Track Listing

1. Dicty Glide
2. Frasquita Serenade
3. St. Louis Blues
4. Wondering Where
5. Bounce of the Sugar Plum Fairy
6. Charley's Prelude
7. Royal Garden Blues
8. Siberian Sleighride
9. Penguin
10. Quintet Plays Carmen
11. Powerhouse
12. Tobacco Auctioneer
13. War Dance for Wooden Indians
14. Cotton Club Stomp
15. Blue Bubbles
16. Snibor

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38519 in Music
• Released on: 1996-10-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
When Duke Ellington began to slip classical motifs and structures into his jazz compositions in the '30s, two fellow composers took his example as a challenge to do the same. Raymond Scott played movie music, led the house band on the popular radio show, "Your Hit Parade," and supplied much of the music for Carl Stalling's famous cartoon scores; John Kirby led a jazz combo that included Ben Webster, Russell Procope and Charlie Shavers. All three bandleaders are saluted on Bug Music. The music inside is playful and joyful, with Byron's clarinet skipping and jumping through the catchy melodies and quirky rhythms. In fact, what's most striking about the recording is not the mix of jazz and classical music, but the mix of jazz and humor, an all too rare combination these days. --Geoffrey Himes

Customer Reviews

NOT just nostalgia
A previous reviewer mocked this album as no different than what Wynton Marsalis does. I respectfully disagree. While Don Byron is reviving music too little known (Kirby, Scott), and honoring the well-known (Ellington), and not taking any liberties with the content... he's NOT suggesting that jazz should be frozen in time, or that anything freer than bop is just noise, the way, say, Marsalis does.

Sure, i dig this recording. But i also dig his radical, modern works like the Tuskegee Experiment, his Knitting Factory work, and his sideman work with the likes of Marc Ribot. You will NOT hear Wyton Marsalis playing with Marc Ribot or Bill Frisell!

Respect for the past, and an eye to the future - that's what jazz ought to be, i think. Contrary to opinion, i think the cool thing about this album isn't that people will listen to it and then go listen to Raymond Scott or Duke Ellington. No, the cool thing is that they'll listen to this and then open their ears up to something genuinely new and radical with Byron's gorgeous modern works.

True Cool is Ageless
OK, this is not exactly my usual CD purchase, but I happened to hear Byron and band playing cuts from this album on NPR's "Fresh Air", and before I knew it I was flying for the keyboard. This stuff is incredibly fun, and man, does it swing! This is also the ultimate "atmosphere" album- put this on and you will have the coolest house in town.

The selections represent some of the most enduring flowers of prewar America's Jazz Age. The arrangements are outstanding- completely true to the originals, but still managing to sound as fresh and vital and new and relevant as the first time they were played. These songs are definitely _not_ "moldy oldies" despite their years- True Cool is Ageless, and this is true cool. The musicianship is also uniformly incredible.

My favorite cuts are "The Dicty Glide", an amazingly elegant little piece even by Duke Ellington standards, and the joyously frenetic "Powerhouse", which as others have pointed out will be recognizable to anyone who has seen the classic Warner Bros. cartoons. It also never hurts to have great renditions of "St. Louis Blues" and "Cotton Club Stomp" around.

One of the greatest gifts of this album for me was an introduction to the music of Raymond Scott- I want to party with that dude. ;-{)

It isn't my favorite jazz album- and I have to disagree rather violently with the reviewer who placed it alongside 'Kind of Blue'- but it's mighty fine. I'm glad I bought it and I listen to it often. Highly recommended!

A Salutory Reminder of Jazz Before Bop (and After, Too)
Virtuoso Clarinettist Don Byron assembles an all-star cast to help him resurrect some generally overlooked pieces of Jazz history. This is a loving tribute to VERY early Ellington, John Kirby and Raymond Scott (he of the six player Quintette). If you've ever wondered what Jazz would sound like if Bird had never been born; or if you're a Ben Webster or Coleman Hawkins fan; or if you like "Looney Tunes" music by Carl Stallings; or if you just liked the music in Robert Altman's "Kansas City", this is the disc for you. (Byron appearred in the referenced film and one wonders if he got the idea for this disc from that experience.) Try this disc; you'll like it.