Seinfeld composer on coming up with the iconic theme: "I pitched Jerry the idea that Jerry's voice would be the melody of the Seinfeld theme"

Yahoo!

Jonathan Wolff has written music for 75 shows, from Will & Grace to Married with Children to Who's the Boss? But he is perhaps best known for creating the music for Seinfeld. Following last week's release of the Seinfeld soundtrack for the first time, Wolff discussed with Yahoo Entertainment and SiriusXM how he ended up vibing with Jerry Seinfeld after the comedian rejected other composers. “Slap bass had not yet enjoyed ‘celebrity status’ as a solo instrument. I knew I wanted to use that. And in the late ‘80s, sampling technology was in its infancy, and I really, really wanted to use it as much as I possibly could to create new and weird genres of music,” says Wolff. "When Jerry called me and described the problem that he was having with music for his show, his opening credits were Jerry standing in front of a crowd of people in a comedy club — he tells jokes, and people laugh. And he wanted music to go with those opening credits. And in that phone call, I told Jerry, ‘That sounds more like a sound design issue than a music assignment, because that's like a recipe for an audio conflict. We’ve got to be able to hear your voice.’ So, I pitched Jerry the idea that Jerry's voice would be the melody of the Seinfeld theme. And my job would be to accompany Jerry in a way that worked organically with his human voice. The human nature of his voice, I told him, would go well with the human nature of my fingers-snaps and lips and tongue doing stuff.”