Animated cartoons were born in the Jazz Age, and to this day jazz continues to be a part of some of the greatest animated cartoons from the Pink Panther to the Flinstones to the Simpsons and Family Guy.
It all began in 1928 with Steamboat Willie, the first widely distributed animated cartoon with synchronized sound. The cartoon's producer, a young and ambitious Walt Disney, was inspired by the success of the first live action talkie called The Jazz Singer, a motion picture that ended the silent film era almost overnight.
Steamboat Willie was the cartoon that introduced that lovable and bankable rodent, Mickey Mouse, to a big audience for the first time. And throughout its seven-and-a-halfminutes the score chugs along to the syncopated rhythms of ragtime, minstrel music and jazz.
A few years after Mickey Mouse appeared in Steamboat Willie, Betty Boop reached cartoon stardom in Minnie the Moocher, featuring the Cab Calloway Orchestra. The music is sexy and dangerous and ultimately drives Betty and her boyfriend Bimbo back to the safety of home at the end of the cartoon.
The flick kicks off with a live action sequence featuring the orchestra. And not to be upstaged by a moon-faced cartoon flapper with a garter belt, Calloway busts a free-form moonwalk move that forever ups the ante on cartoon cool.
In an instance of cartoons imitating life, or at least comedian Jerry Lewis's version of it, consider the hilarious pantomime from The Errand Boy powered by an explosive Count Basie Orchestra blowing on Frank Foster's "Blues in Hoss' Flat." The music was first crystallized by Jerry Lewis in 1961 and later parodied in 2009 in the adult animated sitcom, Family Guy.
Why does jazz work so well in cartoons? It may have something to do with the kind of musical talent working in the jazz idiom. Some of the most gifted arrangers, composers and studio musicians on the scene worked on creating jazz toons.
Henry Mancini composed the timeless theme to to the Pink Panther. Marty Paich, a stalwart arrangers for the likes of Mel Torme, was on staff at the cartoon hit factory, Hanna-Barbera.
Also in the Hanna-Barbera composer's stable was one of the greatest figures in cartoon theme creation, Hoyt Curtain. He was responsible for the music for such cartoon hits as Josie and the Pussycats, The Jetsons, The Flinstones, and the short-lived, but very jazzy Top Cat.
The Walt Disney Studios have given us many jazzy cartoon hits through the years including "The Bare Necessities" composed by Terry Gilkyson. It's a song without a care in the world. What a loping New Orleans jazz pulse has to do with a story set in an African jungle with a bear in it is anyone's guess but the music is unforgettable, including the ripping plunger work by trumpeter Snooky Young.
New Orleans jazz is a recurring theme in Disney flicks, including the 2009 release,The Princess and the Frog. It's a great way to wrap our little survey of jazz toons, seeing how the music includes jazz pioneer King Oliver's "Dippermouth Blues" played by a trumpet-blowing alligator with a stellar embouchure.
There is so much great cartoon music out there that uses jazz. Have we missed something essential? What's your favorite jazz-inspired cartoon? Let us know in the comments section.
Related:
Sonny Rollins on jazz, sax and The Simpsons
