The Cantina Band (Swing Version)

KungFuMaster
Published on Oct 9, 2021
The Evil Genius Orchestra performs The Cantina Band by John Williams. Featuring Joel Kleinberg, Carvin Knowles and Tanya Hiskens.

The Cantina Band could have been easy. But none of us wanted to just do a straight cover. With all our irreverent genre-bending efforts, it would just seem lazy to leave this one unscathed.

Then Joel Kleinberg came up with the idea to make it into a wide, loose swing. Taking a cue from Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong’s “The Great Summit” album, I arranged it for a small ensemble
and gave it a Harlem-meets-New-Orleans sound. Joel played the saxophone part in a single take on a half-hour lunch break from his day job, back in 1998. Far in the background, you might hear a little of Doreen Wiley singing along with the melody in places. We left it in, just to give it a little flavor…a little bit of what it was like in the studio back then.