Quartet San Francisco

To sustain the classic Flora LP tradition of the 1940s and '50s, I've long advocated restoring his art to record album covers. Aside from one or two knockoffs of existing Flora designs, the first new release to adapt Flora non-LP art was Do This! by Seattle's Reptet, in 2006. The cover for the forthcoming Raymond Scott Quintet CD Ectoplasm (scheduled for February 2008 US release) was completed last May. Now comes the Quartet San Francisco's Whirled Chamber Music, whose cover designed is adapted from a mid-1960s uncirculated Flora painting entitled Barberinni.

Not coincidentally {ahem!}, the QSF album contains seven Raymond Scott compositions (including "Powerhouse"), seeded amid an eclectic mix of Ellington, AWB, Bernstein, Corea, Tower of Power, and one original. As quartet leader Jeremy Cohen asserts, "The tradition of chamber music has taught us to play from our hearts with the highest standards. So when the music says swing, we swing. When the music says groove, we groove." Hear them swing and groove here.

Over the next few months, the QSF will perform in Los Angeles, Columbus, Pasadena, Louisville, NJ, NYC, Berkeley, Natick, and elsewhere.

Update (September 27): "Scientists working diligently in a laboratory somewhere recently discovered a DNA strand and have identified it as the Cartoon Gene."