Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Orchestra

Playland at the Beach

Little Village

Playland at the Beach by Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Orchestra is certainly an odd entry for the Little Village label. Heck, it is an odd entry for album review/background piece, period. Yet, it was this line in the promotional materials that piqued this writer’s curiosity – “The music is highly entertaining but very challenging to perform.” Having never quite thought of cartoon music in that way, it was incumbent to learn more about it and share it with you, for a few reasons, perhaps the biggest is that it may give a healthy dose of youthful nostalgia. The titles themselves will induce smiles. Consider “The Pheasant Plucker,” “The Siamese Cat Song,” “The Commander of Cheese,” and “Snake Woman.” Yes, this is the music of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck from the onset of cartoons in ‘40s and ‘50s to more modern fare, a mashup of classical, jazz, folk, pop, and the proverbial ‘kitchen sink.’ Besides the humor, there are subtle political jabs at play too as “The Commander of Cheese” honors a malapropism by Kellyanne Conway.

Jeff Sanford, a NYC native, is the CJO founder and leader and has resided in the Bay Area since 1976. His eclectic work in jazz, dance, and session gigs introduced him to some of the area’s best musicians over the years, including Tony Parinella, who when he passed on, left Sanford 16 file cabinets of big band sheet music, much of it by eccentric composer Raymond Scott. Warner Brothers Musical Director Carl Stalling adopted Scott’s strange, bewildering, music-on-steroids compositions as scores for more than 120 Looney Tunes cartoons. When Sanford heard Don Byron’s album Bug Music, featuring works by Scott, the inspiration for this orchestra which debuted at the 2002 Stanford Jazz Festival, began.

The ensemble is not a big band as the name implies but a nonet with Sanford and Hal Richards on woodwinds, Eric Wayne (trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn), Luke Kirley (tuba, euphonium), Eric Swinderman (electric guitar), Kevin Eng (violin), Andy Ostwald (piano), Simon Planting (upright bass), and Mark Rosengarden (drums). All of these players have resumes decorated from luminaries from the jazz, pop, and entertainment worlds.  Rosengarden is the author of the book series “Play Jazz, Blues, Rock Piano By Ear” (Mel Bay publications). Of these 14 tracks, only four are from Scott, Sanford has one, and another four, perhaps the most contemporary of the bunch, are from Lenny Carlson, the CJO in-house composer of original music since 2009. So, rest assured this is just not a rehash of those Looney Tune scores.

Your expectations of cartoon music will be fulfilled here – its mimicking of movement (“Bird Life in the Bronx,” “Dave’s Waltz from the Cottage”), wild swing (‘Playland at the Beach”), charming melodies (“Girl with the Light Blue Hair,” “Snake Woman”), zany conventions (‘The Commander of Cheese”), classical turned whimsical (“Spring Thing”), lullabies (“Good Night Julia”), unpredictable tempo changes (“Sleepwalker”), and staccato passages (“Stoats,” “The Pheasant Plucker”).

So, yes this is indeed a weird one, but the musicianship and creativity is dazzling throughout.

• Jim Hynes

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