Java (instrumental)


"Java" is an instrumental adaptation from a 1958 LP of piano compositions, The Wild Sounds of New Orleans, by Tousan, also known as New Orleans producer/songwriter Allen Toussaint. As was the case of the rest of Toussaint's LP, "Java" was composed at the studio, primarily by Toussaint.
The first charting version was done by Floyd Cramer in 1962. His version fell just short of the U.S. Top 40.
In 1963, trumpet player Al Hirt recorded the instrumental, and the track was the first single from his album Honey in the Horn. It was Hirt's first and biggest hit on the US pop charts, reaching number four on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 29, 1964 and spending four weeks at number one on the easy listening chart in early 1964. The song was also featured on his greatest hits album, The Best of Al Hirt. Hirt released a live version on his 1965 album, Live at Carnegie Hall. He also recorded the song with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops for the RCA Red Seal album Pops Goes the Trumpet in 1964.
Hirt's recording won the Grammy Award for Best Performance by an Orchestra or Instrumentalist with Orchestra in 1964.

Chart history

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

;Floyd Cramer
Chart Peak
position
U.S. Billboard Hot 10049
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary12
U.S. Cash Box Top 10044

;Al Hirt
Chart Peak
position
New Zealand 7
U.S. Billboard Hot 1004
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary1
U.S. Cash Box Top 1004

Chart Rank
U.S. Billboard Hot 10012
U.S. Cash Box16

Later uses

The same recording was used as the closing theme for Vision On, a British children's television programme, shown on BBC1 from 1964 to 1976.
The Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut performed her gold medal-winning floor routine at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich to a live piano version condensed to about 1 minute 9 seconds.
The Muppet Show featured "Java" at the beginning of episode 22, where it was danced to by two creatures. The bigger creature constantly knocked the smaller away. At the end of the song, the small creature blasted the bigger one away. The Muppets performed "Java" on the November 27, 1966 edition of The Ed Sullivan Show.

Cover versions

released a vocal version in 1965 as the B-side to the song "Little Beatle Boy".
Bobby Hackett recorded a version on the 1965 album Trumpet's Greatest Hits.
The Beautiful South covered it in 1994, releasing it as a B-side to "One Last Love Song". Despite being a band with three vocalists, this was an instrumental version. They also performed the track live, often ending gigs with it, with the vocalists playing handheld percussion instruments or bouncing round the stage on giant space hoppers.