Minute Waltz Stomp Boogie

Here's a bit of fun. Starting at approximately 2:40 into the cartoon, this crazily virtuosic stride version of Chopin's Minute Waltz is a brilliant example of "jazzing” the classics, a huge craze in the 1940s/50s. Other examples feature in such films as Disney's Melody Time with Jack Fina's Bumble Boogie and A Song Is Born featuring Anitra's Dance Boogie played by Buck And Bubbles. Hazel Scott was another proponent of such virtuosic jazz interpretations of the classics whose versions were even published in a sheet music folio at the time!

For years I have tried to identify the pianist who plays this solo but with no success. Even the supposed definitive text on the subject, ”Tunes For Toons: Music and the Hollywood” by a self-proclaimed specialist on the subject Daniel Goldmark, very disappointingly doesn't even attempt or bother to acknowledge piano player in its rather generalised description of the music accompanying the cartoon. A pretty musically ignorant and lazy oversight. In my opinion, it's the piano playing that makes the cartoon!

If anyone can inform me as to who the player is, I would be most grateful and will be all too happy to give credit to such a performance in my transcription.

Later in the cartoon, there is a fantastic version of Crazy Rhythm played in a very different "hot" be-bop style presumably by the same pianist, in the process, displaying the amazing versatility of this incredible uncredited player!

I urge everyone to seek out the original Warner Bros. cartoon to enjoy the original performance of this transcription.

Here's Bumble Boogie:

https://youtu.be/72MXrQxIWCc?si=7Iyz8ktMIGRolAL1

Here's Buck And Bubbles playing Anitra's Dance Boogie:

https://youtu.be/OXBQAJsxzm8?si=jM2B_b5b3SU6NH5Q

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