This was the problem with mix-tapes: (A Great Ranking Of Problems Addition!)

Years ago, my sister Katie and I used to occasionally trade mix tapes. On one mixtape, Katie put a couple of jazzy, big-band-y kind of songs. One I recall distinctly: It was "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck.

This is not about that song.

This is about the other song Katie put on that tape, a big-band kind of song that starts with a great drumbeat, then moves on into horns, or maybe clarinets, or maybe both. There is definitely a horn or clarinet solo in there, somewhere.

And it's an awesome song. But I can't remember the name, and I lost the little cardboard liner that had the name of the song on it, and I can't get in touch with her, and I am desperate to hear that song again...

... hear it outside of my head, that is, because I can remember the entire song in my mind. If I could play drums, clarinet, several trombones, and possibly a xylophone all at once (and at a high level of skill) I could actually play the song.

And now, I'm sitting here trying to find that song on the Internet, but how can I find a song without lyrics? I've tried checking for top blues songs, top big band songs, top swing songs, I've even tried -- I'm not joking -- googling this phrase:

big band song starts with lots of drums and then trumpet kicks in

Which led me to look at Tommy Dorsey, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Glenn Miller youtube videos.

It's been a fascinating walk down musical eras, but that's not what I want. What I want is to hear that song, which means I'm going to have to go home, find the tape in my garage, find a way to get that onto the Internet, and hope someone out there knows what it is and tells me.

Or hope Katie gets back to me, and she remembers.

Until then, I will set this on the Great Ranking Of Problems at:

2,624: Unidentifiable Mystery Song Stuck In Head.

By the way, this isn't the first time that happened. Once, for two weeks, I was humming a song to myself and couldn't get it out of my head. I finally in frustration asked my Mom if she recognized the song and hummed it for her. She said: "That's Red River Valley. I used to sing that to you when you were a baby."

I was 25.

Prior entries:

99: Spousal PB&J Incompatibility.
173: Preshoveling & reshoveling snow.
...
502: Having to wait forever, seemingly, for Italian food to cool down.
. . .
721: Printer not holding a lot of paper at once.
...
5,000: Lopsided Nail Clipping.
...
7,399: Potato(E?)s?
. . .
15,451: Almost napping.
14,452: Worrying that there's too much peanut brittle leftover to eat before it goes bad.
...
22,372: Having hair which isn't quite a definable color.
22,373: Having too many songs on an iPod