Honda Wants To ‘Fit’ A Jazz Celebration In Your Workday

Avid musicians and fusion genre fans among you will probably the final day of April is International Jazz Day, introduced in 2011 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to celebrate the genre’s role in promoting peace, diversity and respect for human rights in more than 190 countries worldwide. Now, you might think that relevant vehicles to help celebrate the history, the evolution and, perhaps most importantly, the impact of jazz would include a Shelby Cobra (driven by prominent jazz figure Herbie Hancock) or a Ferrari California Spider (Miles Davies). Honda, though, has taken a different approach by releasing a jazz track using sounds created by its smallest, and fittingly-named, model, the Jazz. We managed to fit (sorry) the video at the bottom of this article.

The Backing Track Is Created By The Jazz/Fit Itself

Sold as the Honda Fit in North America between 2006 and 2021, the Jazz plays second fiddle (almost literally) to professional saxophonist Otis Lawrence in this 30-second (ish) short, who plays along to a backing track created by opening, closing, twisting and rotating the Honda’s doors, hoods, windows, seat mechanism, fuel filler cap, and even the remote key fob. We were also expecting the sounds to come from the engine.

Is it The Cog? Or The Impossible Dream? No, but then, it was never going to be. It’s also a fitting way to celebrate the Jazz – what Honda, cloyingly, calls its “chart-topper” – since it was launched in Japan almost 25 years ago. Admittedly, outselling the Toyota Corolla in its first year, becoming the second-best-selling vehicle in Japan during its second, and hitting the 1.5-million units sold mark in Japan during its third is a pretty impressive resume.

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Otis Lawrence, meanwhile, who’s been playing professionally for almost as long as the Jazz has been in production, can now add Honda to the likes of Celine Dion, Art Garfunkel, Boney M and the Beautiful South, among others, he’s played with during the last 25 years. Amazingly, though, this… collaboration(?) is the first time Lawrence has released a solo saxophone track.

Honda Fit Managed Three-Quarters Of A Million Sales

The fourth-generation, Jazz/Fit e:HEV used for this particular ‘Music to our ears’ tribute comes as standard with a hybrid powertrain mating a 107-horsepower 1.5-liter i-VTEC four-cylinder with two electric motors producing an additional 90 kilowatts/120 hp. It’s not exactly sprightly (even in the Advance Sport trim, the Jazz/Fit goes from 0-62 mph in a lethargic 9.6 seconds), but fuel economy in Europe was a robust 52 mpg.

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The first-generation Jazz was introduced to the United States as the Fit in 2006, and, perhaps surprisingly, immediately struck a nerve with North American buyers. Sales of just under 28,000 in 2006 had risen to almost 80,000 sales in the U.S. (a combined 94,600 including Canada) by its third year. Sadly, the city car struggled to grab a foothold in the SUV and pickup-dominated North American market, and declining demand meant production was halted in 2020 after nearly 778,000 U.S. sales.