Browse by Artist: ELLIOT AND HIS SWINGING BIG, BIG BAND, DEAN

Artist:	ELLIOT AND HIS SWINGING BIG, BIG BAND, DEAN
Title:	Zounds! What Sounds!
Label:	BASTA (NETHERLANDS)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BASTA 9111

"Long-sought Bachelor Pad classic now on CD. Zounds! What Sounds!, the legendary 1963 album by Dean Elliot & His Swinging Big, Big Band, is now on CD as part of Basta's Essential Reissues series. The album is a wild collaboration between orchestra director Elliot and cartoon sound effects wizard Phil Kaye. The inspiration for Zounds! came when the L.A.-based bandleader was tooling around Woodland Hills, and stopped for a traffic light. His ears caught the rhythm of a cement mixer nearby, and he started snapping his fingers in synch with the mixer's gyrations. 'This has a terrific beat,' thought Elliot. 'How would it go with a melody?' Thus was born the woofer-wasting, tweeter-trashing Zounds! What Sounds!. Elliot's arrangements combine the orchestral explosiveness of Nelson Riddle with the percussive deviltry of Spike Jones: brass and reeds compete for soundspace against short-wave signals, mechanical teeth, squeaking doors, bowling balls, hoot owls, pogo stick springs and underwater detonations. The sound effects were courtesy of Phil Kaye, a sonic alchemist whose mayhem underscored Tom & Jerry cartoons. The golden age of bachelor pad music (1955-1965) was marked by clever and creative use of studio technology to enhance live performances. Measured against such hi-fi/stereo stalwarts from the period as Esquivel, The Three Suns, Enoch Light, and Dick Schory, Zounds! What Sounds! deserves landmark status. In a long writing, conducting and arranging career, Elliot composed scores for such films as The Phantom Tollbooth, High School Confidential (with Mamie Van Doren) and College Confidential (with Mamie Van Doren and Steve Allen). He also scored for such animated TV shows as Alvin & the Chipmunks, Bugs & Daffy, and Heathcliff, and for theatrical releases of Tom & Jerry cartoons directed by Chuck Jones. The master tape of Zounds! that Basta received from Capitol was in excellent condition. Inferior-quality bootlegs have been circulating for years, reflecting the collector's status of this legendary LP."

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