Sometimes comments about Rifftides pieces show up considerably after publication. We just got one from reader Dave Mackey about an animated cartoon we linked to on April 30, 2007. Bless the readers. We wouldn’t have known about the cartoon if a reader hadn’t sent an alert in the first place. The paragraph immediately below is the original item. It is followed by the Looney Tunes itself, now embedded in the blog. And THAT is followed by Mr. Mackey’s comment. It’s a great reason to rerun a minor masterpiece.
Rifftides reader Bruce Tater came across a classic Warner Bros. cartoon from the Looney Tunes series. He called our attention to Three Little Bops, a perfectly preserved piece of 1950s hipness. Stan Freeburg is the narrator. Shorty Rogers did the music. Notice the stylized drawings of the nightclub audience. Don’t miss Shorty’s little sui generis muted solo near the end.
It’s likely those nightclub denizens were drawn by assistant animator Bob Matz; most of the heavy lifting was done by Gerry Chiniquy, who was simply one of the most brilliant animators in the Friz Freleng unit and deserved this showcase.
Now, a music question: anyone know who else played on the session? The music was recorded on the Warner Bros. soundstage by the regular crew that recorded the cartoon scores. The bare music score exists and was released on one of the recent Looney Tunes DVD’s, and it’s slated by Milt Franklyn, who was one of the studio’s two musical directors (the other being the legendary Carl Stalling).
Dave Mackey
If you know the other musicians, please let us in on it by way of a comment
The nonagenarian pianist presented de Barros with every biographer’s hope, unrestricted access to his subject’s personal papers and nearly unrestricted access to her private thoughts. He made the most of it, turning exhaustive research and hundreds of hours of interviews into a true story with the sweep of a novel. From the early discovery of McPartland’s musical gift through her wartime service, her ecstatic and stormy marriage to Jimmy McPartland, her growth as a pianist, her deep affair with Joe Morello, and the radio show that made her a national figure, she has had a fascinating life. It makes a splendid read.
Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band had three fewer musicians than most big jazz outfits. Its size permitted precision, flexibility and subtlety, yet the band had the power of sprung steel. In this concert from a half century ago, the CJB is as fresh as yesterday. Arrangements by Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Johnny Mandel set standards to which big band writers still aspire. Bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis inspired Mulligan, Brookmeyer, Conte Candoli, Gene Quill and Zoot Sims to some of the best soloing of their careers. This beautifully produced issue of the complete concert is a basic repertoire item.
Three Bops:
Piano:Pete Jolly
Sax:Art Pepper
Guitar:Barney Kessel
Bass:?
Drums:Shelly Manne
(This list is much like the one in Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, but Wikipedia identifies the bassist as Joe Mondragon and the guitarist as Adam Rosen. I can find no evidence of a guitarist by that name in Los Angeles in the 1950s. In his short bursts of improvisation in the cartoon, the guitarist certainly sounds like Kessel. Art Pepper played alto saxophone and, occasionally, tenor. The sax in the cartoon is a baritone, an instrument Pepper rarely, if ever, played. That doesn’t mean he didn’t play it on this occasion. — DR)
The answer should be interesting.
David Meeker did not include this item in his exhaustive Jazz And Blues Filmography (latest edition), which otherwise includes a plethora of musical shorts, as well as feature films, which had soundtracks by jazz musicians.
My guess would be Jimmy Giuffre. He was member of the Giants at that time (or about that time) and had experience playing in a neo-R&B manner.