Front Cover
It was an unusual album, physically, as it was cut the size of a 45 rpm record, but plays at 33 1/3 rpm. This is Side 1:
It was also an unusual record in that the cover opened like a book. Here is the inside:
Note the mock promotion of other Jay Ward records on the lower left. (Edwin Walker, for those of you not old enough to remember, was an army general known for his right wing views and for being an early target of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Purple Onion was a West Coast club where rock and comedy greats - such as Mort Sahl and Woody Allen - worked, Pierre Salinger was John Kennedy's press secretary, and Lawrence Spivak was the original host of Meet the Press.)
Jay and Allan wrote hysterical liner notes, which I've reprinted in full here:
The time: 12:45 AM - - the date: June 14, 1962 - - the temperature: 12 degrees above zero - - the place: The 1st Annual Moosylvania Jazz Festival. Wee Bonnie Baker had just left the stand after a three-hour stint that had left the audience of 18 hardy jazz buffs limp, bur still screaming for more. Backstage, impresario Jay Ward, promoter of the event, had just received a phone call from Albert White and the Morris Plan Masters of Melody, who were to appear next on the program in a musical pageant saluting the announcement of Moosylvania's application for state-hood. Entitled "A Musical Pageant Saluting the Announcement of Moosylvania's Application For Statehood'', this was to be the highlight of the entire festival. It seems that their chartered bus had encountered a midsummer blizzard about seven mites from the Bullwinkle Bowl, where the festival was being held, and they were trapped in an eight foot snowdrift. Undismayed by this unlucky turn of events , the nimble-minded Ward quickly recruited a ''pick-up" band and glee club from the audience, including three comb-and-tissue paper players, a musical bottle virtuoso, and a Samoan conch-shell blower. With only five minutes rehearsal backstage, the makeshift ensemble took their places before the skeptical audience. Before the closing notes of their first number were completed, cheers and shouts of "go man, go!'' and ''Lynch 'em!" rocked the famous old amphitheatre. A new jazz legend was born! Choked with emotion, Ward was moved to make a feeling-packed 6 hour speech, none of which, luckily, is contained herein. I feel that the electricity and excitement of this magic night is captured magnificently on this recording, which, due to lack of sales, is destined to become a collector's item.--- Notes by
Horace Gene Dingle
Jazz and Woodcraft Editor
"Boys' Life"
The technical notes are a howl, too:
The back cover