What makes a song a jazz song?

Try to help pick a song a competition any suggestions Thanks!

any song can be a jazz song ... it's about being on the back beat, brother

good imagination and know how to improvise out of thin air,being a well seasoned musician helps

the instruments and the voice...i like Louis Prima "pennies from heaven"

A good beat
Using notes, riffs, and variations of the common blues scale and maybe some of a major blues scale

"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?" by Louis Armstrong. It's easy to learn and a Jazz standard.

Horns. No Horns, No Jazz. Have U ever heard a Jazz song without Horns

Making use of tensions other than the 3rd, 4th or 5th. Much of the way I'll "jazz up" a chord is to use the 7th, 9th and 13th.

chicagokatdaddy, have you ever heard of a piano trio?

Anyway, the are a multitude of things that make a songs appear to have a jazz feel. Non standard time signatures such as 5/4 and 7/4. Metric modulation. Advanced Harmony, which I am a strong advocate for, I think is main factor. Popular, well mainstream, music is often reharmonized to give it a "jazz" sound, hence smooth jazz and the reason why its marginally popular. The fact that it might say "this is a jazz song".

.......And then theres the record industry. They pretty much label anything thats not rock, pop, hip pop, gospel, or country ...."jazz".

The question the needs to be answered is: what IS jazz.

take a contemporary song inject some blues with the melody and u r on the way 2 making that song a jazz song...

swing...improvisations...long ad libs...syncopation...