The amazing Ella Fitzgerald, in her first screen role, singing A Tisket a Tasket from Abbott and Costello’s Ride Em Cowboy.

The kiddo loves something about this video, whether it be the music or the marching, he has watched it many, many times in the last few weeks. And it’s a win-win: I love that he now knows a bit about Jimmy Stewart and the music of Glenn Miller!

Enjoy this clip from The Glenn Miller Story, featuring the St Louis Blues March!

Here’s Tito Puente rocking the Bronx with A Maria Cervantes on the vibraphone in 1945. And here he is again with the same song at the Montreal Jazz Festival almost 40 years later in 1983.

Nothing gets you moving quite like boogie woogie and the Andrews Sisters were brilliant at it. Here they are in a 1941 clip from Abbott and Costello’s Buck Privates. (Loved having both kids dancing around the living room to this!) 

Norman McLaren was a Scottish Canadian film director and a “poet of animation.” Much of his work is pioneering and playful, dancing between abstraction and representation… perfect for kids! Plus, the music is great. This is Boogie Doodle (1948).

Other short films of McLaren’s that you and the kid should see:
Spook Sport (1939)
Begone Dull Care (1949)
Dots (1940) - includes sounds that are pretty hilarious to 3 year old co-curators and 8 month old co-curators-in-training.

Also, don’t miss Pen Point Percussion (1951). It’s more of a behind the scenes look at McLaren that not only visualizes sound in a great way, but illuminates a bit of how he worked. 

via Urban Preschool.