melody appeared in compositions by Wingy Manone and Joe Garland. Because it wasn't formally copyrighted early on, the tune became a musical free-for-all for jazz bandleaders.

The song's signature saxophone theme, characterized by rhythmically displaced arpeggios, first surfaced in Wingy Manone’s 1930 recording, Tar Paper Stomp. Because copyright laws at the time were difficult to enforce for unwritten tunes, musicians with sharp ears frequently borrowed the riff. Manone publicly contested the similarity between his work and the later hit, but the melody had already been recycled by others, including Horace Henderson in 1931 and Joe Garland in 1935.

Garland, who eventually received primary songwriting credit, sold the arrangement to Artie Shaw in 1938. Shaw found the original version too lengthy for commercial success and abandoned it. Miller purchased the piece in 1939 and refined it, likely with the help of pianist Chummy MacGregor and arranger Eddie Durham. This final version, featuring a triumphant coda and a famous tenor saxophone chase, became the definitive swing instrumental.

The song’s cultural footprint is immense. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2004. Beyond its jazz legacy, it holds a unique place in technology history: in 1951, researchers at the University of Manchester used a Ferranti Mark 1 machine to play the song, marking one of the earliest instances of computer-generated music. From novelty chicken-clucking covers to its influence on blues hits like John Lee Hooker’s I’m in the Mood, the melody remains a persistent, evolving fixture of the American songbook.

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