Stu Brown: Twisted Toons Vol. 2 (The Music of Carl Stalling, Scott Bradley and more...)

Cue the opening titles and the all-too familiar theme of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down"; a blast of which at just 23 seconds is enough to place the listener in the mood for the ensuing fifty five minutes of mayhem-inspired melodies.

This is Stu Brown's second paean to the great cartoon score composers. His first volume, Twisted Toons -The Music of Raymond Scott (2009) focused on the music of Raymond Scott which was adapted by others for use as cartoon accompaniments. This follow-up album features music by Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley and others. Most of this music has never been recorded or performed live since the original cartoons were made.

So accurately are these scores adhered to that it is often easy to mistake them for the original soundtracks. Brown painstakingly transcribed these tunes for his octet, through hours of research, cartoon-watching and listening to soundtrack recordings. In truth these arrangements are so faithfully performed that at times the octet sounds like a small orchestra particularly with the inclusion of Daniel Paterson on violin.

Four of the arrangements here are complete scores from, respectively, Tom and Jerry, Droopy, Roadrunner and Porky Pig and there are new arrangements of Carl Stalling's themes including his "Screwball Theme" (presented here in a jazz reggae arrangement) and Raymond Scott's 1930's tune "Powerhouse."

"Goblins In The Steeple" has a pure Spike Jones-type feel and is particularly enhanced by a screaming trumpet solo from Tom MacNiven. But plenty of the tunes have a very familiar ring to them, such as Kenny Graham's "Like Strange" or Laurie Johnson's "Happy Go Lively" being representations of the perfect incidental music and both derived from APM's catalogue of library music.

"Hawaiian Beach," a Spongebob Squarepants incidental theme, sees Tom MacNiven taking a break from trumpet to debut on lap steel guitar. One diversion from the assemblage of the Warner Brothers / Tex Avery stable is Bill Frisell's theme from Gary Larson's excellent short film "Tales From The Far Side" which is both hypnotic and atypically modern in relation to the rest of the pieces, which owe much to the novelty-jazz instrumentals of Raymond Scott.

Whilst the use of film scores as the basis for jazz is not new -just one example being John Zorn's famous reinterpretation of the music of Ennio Morricone on his 1985 album The Big Gundown -Brown's recordings here are brilliantly executed. There are probably no better examples of how famous music scores can be forensically studied and accurately and lovingly reproduced. "Merrily We Roll Along" the closing theme to Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes is so close to the original that all it lacks is Porky Pig's or Bugs Bunny's timeless cry of "That's All Folks!"