We're kicking back this Labor Day weekend and enjoying some great music. Last week it was the varied sounds of the incomparable Declan McManus a.k.a. Elvis Costello. This week it's the equally incomparable Raymond Scott.
Much Raymond Scott material I had never heard before has been released in recent years. The albums are available on YouTube and all the streaming services, albeit apparently not on DVD or vinyl.
There is a rather amazing YouTube channel featuring tremendous music by Scott, including playlists for the Quintettes and his Orchestra.
The latest on these releases from Raymond Scott.net: "A new series of five 20-track digital compilations presents remastered recordings — many never previously released — of Raymond Scott's Works for Orchestra. Spanning 1935 to 1957, these 100 tracks highlight Scott's adventurous and eclectic approaches to composing and scoring for large ensembles.
Most tracks were transferred from discs in the Scott collection at the Marr Sound Archives, with digital restorations produced by Scott historian/curator Irwin Chusid.
The five sets include dozens of Scott originals — including some early Quintette titles arranged for orchestra — and a handful of cover versions. These collections are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all digital retail and streaming platforms."
"Raymond Scott: Quintettes or Less presents two 20-track digital (only) collections of mostly previously unreleased Scott recordings featuring the composer working with bands of less than seven players. Scott's original 1937–1939 "Quintette" actually had six members, so we're going with Raymond's math in curating these sets.
"Lots of surprises, including RSQ alternates and early versions, crisp radio performances, and previously unheard 1940s quintets and sextets. Curated and restored by Irwin Chusid. Both sets are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all digital retail and streaming platforms."
Do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have a single favorite musical composition to ever appear in a cartoon? Well, there may be a 45-way tie, but, without a doubt, atop the list would be Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet."
We've missed Jeff and the group a great deal since leaving California for upstate New York in 2016. Happy to see a new release from them. Happy Labor Day Weekend!
Composer, bandleader, performer Danny Elfman is responsible for lots of mind-blowingly great film, cartoon and concert music, including the score for Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas - and the theme song from The Simpsons.
Here, playing the aforementioned theme song from The Simpsons, is Danny Elfman, live at Coachella.
Here, Mr. Elfman and a talented ensemble perform the rousing theme from the first Spider-man feature. It's not literally a tune from the toons, but we'll let that pass, as the TV cartoon Spider-man music wouldn't have been right for a big budget feature.
I can't imagine Danny Elfman coasting by merely rehashing the theme song from the 1967 Spider-man TV cartoon. Mr. Elfman successfully brought Spider-Man into the 21st century with the stirring scores for the Spider-man feature films.
Ranking high among this blogger's all-time favorite soundtracks: the music from the Betty Boop cartoon I Heard, performed beautifully by Don Redman & His Orchestra, which rivaled Louis Armstrong's group (led by Luis Russell), Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway and Fletcher Henderson among the top swing bands of the early 1930's.
The Don Redman Orchestra's music is throughout this excellent Fleischer cartoon, all the way from the opening titles.
Since the last post here featured Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Orchestra, here's the opening - Raymond Scott's Powerhouse and Merrily We Roll Along, the Merrie Melodies theme song - from the ensemble's Live At Pearl's CD, a treasure trove of exciting and expertly performed music from animated cartoons.
Animators John & Faith Hubley are well known for original animation featuring heaping helpings of American jazz. John's stint as director and creative force at UPA to some degree is synonomous with Rooty Toot Toot, an inspired take on "Frankie & Johnny." Animation enthusiast and author Michael Lyons wrote about it at length on the 70th anniversary of its theatrical release last November. Do we like cartoons about sex, obsession and murder trials, punctuated by honey-tonk music and big band jazz? Yes.
Rooty Toot Toot blends UPA's signature "Cartoon Modern" stylization with very expressive and imaginative full animation by the likes of Grim Natwick, Pat Matthews and Art Babbitt. Throughout Rooty Toot Toot, the music, along with the animation and graphic design, is an active character in the court melodrama.
Happily, at least at the moment, a bunch of animated short subjects by John & Faith Hubley have been posted on YouTube on the channel of markus feynman.
This includes a outstanding playlist of John & Faith's films. While they weren't the first to make animated short subjects featuring jazz soundtracks, the Hubleys tackled the task with enthusiasm.
Don't know if there is a Blu-ray collection including both John & Faith's films and those of Emily Hubley, who assisted on her parents' films before going on to create her own animated short subjects and live-action feature films. Such a Blu-ray would be fantastic.
Dizzy Gillespie and Dudley Moore, two all-time favorites here, contributed improvised dialogue for John And Faith Hubley's 1962 film The Hat.
From the MoMa collection, here is John & Faith Hubley's 1958 film The Tender Game, featuring an incredible soundtrack by The Oscar Peterson Trio, with a vocal by someone very familiar to jazz and swing fans. (note: this won't play here - go to YouTube)
The Hubleys and Dizzy Gillespie gently rib the challenges in creating scores for animated TV commercials in A Date With Dizzy. There is something beyond marvelous about seeing ace animators and mighty musicians share the scene.
Guitarist and studio ace Barney Kessel was no stranger to music from animated cartoons. Here's Barney, with Ray Brown and Shelley Manne, playing the Merrie Melodies theme song, The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down.
Hoyt Curtin's theme from The Flintstones may be the single favorite tune fron toons most often covered by jazz musicians.
It would be an understatement to note that "ace of string bass" Ray Brown went for the Flintstones theme in a big way.
Frequently with Ray: his fellow Verve House band compatriots (and ridiculously facile jazz guitar geniuses) Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis.
How many versions of Hoyt Curtin's theme from The Flintstones can we find? MANY more than can be shown in just one post! Here's pianist Monty Alexander, doing right by Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty - and Hoyt Curtin. On board: usual suspects Ray Brown and Herb Ellis!
How do we close this compendium of classic tunes from classic cartoons? With the Rocky & His Friends theme song, played furiously by drummer/bandleader Buddy Rich and his big band.
Chuck Jones elaborates on Carl Stalling's contributions to Warner Brothers cartoons.
Do we have a single favorite musical composition to ever appear in a cartoon? Well, there may be a 25-way tie, but, without a doubt, atop the list would be Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet."
Paramount among the outstanding interpreters of Raymond Scott's mellifluous compositions: Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet.
And, when it comes to cartoon music, we love how Jeff Sanford's band swings The Flintstones theme song!
Then there's Scott Bradley of MGM cartoon fame. We thank "Soundtrack Fred" for the following compilation.
Wish I could have attended this splendid concert of Scott Bradley's music by BBC Proms.
Another group we'd LOVE to see that rocks the Rocky The Flying Squirrel music: San Diego's outstanding Hillcrest Wind Ensemble.
And then there's the great Darrell Calker, prolific composer for both animated cartoons and live-action features.
When Calker's music was not just background, but featured prominently in the cartoons he scored for Walter Lantz and Screen Gems - a la Stalling and Bradley - it could be quite wonderful, 1940's style.
His scores are a driving force in the Lantz Studio's Swing Symphonies and Musical Miniatures.
Calker's scores are especially noteworthy in the Walter Lantz "Cartunes" directed by Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy.
The following Swing Symphony features trombonist, vocalist and frequent Louis Armstrong bandmate Jack Teagarden, who always sounds great.
Speaking yet again of the Cartoon Research website, am right now reading an excellent article about the themes from Paramount cartoons, Famous (Cartoon) Music - prompting this writer to admit his unabashed fondness for the Paramount Noveltoons theme song.
Sometimes, this cartoonologist grudgingly likes the Noveltoons - well, at least through the 1945-1946 season or the departure of gonzo animator Jim Tyer for Terrytoons, whichever came first - but feel the series boasts the second cartooniest of ultra-cartoony opening themes.
One post-1946 Noveltoon with a Winston Sharples score that belongs in the toon music discussion is Hep Cat Symphony (1949). It's a cross between "cat chases mouse" and the "cartoon concert" sub-genre, best exemplified by Disney's The Band Concert and Symphony Hour, Bugs Bunny in Rhapsody Rabbit and Tom & Jerry in The Cat Concerto.
It's an understatement that the very tight production schedules at Famous Studios were less than conducive to good comedy, so Hep Cat Symphony is among those rare cases when talented storymen Carl Meyer and Jack Mercer get an opportunity to break formula and write clever and funny gags.
In closing, here is a delightfully incoherent cartoon from the series featuring the cartooniest opening theme song, bar none: the dreaded Columbia Phantasies. It makes NO SENSE, even by 1940's cartoon standards - and that's why the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog likes it!
At Savanna Jazz in beautiful downtown San Carlos tonight at 7:30: rip-roaring and inventive sounds courtesy of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Octet. In tonight's program, amazing music from the 1930's will be rocking the house in 2019.
The intrepid ensemble - Jeff and Hal Richards on reeds & flutes, Mark Rosengarden on drums, Zachariah Spellman on Tuba, Simon Planting on acoustic bass, Andy Ostwald on piano, Eric Wayne on trumpets, and Randy Johnson on guitar, banjo and vocals - will tackle the epic music of John Kirby & His Sextet, Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton and more.
Today is the birthday of Cartoon Jazz Orchestra composer-in-residence Lenny Carlson, so tonight's repertoire shall include several new original tunes by Mr. Carlson, which sfall be included on the group's upcoming CD release "Nothing Wrong."
There will be eccentric, wonderful and very challenging-to-play songs by American composer Raymond Scott.
We shall also hear great tunes by Raymond Scott collaborator (and member of Jazz At The Philharmonic and the mighty Verve Records house band) Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet.
The Date: Thursday April 11, 2019 Showtime: 7:30 p.m. The Place: Savanna Jazz Club
1189 Laurel Street
San Carlos, CA 94070
RESERVATIONS: (415) 624-4549
Club: (650) 453-3683
E-mail: jazz@savannajazz.com
For more info and musical coolness, see the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra official website.
Today, composer-saxophonist-educator Jeff Sanford leads his nonet of virtuoso musicians through a rip-roaring performance at Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco's Glen Park.
Selections from the Cartoon Jazz Nonet's eclectic repertoire of compositions by Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton, John Kirby and other geniuses of mid-20th century music share the bill with new compositions by composer Lenny Carlson and a host of more modern-day movie music classics as well.
The Place: Bird & Beckett on 653 Chenery Street Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
Presented by the Jazz Philanthropists Union and the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project with support from Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund! $25 cover charge. $10 for students, musicians, low income.
THIS Friday, September 1st, at Angelica's in beautiful downtown Redwood City (as opposed to beautiful downtown Burbank), Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet will kick off the Labor Day Weekend with a bang that sounds just a tad reminiscent of a Warner Bros. cartoon.
In store for San Francisco Bay Area music lovers: new compositions and selections from the Cartoon Jazz Septet's eclectic repertoire of compositions by Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton, John Kirby and Lenny Carlson.
The Date: Friday, September 1, 2017 Showtime: 8:30 p.m. The Place: Angelica's, 863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA. Bell Stage Main Dining Room
Buy Advance Tickets here.
The Septet will also perform on Tuesday, September 12th at 6PM, for a Sonoma Jazz Society event at Sonoma Plaza Grinstead Amphitheatre in the square. Last but not least, the full orchestra shall also give a concert at Opus One Winery in Oakville on September 16th.
A host of cool events, including the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, shall hit the San Francisco Bay Area in the month of June, some just a few days from now.
This Friday, Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Orchestra will perform two memorable sets of "tunes from the toons" at Angelica’s in Redwood City.
The performance will include the quirky, idiosyncratic and highly entertaining compositions of Raymond Scott, including "Powerhouse." Scott's musical handiwork is instantly recognizable as the soundtrack music to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.
The festival begins on June 1 with Harold Lloyd in The Freshman. Such iconic stars as Douglas Fairbanks, the aforementioned Harold Lloyd, Paul Robeson, Clara Bow, Lon Chaney Sr. and ballet legend Anna Pavlova will bring their incandescent presence to the silver screen once again.<
There shall also be big screen thrills courtesy of rampaging dinosaurs (animated by stop-motion genius Willis O'Brien) in The Lost World, which inspired artists from Ray Harryhausen to Bob Clampett to become animators.
The 2017 festival includes A Tribute To David Shepard, the dean of film preservation who passed earlier this year and was personally responsible for numerous restorations that played at the festival. In addition, the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Award will be presented to the EYE Filmmuseum for its commitment to the preservation and presentation of silent cinema.
It's worth getting up early to attend the free Amazing Tales Of The Archives programs, which are indeed nothing short of amazing for those fascinated by history, how silent film technology developed and where archivists around the world are making discoveries.
Sharing their amazing preservation tales are Library of Congress’s George Willeman, who has managed to sync cylinders from Edison National Historical Park with eight films from LOC’s collection for his presentation on Edison Kinetophones from 1912–13; Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi from EYE Filmmuseum, whose presentation will reveal the wonders of EYE’s UNESCO-inscribed Jean Desmet collection; and Heather Linville from the Academy Film Archive, sharing rarely seen footage of globetrotting filmmaker adventuress Aloha Wanderwell..
As movie and TV soundtrack expert Robert Emmett of KFJC's Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show has pointed out, "silent films are never silent", so the festival is also tantamount to a 4-day concert. Live accompaniment will be courtesy of a range of solo pianists and groups: Alloy Orchestra, Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Frank Bockius, Guenter Buchwald, Stephen Horne, Sascha Jacobsen, Matti Bye Ensemble, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Donald Sosin and, making his San Francisco Silent Film Festival debut with a new score for Body & Soul, the Oscar Micheaux program, "one man, one turntable, much history, many genres of music" DJ Spooky.
Besides the Micheaux feature starring Paul Robeson, making his screen debut in a dual role, arguably the most intriguing film in the festival's lineup is Filibus, a futuristic 1915 opus, directed by Marco Roncoroni, revolving around the glamorous zeppelin-flying daredevil Baroness de Troixmonde.
Again quoting the SFSFF press release: the "masked sky-pirate flies around in her technologically advanced zeppelin—manned by black-suited, masked, obedient male acolytes—committing crimes and toying with the police. When a reward is offered for information leading to the capture of the notorious criminal, the Baroness visits the police station to declare her intention to prove that Filibus is no other than the detective assigned to the case!"
Check out the festival schedule and enjoy the big screen fun. Movies were meant to be seen with an audience in an actual theatre - not on some crappy smart phone all by yourself!
Three weeks later, on June 23-25, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum will present the 20th Annual Broncho Billy Film Festival, which shall pay tribute to David Shepard, director Frank Borzage, movies shot in 1917 and northern California filmmaking.
We strongly encourage our readers to support these excellent organizations - time, job (or jobs), family situation and pocketbook willing.
This blogmeister will write further about this festival later in June; until then, will be involved in two family events which are seven days, two coasts and 3300 miles apart - and happening soon.
It is highly unlikely there will be any time to write new posts (or even recycle very old ones) for
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog between now and June 15.
Fully expect to bear a strong resemblance to the exhausted scribe pictured above!
Still in the vise-like grip of Writer's Block and, like SCTV's Bob & Doug McKenzie on Canadian Corner/Great White North, stuck for a topic today, so - WHAMO - the toe-tapping tunes from the toons will be the subject for May 12 of misbegotten 2017!
The notion of writing a piece about "This Blog Loves The Hammond B-3" for an upcoming jazz-related post immediately tripped certain memories, but we're not talking Joey DeFrancesco, Milt Buckner, Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, Shirley Scott or Booker T. Jones here. We're talking made-for-TV cartoons featuring very odd organ music soundtracks. One this blogger always liked was Q.T. Hush.
We will go from the ridiculous to the sublime (although nothing involving the 1990's rock band Sublime) and nothing says sublime quite like the made-for-TV cartoons of Sam Singer Productions. Singer has been termed the Ed Wood of cartoons, but that may be giving him a tad too much credit. His studio's series included Pow Wow The Indian Boy, Courageous Cat, Sinbad, Jr. and the bad-beyond-belief Bucky & Pepito. . . all of which make Magilla Gorilla look like Fantasia.
The cheapest of these bottom-of-the barrel series - well, the cheapest that we know of - would be The Adventures of Paddy The Pelican.
At the same time when the likes of David Raksin, Gail Kubik, Boris Kremenliev and Phil Moore were composing and conducting ambitious original soundtracks for the artsy yet highly entertaining animation by United Productions of America (UPA), these Paddy the Pelican adventures redefine what cheap means: one poor bastard playing an organ in the background.
One case of a television cartoon in which an ultra-minimalistic music track works beautifully is Gene Deitch's Tom Terrific, originally a feature of CBS-TV's popular Captain Kangaroo show.
Less minimalist but extremely gratifying soundtrack music in TV-toons can be found, not surprisingly, in the blazing work of Jay Ward Productions. LOVE that original Rocky & His Friends theme by Dennis Farnon.
We especially have a soft spot for Stan Worth's opening theme from the Super Chicken cartoons.
The theatrical cartoons of the 1940's not made by Disney, Warner Brothers and MGM feature some very odd soundtracks. One of the oddest is in one of the oddest of all cartoons from the oddest of all cartoon studios, Screen Gems, the creepy Halloween opus The Fly In The Ointment, featuring a Leo Gorcey fly and a John Barrymore spider. The latter, voiced by John McLeish, stentorian narrator of Goofy "How-To" cartoons, plays a theater organ with none of The Phantom Of The Opera's formidable ability to terrify.
If asked to name a Screen Gems cartoon that is not so far off-the-rails as to not be entertaining, this blogger might choose the weirdly inspired Sherlock Holmes spoof, The Case Of The Screaming Bishop. While aware the "best bones of all go to Symphony Hall" running gag is a reference to a popular ad campaign of 1944 and makes no sense today, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog DON'T CARE. This Holmes & Watson sendup could only be better if there was a live-action cameo at the end by Louis Armstrong, "the best bones of all see Satchmo at Symphony Hall."
Even better than the wonderfully strange Case Of The Screaming Bishop was the 1942 MGM masterpiece by comic genius Tex Avery, Who Killed Who? Love that cheesy organ track, killer surprise ending and a main character patterned on ubiquitous character actor Fred Kelsey.
On the complete other side of this discussion, Scott Bradley leads the fantastic MGM orchestra in the stirring musical sounds for Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera's Tom & Jerry cartoons of the 1940's and 1950's.
Although this writer's favorite Bradley cartoon backing is for various mindbogglingly brilliant Tex Avery MGM cartoons (Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, The Kingsize Canary), the Tom & Jerry cartoons feature wonderful soundtracks.
Do we love the soundtracks of Carl W. Stalling and the Warner Brothers orchestra? Yes, this blogger admits it - he could be in a 12-step group for "Men Who Love Carl W. Stalling Music From Warner Brothers Cartoons Too Much.
Few could "swing the classics" quite like the Warner Bros. orchestra, conducted by Carl W Stalling and Milt Franklyn.
While Mr. Scott wrote these songs for his "Quintette" and never intended them to be cartoon soundtracks, these unique and original compositions are undeniably and inextricably intertwined with Warner Bros. cartoons.
Now THAT great tune was arguably best showcased in the Bugs Bunny cartoon Gorilla My Dreams, directed by Robert McKimson.
The fella who writes Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, event programmer, scribe and film historian Paul F. Etcheverry, co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, has been happy to collaborate on several occasions with Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Orchestra.
Finishing this post: this blogger's absolute favorite jazzy cartoon soundtrack, in which the innovative Don Redman Orchestra swings like mad. The creative "rubber-hose" style animation is by the Fleischer Studio, then, in 1933, at the peak of their creative powers.
In NOT sunny California this Saturday, Angelica's and Montuno Productions present the swinging sounds of Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet, accompanying a program of silent movies selected by your correspondent, Paul F. Etcheverry (co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival), as well as entertainment by the internationally celebrated sleight of hand artist and illusionist Patrick Martin.
The intrepid septet shall tackle the wonderfully original and challenging music of Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton and the John Kirby Sextet's Charlie Shavers (1917-1971), as well as new compositions by Lenny Carlson, the composer-in-residence for both the Cartoon Jazz Septet and the Orchestra.
Mr. Carlson has composed more than 30 original pieces for the Cartoon Jazz Septet and Orchestra in a variety of styles, combining classical and jazz elements with klezmer, folk and other international sounds.
The Date: Saturday January 17, 2017 Showtime: 8:30 p.m. The Place: Angelica's, 863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA
To see Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet, cool vintage films, plus a magic and comedy performance by Patrick Martin, click here to purchase Advance Tickets
The New Yorker write the 15 program silent comedy retrospective up in an entry from their Goings On About Town section, Silent Films Comedic Soul. The program notes for all shows in the MoMA series are available via the Cruel & Unusual Comedy podcast. Maybe will see a preview of things to come in Steve's next book about silent film comediennes.
In addition, Tommy Jose Stathes of Cartoons On Film is initiating a new film series that will hold forth at House Of Wax Bar in City Point Building, 445 Albee Square West in Brooklyn. East Coast animation mavens: stay tooned!
Back in the Bay Area, the following week will include the opening of the NOIR CITY Film Festival at San Francisco's Castro Theatre - this blogger's favorite film fest that he's not personally involved in producing - and some terrific programs at the newly expanded Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.
On this Sunday, November 13, not just one but two excellent classic movie matinees will hopefully make the weekend following a horrifying, disgusting, sickening, appalling, nauseating, fact-free, post-literate AND lacking in basic civility and good manners 2016 presidential election go just a bit better.
The first matinee program is at 2:00 p.m. at Don Quixote's International Music Hall deep in the wilds of Santa Cruz County at 6275 Hwy 9, Felton, CA 95018 (15 minutes from Santa Cruz). Montuno Productions presents Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet, along with a magic performance and film program curated by that fella who writes this very blog, film historian Paul F. Etcheverry.
Movies, cartoons, magic and cool music shall reign supreme! Here's a clip from a past show with Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet:
A few rave reviews of previous programs:
"Jeff Sanford's septet has won fans around the Bay Area with its high-spirited renditions of classics by Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton, John Kirby and others set to silent films, cartoons, and live performances."
-- Randy McMullen / San Jose Mercury News
"The entire evening's program -- featuring the music of Raymond Scott and original compositions by Lenny Carlson -- was superb, and the audience was totally engaged, listening to music that was both familiar and unknown performed brilliantly. An exhilarating concert!"
-- Dr. Charles Junkerman, Dean and Associate Provost of Continuing Education Stanford University
"Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Band is electi-Scott-a-fyin'!! Great re-workings of Raymond Scott tunes, classic jazz turned inside out, stellar musicianship (those charts make my brain hurt) and 'wow' at nearly every turn -- smart, smart, swingin' stuff."
-- Alisa Clancy, "Morning Cup of Jazz" host on KCSM Jazz 91 FM
"The Cartoon Jazz Concert was terrific! Everyone in the audience was treated to a stellar performance!"
-- Stephanie Mischak Lyons, Coordinator for City College of San Francisco Concert and Lecture Series
Meanwhile, if you can't make the trek down Highway 9 to Felton this Sunday, there is another splendid program of movie fun commencing at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. The great comedy team of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy reign supreme!
The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum presents one of its monthly Sunday matinees, featuring Laurel & Hardy and other Hal Roach Studio films, in its Edison Theater.
Curator Paul Mular hosts and does an amazing job putting together these comedy programs on the second Sunday of every month.
One week from today in beautiful downtown Redwood City (as opposed to beautiful downtown Burbank), on Friday September 23, vintage silent movies produced 100 years ago will be accompanied live by the music of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet.
From the official press release:
Angelica's and Montuno Productions present Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet in a live performance of delightful and whimsical music of the classic cartoons, which will be accompanied by silent films, comedy, and magic.
The Septet is a smaller version of the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra, which Jeff Sanford organized in 2003 to play the eccentric, highly entertaining and challenging music of American composer Raymond Scott.
This music is known to millions around the world — it was the soundtrack to 120 classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.
The first public appearance of the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra was at the 2003 Stanford Jazz Festival, and the group has been performing regularly ever since.
They appeal to young children who love the great variety of instruments and sounds, older adults who remember the original cartoons, and music lovers of all ages who appreciate the sophisticated, out-of-the-box compositions and performances. Audiences everywhere are blown away by their virtuosity. And the musicians have as good a time as the audience does.
The vision of the Septet extends far beyond Raymond Scott’s music these days. Among other icons, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington are represented, as is Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet in the 1930s.
Since 2009, Lenny Carlson has been composer-in-residence for both the Septet and the Orchestra, composing more than 30 original pieces in a variety of styles.
Lenny has taken the spirit of Raymond Scott and updated it, combining classical and jazz elements with klezmer and folk styles from around the world. He has also composed a number of Latin-flavored pieces that are part of the Cartoon Jazz Septet repertoire.
The show will also feature a comedy and magic performance. Old school 16mm films will be presented by the fellow responsible for Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, writer and film historian Paul F. Etcheverry, co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival.
The Date: Friday September 23, 2016 Showtime: 8:30 p.m. The Place: Angelica's, 863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA 94063
As our friend and collaborator Robert Emmett from KFJC-FM likes to say, silent films are never silent, so, this Friday night, vintage films and cartoons produced 100 years ago will be accompanied live by the music of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet at Angelica's in downtown Redwood City!
From the press release:
Angelica's and Montuno Productions present Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet, a smaller version of the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra, which Jeff Sanford organized in 2003 to play the eccentric, highly entertaining and challenging music of American composer Raymond Scott. This music is known to millions around the world—it was the soundtrack to 120 classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.
The vision of the Septet extends far beyond Raymond Scott’s music these days. Among other icons, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington are represented, as is Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet in the 1930s.
Since 2009, Lenny Carlson has been composer-in-residence for both the Septet and the Orchestra.
Lenny has taken the spirit of Raymond Scott and updated it, combining classical and jazz elements with klezmer and folk styles from around the world.
The show will also feature a comedy and magic performance. Old school 16mm films will be presented by film historian Paul Etcheverry.
The Date: Friday August 5, 2016 Showtime: 8:30 p.m. The Place: Angelica's, 863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA
If you wish to be seated with another ticket purchasing customer please send a request to info@angelicasllc.com.
Band members will be interviewed on KALW-FM on Thursday (August 4) at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. For more info, see: Angelica's website
Cartoon Jazz Orchestra official website
Cartoon Jazz Orchestra Facebook page
Tomorrow's presentation of Big Screen Fun, curated by Your Correspondent, features - on GLORIOUS 16mm film - the usual suspects: Otto Messmer, Fleischer Studios, The Hal Roach Studio, Charley Chase, Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and more.
Accompanying the vintage movies: LIVE MUSIC by Jeff Sanford Cartoon Jazz Septet - Raymond Scott, John Kirby and new compositions by (Straight Outta San Francisco City College's superb music department) Lenny Carlson.
