Orchestra Specializes in Cartoon Jazz | Voice of America - English
From the 1930's through the 1950s, Big Band jazz was an immensely popular form of American music.  Swinging ensembles of horns, drums, strings and keyboards played music that was not only great to dance to.
JeffSanford looks as normal as anyone look while playing the clarinetand leading the big-band ensemble he founded ? the ? through a rendition of "Powerhouse." It's a piece by Raymond Scott,one of the cartoon genre's greatest composers. TheGolden Age of cartoons was mostly over when  was a child.But as with almost every baby boomer, thevisual and musical world of the cartoon was a familiar alternativereality."I spent hours Saturdaymornings relaxing and watching cartoons," he says."When we perform this music I do noticethat these memories seem to really cut deep into people's memories." Musicin cartoons changes and enhances mood, Sanford says. It can also evoke theatmosphere of actual places. Justas the sound of twittering flutes calls to mind images of an idyllic, unspoiledcountryside, Raymond Scott's "Jungle Jazz"  Manhattan duringits bustling hipster heyday in the 1930s. "[It]has that frantic 'da-da-da-da' and that mood of maybe being in the subway andtrying to cross the street without getting hit."Sanford says the tune brings to mind "what's it was like inNew York and what it's still like in New York 80 years [later]." Cartoonsoften used music to convey ethnic stereotypes of the day ? all for laughs ? justas vaudeville once did.The beginningof "WarDance of the Wooden Indians," for example, had a beat and a melody thatwas simple Hollywood shorthand for Native Americans ? even though actual NativeAmerican music was nothing like that. Soon however, the music morphs into anauthentic klezmer mode which reflected Scott's actual ethnic heritage as anEastern European Jew. Wonderfulcartoon music didn't stop with Raymond Scott. Sanford says the Cartoon JazzOrchestra's most requested song is composer Danny Elfman's theme for theanimated TV comedy show, .It's music thatSanford says fits in with our modern era to a tee. "Itfits in because it doesn't fit in. It fits into becausethey are dysfunctional family. And you definitely hear that in themusic."Sanford describes themusic as "circus-like," adding, "it's percussive and it'scomplicated and fun at the same time."