I got two packages of records and miscellaneous compact discs and a smattering of seven inches in the mail today. Including the other two volumes of Duke Ellington live at the Click Restaurant in Philadelphia in 1948. Plus one of the two Jethro Burns solo singles from after Homer's untimely death with a song called "Dolly Parton's Sweet on Me"
But I also got a replacement for a disc I lost somewhere along the line and I'm jumping over everything to just put both of them up because they are both fucking brilliant fun.
I will also warn regular viewers that this is something more akin to Jazz than the usual rock and roll based nonsense that is the most regular feature of this exercise in silliness.
The Oranj Symphonette were all part of the backing band for Tom Waits so first off you know that they are/were some really talented and versatile musicians. Secondly Henry Mancini was a really amazing composer who had an incredible knack for writing indelible hooks and earworms but for some reason gets kind of lumped in with a kitsch mindset because of it's association with campy movie soundtracks. But there it is ingrained deeply into people's pop culture back brain such that you can instantly hum along with the "Pink Panther Theme" or "Moon River" without consciously knowing you're doing it.
I mean, I used to sit in for a while with a local "Jazz Workshop" for a bit. Everyone got to pick a tune during the session. One time I chose "Dreamsville" (from the "Peter Gunn" tv soundtrack) for my pick. There was some grumbling amongst the serious folk until they played it. It's a fucking beautiful and lush song. There were no grumbles after.
So there's this.
A group of A-List musicians who then take up some of these well known and not so well known songs and then proceed to turn them inside out with a mixture of equal parts love, respect and malicious glee.
I live for shit like this.
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