Featuring the marimba, vibraphone, and glockenspiel, backed by more common-place percussion elements, this album gets most of its mileage from playful takes on pre-existing songs.  Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” is turned into “Bumble Bee Bolero”, Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” becomes “Maple Leaf Jump”,
Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” is rendered as “Samba Macabre”, and so on.  A few original pieces are mixed in, including “Buffoon” by quintet member Zez Confrey, who would go on to have a few solo records in later decades.

Though the content is light to the point of being practically a novelty record, it’s also played very well, with the clarity of the mixing bringing out in sharp relief the dexterity and expressiveness of the players.  It doesn’t hurt that, for the most part, the songs are adaptations of long-famous works, but the spins the group gives them manage to provide a nice balance of silliness and respect for the originals.  Not a hidden gem by any stretch, but uncommonly good by the standards of high-fidelity show-off records.

Here’s the cover art used for the Australian reissue/renaming.