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Pork pie hats are often associated with Jazz culture, though more recently they have had strong associations with Ska . Charles Mingus wrote an elegy for jazz saxophone great Lester Young called "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". In Britain they were popularized in the 1960s Rude Boy movement in Britain; then later adopted by the Skinhead s. The Pork-Pie was a staple of the British "man-about-town" for many years, before its association with any particular youth subculture.

Silent film comedian Buster Keaton often wore pork-pie hats. Musician Pete Doherty has made the pork-pie hat famous in recent years.

An interesting part of the pork pie hat heritage comes from New Guinea in January 1944 where Australian Troops had just defeated a Japanese stronghold at Kankiryo Saddle. The following is quoted from "Australia in the War of 1939 - 1945 Series 1 - Army Volume VI - The New Guinea Offensives (1st Edition 1961)" p766:

"According to the historian of the 2/10th Battalion, when word was received that General Vasey
would visit the area on the 2nd a signal was sent to all companies : "Other ranks will cease
calling officers by their Christian names and will cease wearing pork-pie hats ."
The historian adds that "although not lacking anything in discipline or morale, many of the troops
had taken on the guise of Bushrangers , and as such must have struck terror into the hearts of their
enemies " . F . Allchin, Purple and Blue—The History of the 2/10th Battalion, A .I .F . (The
Adelaide Rifles) 1939-1945 (1958), p . 349"


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In the classic Warner Bros. cartoon "Three Little Bops" the three pigs, all jazz musicians, are all wearing--you guessed it--porkpie hats.