Mambo for Kittens

Music critic Dan Armonaitis: Sound Observations: I’ve been looking after a jumpin’, rockin’, screamin’ cat

"Having volunteered to take care of a kitten for a friend who was traveling, I thought the feline might provide a muse as I struggled to come up with something to write about for this column. But every time I tried to focus on a possible topic, she’d hop in my lap and distract me with her soft fur, warm purr and all-around tenderness. As the clock pushed toward midnight before the column’s deadline, I wondered if that darn cat was on the verge of causing me to go to work the next morning empty-handed.

"But just as everything seemed hopeless, the kitty jumped off the couch and slowly walked away. The next thing I know, I look up and she’s crawling across the top of a high back chair during one of her mischievous jaunts toward the spiral staircase in my living room.

"At that precise moment, I found what I’d been looking for. Marrakesh, the kitten, had provided a muse after all. Hanging right in the pathway that the kitty took, I have a framed copy of a 1955 RCA Victor album called Mambo for Cats that features fascinating abstract artwork by renowned commercial illustrator Jim Flora. I purchased the LP for 50 cents at a garage sale nearly two decades ago solely on the strength of its eye-catching cover. I had no idea what the music would sound like, but, at that moment, I really didn’t care.

"It turns out the album is full of some amazing instrumental Latin jazz performed by orchestras led by seminal musicians Damirón, Don Elliott, Tony Martinez, Noro Morales, Perez Prado and Al Romero."

The Miraculous Mambo Returns!

In 2012 we sold our 200th and final oversized Mambo For Cats screen print, the last of a limited edition produced by Aesthetic Apparatus of Minneapolis in 2006. Almost immediately, a legion of Floraphiles—especially those fond of felines and Latin terpsichore—began clamoring for this work to be restored to our catalog. The nature of limited editions precludes us from issuing the work in an identical (or even comparable) format. Two hundred hand-numbered, Flora family-authenticated, 20"-square Mambo screen prints (and two dozen proofs) exist. There won't be any more. Want one? You'll have to search on the secondary market—which means find someone who bought one and wants to sell it. We don't control that market, and price is determined by supply and demand.

But we do control the underlying image, and limited edition print protocols permit us to issue the work in an altered format. Consider it done. To celebrate the publication of The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora, our fourth anthology—and one which specifically features all of Flora's known album covers—we've revived Mambo for Cats. This week we're launching an edition of 200 hand-numbered, 11-1/2"-square, archival-quality fine art prints. It's about 40% smaller than the screen print, and is produced on different paper with different inks via an entirely different printing process (inkjet, or giclée). The giclée image is slightly smaller than a 12" LP cover in order to accommodate a 3/4" margin on an untrimmed 13" x 19" sheet of 310g Hahnemühle stock. (A smaller margin would make matting problematic.) One other significant difference: the screen print was on cream-colored stock; the giclée stock is white.

Upon learning about the new Mambo edition, ears began to perk up in the Flora community:

We also offer a Mambo mini—a 7"-square archival quality print. This is an open edition, meaning the prints are not numbered nor is the edition limited. To date we've sold about 150 minis.

We can't guarantee these Mambo kitties will have nine lives, but for now they're happy to embark on their third.

Mambo for Cake

Someone who co-admins this blog recently had a birthday and his girlfriend concocted the above cake (based, of course, on this.) The (edible) elements were commissioned from a designer on Etsy and meticulously assembled by wondergal Beth Sorrentino on a chocolate cake she baked. The cake was presented to the surprised Flora archivist at Café Frida in New York. After dozens of cameras (including that of Otis Fodder, above) documented the delicacy, it was summarily disassembled with knives and forks.

Beth confides: although the original RCA Victor album was a 12" LP, the cake replicates the rare (in fact, never seen) 10" version.

hieroglyphic montage

Untitled pencil drawing discovered in mid-1960s sketchpad. Theme unknown. The pad included dozens of rough pencil sketches for Flora's 1964 book My Friend Charlie, along with a number of unrelated sketches, mainly architectural, some Mexico-inspired, most incomplete. This work echoes nothing else in the sketchpad, or any other known Flora work.

The Day the Cow Sneezed mini-print

JimFlora.com has issued a low-cost ($25) fine art print of the cover of THE DAY THE COW SNEEZED, Flora's second kiddie book. Originally published in 1957 by Harcourt, the book was just reprinted by Enchanted Lion. Our 11" x 8-1/2" print features the complete cover art (used on both editions), including Flora's playful hand-cut letters. This is an open, unnumbered edition (i.e., there is no limit on the print run).

life in the food chain

Half-page from unfinished and untitled hand-painted children's book prototype, ca. early 1960s. The project includes ten words (e.g., "automation," "characteristic," "evident," "powerful") defined, pronounced and illustrated for young readers. A previous partial page ("fantasy") appeared on this blog in November 2008.

sittin' (& hangin' & swingin') in a tree

Untitled, incomplete tempera and pencil drawing, ca. 1950, found in a sketchbook from Flora's Mexican period (1950-51). The ghostly shadows in the periphery reflect bleedthrough from an image on the reverse side of the page. No finished or refined version of this work has been found.

pink & black cats

untitled tempera & pencil on paper
found in early 1960s-era sketchbook

Meow! Introducing the Mambo Mini

Our large (20" x 20") Mambo For Cats limited edition screen print is almost sold out. We're now offering a miniature (7" x 7") giclée open edition print of this renowned Flora 1955 RCA Victor LP cover. At $25.00, it's a great alternative for those on a limited budget—or with limited wall space.

Miff Mole's Cat

Acrylic on canvas, 1992. Irving Milfred "Miff" Mole was a legendary American jazz trombonist who first came to prominence in 1920s hot jazz. Tommy Dorsey called him "the Babe Ruth of the trombone."

Amid the painting's colorful details, pay special attention to this great freakin' tree:

Iz pussyfootin on ur Floraz, hiping new boook

Takashi Okada of Tokyo alerts us that volume 2 of his kitty-themed LP sleeve anthologies will be published imminently. The cover (above) features — well, it doesn't quite feature Flora's Mambo For Cats, but the artwork does play a "supporting role." The photographer is apparently distracting the cover model with a cheezburger.

spotted kitteh

Pencil sketch, ca. 1940-42. A refined wood- or linocut of this critter appeared in the 1942 Little Man Press chapbook GUP, one of many Flora spot illustrations adorning the Robert Lowry story "The Hotel."

cat nap

Detail, Primer for Prophets booklet, 1954

Stay in bed?

Illustration, "Are You Superstitious?" Parade Sunday newspaper supplement, December 8, 1957 (from tearsheet).

tabletop tabby

In the full image, he's actually perched on a piano. This cover kitty appears on the 1955 RCA Victor LP Collaboration, by Shorty Rogers and Andre Previn. Felines slink, scurry, and snooze in countless Flora works—he gave them frequent supporting roles in drawings, paintings, and commercial illustrations. Flora was a friend of the furries. Doggies too.

Peter and the Wolf

Detail, Peter and the Wolf album promotion,
Columbia Coda, January 1953. Wolf on lunch break.

Sidney Bechet 78 set

Cover artwork (typography removed) of Sidney Bechet 78 rpm set (Columbia C-173), 1948. Flora had a particular fondness for early New Orleans jazz, especially the recordings of legendary soprano saxophonist/clarinetist Bechet (1897-1959).

猫ジャケ 素晴らしきネコードの世界

Japanese TV stars use odd commodities for dislodging food particles.

Daisy Holiday

Our friend Takashi Okada of Tokyo has become the pre-eminent Floraphile in Japan. Besides being an avid customer of Jim Flora fine art prints, Takashi recently designed the Daisy Holiday CD package, which adapts Flora's 1947 Green Mansions resort brochure illustration (licensed from the Flora estate). Additional Flora elements appear on the jewel case inlay and in the booklet.

Here's a Tokyo record store display flush with Flora. If you don't live in that part of the world, the CD is available from Amazon, cdUniverse, and YesAsia. When this display is taken down, someone is gonna have a rare Flora Daisy Holiday poster.

Takashi is also publishing a compendium of over 150 feline images from record album covers. The book's front will be adorned with Flora's classic 1955 Mambo For Cats RCA Victor LP illustration, and the back will feature a piano-perched kitty from the Shorty Rogers-Andre Previn Collaboration EP. We'll provide more info about the book upon publication.

the kontinuing KittyGate kronicles ...