Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Orchestra

The Cartoon Jazz project was launched in 2003 at the Stanford Jazz Festival with the revival of charts from the great American composer Raymond Scott. Jeff Sanford tracked down many of the charts written for sextet and 13 piece band in public archives and private collections. Members of his bands have since written new arrangements and new compositions of jazz used in and out of cartoons.

Raymond Scott never intended to write for cartoons. His frantic rhythms were emulating the fast and energetic sounds of the New York City lifestyle. Carl Stalling, then music director at Warner Brothers, and an avid admirer of Scott's music, used many of Scott's themes in the scores overlaying the cartoon movies of our childhood friends Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig.

The first performance in 2003 generated an immediate enthusiastic response. Since then Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet & Orchestra has become a cultural hallmark of the San Francisco bay area. The Orchestra is far more than just a 'cartoon music band,' with an ever growing library of new arrangements and the commissioning of new compositions, Jeff Sanford and his Cartoon Jazz Septet & Orchestra are nostalgic and current and the same time.