Spike Jones's Musical Depreciation Revue

Will Friedwald on a New Spike Jones DVD Collection:

Jones...brought two major innovations to American pop. The first was the idea that sound effects used on radio and film soundtracks could become an essential part of the music; instead of building to a rim shot or a clarinet break, Jones would punctuate a melody with a gunshot, a cowbell, a car backfiring, or a woman screaming. Ornette Coleman once expressed admiration for this element of Jones's performance -- the idea of dissolving the barrier between noise and music...

Before Jones, nearly every bandleader played novelty songs, but they were considered the low-slung end of the music business: Jones discovered that it was possible to extract great comedy from great music, from Tchaikovsky (as in "The Nutcracker") to Johnny Mercer ("That Old Black Magic" and "Laura"). Jones also played silly songs, but he was funniest when he took a piece of real music and relentlessly gagged it up -- not just with garbage cans, barking dogs, bird calls, and falling anvils, but with a band that sounded like Salvador Dalí's idea of Dixieland...

All the bits that you've heard about are here: the bass saxophonist who sends a frog flying out of the bell of his instrument; trombonists whose trousers fall and rise according to the pitch of the note they play; two headless dudes enjoying a pantomime conversation; the bass fiddle that gives birth to a midget; two chickens serenading each other to the tune of "Holiday for Strings,"... the harpist on the sidelines of the action who spends most of the show knitting and puffing on a nasty-looking stogie during her own solo. You can't trust any instrument: Everything from the piano to the violin is liable to explode at any moment.

Then there's the ringleader himself... conducting a classical piece with a toilet plunger for a baton, chasing a chorus girl with a giant sword, or parading in mermaid drag...

New York Sun