If you want to introduce children to swing and to more ‘difficult’ musical genres such as jazz, cartoons can be very useful. Among the musical films for young children, The Aristocats has a very rich soundtrack, of high quality and also entertaining. Inspired by a novel written by Émile Zola, entitled Le Paradis des chats, the first script of The Aristocats was written 60 years ago to be part of the TV series Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.
In 1970 it was released in theaters and had immediately a great success for both its story and its soundtrack, signed by George Bruns, who drew heavily from his jazz experiences.
In addition to the family of cats, and the stray cat Romeo, among the protagonists of the film we remember, in fact, the band of “hipster” cats who play jazz, led by Scat Cat. And at the climax of the plot, the street cats sing Ev’rybody Wants To Be A Cat, one of the most famous songs, considered one of the musical pearls of the twentieth century with a hit refrain:
“Yes, everybody wants to be a cat
Because a cat’s the only cat who knows where it’s at
When playin’ jazz you always has a welcome mat
‘Cause everybody digs a swinging cat”.
So today Ocarina listens to this ironic and funny song:
Below we introduce the Italian song from the cartoon:
