A collection of the best soundtracks from the thirty-year collaboration between three jazz legends and Academy Award-winning animators John and Faith Hubley. These are not ordinary soundtracks where music is scored to film -- here the music was created first in an atmosphere of creative freedom, and then the films were animated to the music. None of it has ever been released before

Film music tends to be far more ephemeral than music created to “stand on its own.”   By its very nature, it is intended to be complementary—if not subservient—to the visual images it accompanies. Moreover, until the advent of home video, its availability was also tied to the availability of the film itself (with the exception of the relatively few film soundtrack albums).  Consequently, a great deal of important music in general, and jazz in particular, has been destined for oblivion or, at best, for the edification of a few archivists or collectors.

The music commissioned by John and Faith Hubley deserves a better fate.  This disc contains gems from the soundtracks of seven of the Hubleys’ animated classics recorded over a thirty-year period.  Five of the films were scored by Benny Carter, and one each by Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones.

Apart from the diverse and imaginative writing of the three principals, these tracks contain performances by a veritable “Who’s Who” of Jazz of both coasts. Beside some expected short transitional cues of a purely cinematic nature, the many solo passages will delight jazz fans.

That this music stands up so well to aural scrutiny when separated from its visual component is a treatment not only to the inventiveness of the composers but to the musical empathy and understanding of the filmmakers.

John and Faith Hubley, together and separately, have elevated the art of the animated film to a new level.  John, who died in 1977 at the age of 62, was the creator of the popular cartoon character, Mr. Magoo. As an art director in the Disney Studios, he worked on such animated classics as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, and Fantasia. Faith worked in the theatre before becoming a film editor and script supervisor in Hollywood. In 1955, John and Faith moved to New York where they established their production company Storyboard, Inc.   Seven of the Hubleys’ twenty-two animated films have received Academy Awards nominations (including Voyage to Next and Of Men and Demons), and three have won. Both John and Faith were lifelong jazz fans and had the vision to combine these artforms in a highly original and synergistic fashion.