Thomas Starks Kids MusicChildren's Music Reviews & Lyrics

My son got Charlie Bird Counts to the Beat for his last birthday.  It’s a CD and picture book from Baby Loves Jazz. The style fits quite nicely in the endless repetition doesn’t drive mama mad category of children’s music. It was also the first thing my boy ever sang along to. If a song stirs your kid enough to drag a set of bongos out of their playroom, sit on an upturned bucket in front of the sound system and wield a set of flame-printed hard rock cafe drumsticks, you can say for sure that the music is inspiring them. Isn’t it the same drive that makes us, as adults, continuously enslaved to our music download sites?

Baby Loves Jazz players are all critically acclaimed and most hailing from New York City. The music for Charlie Bird was arranged by John Ellis on saxophones and Aaron Goldberg on piano. There is also Omer Avital on bass, Miles Griffith on vocals, Ari Hoenig on drums and Daniel Sadownick on percussion.

The album follows Charlie Bird, a blue owl who plays saxophone in the tree tops; throughout the day he counts different animals that he can see playing instruments. It is a pretty cool way of learning how to count, involving jazz music and the rhyme and repetition of the chorus. A nice touch is that the characters in the albums have similar names to famous jazz musicians, for example Charlie Bird and Duck Ellington.

My favourite track is Three Happy Hippos Play Harmonicas, which, if my barely trained musical mind is not failing me is in a three beat time signature. I’d also hazard a semi-educated guess that most of the tracks have the time signature relating to the number in the song title. My son particularly likes Five Busy Bees Play Bongos and the final mellow track where Charlie Bird counts from one to ten.

I couldn’t find any videos from Charlie Bird Counts to the Beat, but here’s the video for the song Purple by Baby Loves Jazz:

An almost three-year-old visitor came over to play the other day and she stood entranced for ages staring at the stereo when I played this album. It had stopped the kids from fighting and eventually they all started dancing. Jazz music saved the day. Baby Loves Jazz a good way to enable children and even toddlers to develop an appreciation for quality music at an early age.