Pork pie hat the "man-about-town", but its resurgence in the United States in the 1920s is credited to the silent film actor Buster Keaton who wore them in many of his films. The hats from his films were ones the actor made himself by converting fedoras and other hats into pork pies, creating more than a thousand in his lifetime. This kind of pork pie had a very flat top and similar short flat brim. Arguably the heyday of the pork pie hat occurred during the Great Depression. In this incarnation, the pork pie regained its snap brim and increased slightly in height.
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat Goodbye Pork Pie Hat "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is a jazz standard composed by Charles Mingus, originally recorded by his sextet in 1959 as listed below, and released on his album "Mingus Ah Um". Composed in E-flat minor, Mingus wrote it as an elegy for saxophonist Lester Young, who had died two months prior to the recording session, and was known to wear a pork pie hat. One of Mingus's best-known compositions, it has been recorded by many jazz and jazz fusion artists. Joni Mitchell added lyrics to the song for her 1979 album "Mingus", recorded in collaboration with Mingus