The Carl Stalling Project: Music from Warner Bros. Cartoons 1936-1958

by Carl Stalling

Overview

Listeners will be familiar with the archival recordings contained on this beautifully packaged CD even if they have never heard of the composer. Carl Stalling was the genius principally responsible for the manic music behind the great Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. While Stalling's scores -- with their quotations of popular period music, folk tunes, and classical pieces -- went unheralded at the time, the composer has achieved a cult stardom due to this recording, and its equally splendid second volume. Fans of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the Road Runner cartoons will instantly recognize familiar themes and motifs in this lengthy and varied album, which includes plenty of background information on Stalling's methods and legacy.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/17/1990
Label:	Warner Bros / Wea
UPC:	0075992602723
catalogNumber:	26027
Rank:	6156

Tracks

1. Part 6
2. excerpts
3. Early WB Scores: The Depression Era [Medley]
4. excerpts
5. Various Cues from Bugs Bunny Films [Medley]
6. There They Go Go Go, film score
7. Stalling Self-Parody: Music from Porky's Preview
8. Anxiety Montage [Medley]
9. Stalling: The War Years [Medley]
10. Medley: Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals
11. Carl Stalling with Milt Franklyn in session
12. Speedy Gonzalez Meets Two Crows from Tacos
13. Powerhouse and Other Cuts from the Early '50s [Medley]
14. Porky in Wackyland / Dough for the Do Do
15. To Itch His Own, film score

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Carl Stalling   Primary Artist
Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra   Performing Ensemble

Technical Credits

Raymond Scott   Composer
Hal Willner   Producer,Liner Notes
John Zorn   Liner Notes
Carl Stalling   Composer
Dick Blackburn   Liner Notes
Greg Ford   Liner Notes,Executive Producer
Scott Hull   Contributor,Noise Reduction
Tom Recchion   Art Direction

Editorial Reviews

The first volume in The Carl Stalling Project series is a revelation; more than just an essential part of a Warner Bros. staff that generated some of the finest and most inspired productions in the history of animation, Stalling was a visionary whose work deserves consideration among the finest American avant-garde music ever recorded. As these 15 selections from WB cartoons dating between 1936 and 1958 attest, his cut and paste style -- a singular collision between jazz, classical, pop, and virtually everything else in between -- was unprecedented in its utter disregard for notions of time, rhythm, and compositional development; Stalling didn't just break the rules, he made them irrelevant. That in the process he created music beloved by succeeding generations of children is more impressive still -- perhaps even unwittingly, Stalling introduced the avant-garde into the mainstream, and as popular music continues to diversify and hybridize, his stature as a pioneer rightfully continues to grow.

All Music Guide - Jason Ankeny