These tunes take me back to Mrs. Doyle’s kindergarten class at Shawsheen Elementary School in Andover, Mass. I first heard “Over the Rainbow” in “The Wizard of Oz,” which aired once a year on the NBC-TV affiliate in Boston. “Meet the Flintstones” we all knew, of course, from the television show. Come to think of it, most of the songs I learned as a kid were from TV. The first movie I ever saw in a theater was “Mary Poppins” in 1964, and I was thrilled by the tunes in that wonderful Sherman Brothers score. Later that year, at the World’s Fair in New York, my dad and I took the “It's a Small World” ride and were serenaded by animatronic Disney figures singing that earworm of a song (also written by the Shermans). The other tunes are things we sang in school. I would sometimes accompany the children’s choirs at the piano, which I began learning at 8. I would say that every tune on this recording I knew by heart and played on the piano before I was 10! I had the chance to do a children’s album for the Yamaha Disklavier series—which are MIDI products—a few years ago, and I’m glad I had the foresight to ask my friend , co prodocer and engineer Dave Kreisberg to record it at the pianos in the David Abell store in Los Angeles. Abell, who sold me my Yamaha C7 a number of years ago, was a wonderful man. He represented to me the ideal piano retailer: warm, elegant, artistically and charitably inclined, yet always able to make good use of a sales opportunity. The track Happy was an afterthought on my part. In 2014, I arranged this tune for the Cal State Fullerton Jazz Orchestra, and thought it would be fun to recreate it in a more electronic vein, getting my old friends, drummer/producer Curt Bisquera and vocalist Daniela Spagnolo in on the action. I dedicate this project to my brother John (Frere Jacques!), 1959-1985. Miss him every day. I hope you enjoy this project as much as I had fun doing it. Bill Cunliffe September 2015