Cartoons and music. Two great artistic disciplines. Two great subjects, individually or collectively, for a book. So how can an item that calls itself "The Cartoon Music Book" go wrong?

Countless ways I suspect. But, happily for us, this one doesn’t!

Oh, you can quibble here and there. After all, it’s easy to cavil when a work presents as wide an array of opinions, quality of scholarship and depth of insight as this episodic tome (we get about 30 articles in all from nearly as many contributors). But it’s the motley fabric of the varied points of view which gives this compendium its peculiar vitality.

The editors are Daniel Goldmark and Yuval Taylor. The former is the Rhino Records staff musicologist/editor/compilation producer who left La-La Land to serve as assistant professor of music at the University of Alabama. Apart from co-editing this book, he also is its major contributor. Mr. Goldmark gives us a well-done chapter called "Classical Music and Hollywood Cartoons." He also provides several chapters of interviews with contemporary cartoon composers blessed with not only ability, but with some of the best budgets around. In addition, he gives us a bibliography more extensive than one would possibly expect. Co-editor Yuval Taylor is described as the editor of A Cappella Books (the publisher of this volume) and as editor of The Future of Jazz, which we presume is an A Capella book. He co-wrote with Mr. Goldmark, the introduction to The Cartoon Music Book and clearly exercised sound editorial judgement in reeling in the knowledgeable and resourceful Mr. Goldmark as his co-editor.

From The First Person
The first time I read the 1971 Carl Stalling interview in Mike Barrier's Funnyworld magazine, I was amazed at the music director’s response to the first question posed, "How did you become a composer for cartoons?" The famed — at least to title card-scouring cartoon fans of the day — Warner Bros. maestro began his reply, "As I recall, I first met Walt Disney in the early Twenties." Huh?! Walt Disney? Kansas? Do you mean to tell me that Hollywood’s Carl Stalling was the Kansas City organist/conductor referred to in Diane Disney Miller and Pete Martin’s official biography The Story of Walt Disney?! Who knew? This article was the beginning of "cartoon music" scholarship. A highlight of The Cartoon Music Book is a reprint of this Carl Stalling interview.