The Nutty Squirrels

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The Nutty Squirrels ( German  Die verrückten Eichhörnchen ) was a virtual cartoon band around the jazz musician Don Elliott and the singer and composer Alexander "Sascha" Burland (* 1927), which in the years around 1960 in the USA mainly through the cartoon series The Nutty Squirrels Present was popular.

Concept and history

The Nutty Squirrels were formed as an imitation of the Chipmunks , who released the song Witch Doctor in 1958 and had a top 40 hit in the USA in late 1959 with Uh-Oh . The Nutty Squirrels wanted to profit from the commercial success of the Chipmunks with a television cartoon of the same name . Electronically accelerated and harmonized singing was characteristic of both groups ; You adapted Ross Bagdasarians method, the Chipmunk to generate sound, recorded in the votes at the speed of 16 revolutions per minute, and then with 33 1 / 3 revolutions have been played. While Bagdasarians Chipmunks rather pop music used as a starting material, the favored Nutty Squirrels bonds on modern jazz , preferably at the Bebop . The boom in the chipmunk phenomenon gave jazz musician Don Elliott and film composer Sascha Burland the idea of combining the chipmunk vocal effect with the sound of the vocalese trio Lambert, Henricks & Ross . They also pre-empted Bagdasarian in bringing his chipmunks onto television, with the producers of Transfilm-Wylde Animation creating their own television series around the music, The Nutty Squirrels Present , of which 150 approximately five-minute episodes were produced and released on the American and Australian television markets were published. Transfilm-Wylde, a New York film production company, specialized in making animation jingles for television commercials.

Band and impact history

Cannonball Adderley (right) with his brother Nat (1961)

The Nutty Squirels played and sang novelty songs with jazz influences ; so with the squeaky scat vocals in the bebop classic " Salt Peanuts ". The studio band included Don Elliott (vocals, trumpet, vibraphone) and Sascha Burland (vocals) in the first LP production The Nutty Squirrels, guitarists Al Caiola and Don Arnone , bassist Jack Six and drummer Ronnie Bedford ; the recordings took place on October 29 and November 6, 1959 in New York

The (virtual) Squirells were seen on US television in the animated series The Nutty Squirrels Present , which started in September 1960. Although the cartoons were of a uniform style with jazzy background music, they were not commercially successful; some television stations scattered the Squirrel cartoons among the more successful ones of Woody Woodpecker and other cartoons with animals as the main characters.

The effect of the production on the music market was different: The cover version of the Nutty Squirrels by Uh-Oh (Part 1) was not as successful as the original; However, it reached # 45 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart , but Uh-Oh (Part 2) reached # 14. The self-titled LP was released on the small Hanover Records label ; the liner notes were from jazz critic Leonard Feather . The following single "Eager Beaver" was the vocal version of a Stan Kenton track from the 1940s; she could not achieve a placement in the charts.

The band's relative success in music sales led producer John Hammond to sign Elliott and Burland with Columbia Records ; on July 26, 1960, the second album of the band Bird Watching was recorded with an extended studio ensemble. For the recording session, Elliott and Burland et al. a. jazz musicians Cannonball Adderley , Hal McKusick (alto saxophone), Bobby Jaspar (flute), Sam Most (clarinet) and Mundell Lowe (guitar) into the studio. As the title Bird Watching suggests, the LP included original compositions such as That's Owl, Brother! Jazz standards related to birds, such as Flamingo , Skylark , Bye Bye Blackbird , Bob White (Whatcha Gonna Swing Tonight) or When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin 'Along . Saxophonist Cannonball Adderley could only be heard in Charlie Parker's Yardbird Suite on this album . In the satirical song Please Don't Take Our Tree for Christmas (Columbia 4-41818), The Squirrels get excited about people who steal Christmas trees for Christmas . The single Please Don't Take Our Tree for Christmas did not make it into the US charts, as did the LP.

In 1963 Elliott and Burland released another Squirrels single , Grandma's House, on Cameo Records . In the same year they produced the single Hello Again for RCA Victor , with the B-side Bluesette , composed by Toots Thielemans .

In 1964 MGM released the last album by the Elliott / Burland team; A Hard Day's Night and Other Smatches , produced by Creed Taylor and arranged by the surf pop composer Billy Mure , contained cover versions of Beatles songs such as Can't Buy Me Love and other hits of the era such as Oh, Pretty Woman and Needles & Pins . After the commercial failure of this production, Elliott and Burland ended their collaboration.

Discography

Singles

  • Uh! Oh! (Part 1 & 2) (Hanover 4540, 1959)
  • Please Don't Take Our Tree for Christmas / Nutty Noel (Columbia 4-41818, 1960)
  • Eager Beaver / Zowee (Hanover 4551, 1960)
  • The Squirrels: Grandma's House / The Philadelphia Minstrels: The Girl That I'll Adore (Cameo C-284, 1963)
  • Hello Again / Bluesette (RCA Victor 47-8287, 1963)

Albums and EPs

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ A b c d Carl Ginell: Walk Tall: The Music and Life of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley 2013
  2. ↑ a b Portrait of Don Elliott in Space Age Pop .
  3. ↑ The Story of the Nutty Squirrels (2016) at Tralfaz .
  4. ^ Billboard October 19, 1959, p. 47
  5. ↑ See Tom Lord : Jazz discography (online, accessed December 5, 2016)
  6. ↑ Charts Awards .
  7. ^ Billboard May 30, 1960, p. 41.
  8. ^ A b Chris Sheridan: Dis Here: A Bio-discography of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley . 2000, p. 90.
  9. ↑ The song was written by Johnny Mercer and Bernie Hanighen . Connie Boswell and Bing Crosby in particular made the title known in the USA (cf. Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era , 2007); Benny Goodman introduced the song in 1937 in jazz; it followed cover versions and a. by Mildred Bailey , Woody Herman , Artie Shaw , Bob Enevoldsen , Thore Ehrling , Carmen McRae , Bobby Darin , Maxine Sullivan , Janis Siegel and Dick Hyman . See Tom Lord; Jazz discography (online)
  10. ^ Billboard November 7, 1960, p. 53.
  11. ↑ The Nutty Squirrels at Allmusic (English)
  12. ↑ The B-side of the single contained a song by the Philadelphia Minstrels , The Girl That I'll Adore . See discographic information at Discogs
  13. ↑ Discographic information at Discogs .
  14. ↑ The EP contained the four titles Uh-Huh , Ding Dong , Salt Peanuts and Zowee .