'Tiger Rag'

This great instrumental with toe-tapping rhythms, soaring clarinets and a driving beat burst on the scene during WWI. The Original Dixieland Jass Band (the original spelling of this famous New Orleans band) cut the first recording in 1917, though versions had been circulating in New Orleans for years. The recording was a national sensation and hundreds of other records soon followed, helping to inspire America's "Jazz Age."

You can access the band's 1918 Victor recording via the U.S. Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. According to the Library of Congress, "the first recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band initiated a craze for the new art form, jazz." Although its origins had no connection to Princeton, it has sped up Tigers' heartbeats for generations.