I can’t picture ‘Hey Arnold!’ without the music that Jim did,
series creator Craig Bartlett said.
Thirty years after the Nickelodeon animated series first premiered, the jazzy melodies that defined the show are hitting the road. Missouri native and composer Jim Lang is joining forces with Bartlett and a live band to bring the nostalgic sounds of “Hey Arnold!” to St. Louis on Tuesday as part of an ongoing nationwide tour.
When the award-winning series debuted in 1996, it followed Arnold, a fourth grader with a football-shaped head, living in the city alongside his friends. While Lang originally composed and recorded the grooving, synth-heavy score mostly on his own, the live performances feature a full jazz quintet known as the PS 118 All Stars—named after the fictional elementary school in the show.
I’d always wanted to try and make the music with a live band, which we only did a couple of times in the course of recording the score,
Lang said. Melodically the songs are recognizable, but it’s like I pumped a lot of air into them … and we play it kind of like a jazz set. It’s a quintet, and we improvise over it.
Alongside the instrumental tracks, Bartlett occasionally takes the microphone to perform fan-favorite tunes. This includes vocal numbers tied to recurring characters, such as songs by Dino Spumoni, a washed-up crooner modeled after Frank Sinatra.
I’m an animator, so it’s very funny to be on the road with these guys in a bus,
Bartlett said.
During the production of the 100-episode series, Lang drew heavy inspiration from Los Angeles radio stations. He and his team frequently listened to DJ Jason Bentley on KCRW playing acid jazz, which provided a natural, urban-flavored foundation for the program’s gritty yet kid-friendly neighborhood setting.
That distinctive urban atmosphere helped separate the show from other animated classics, most notably Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts.” While the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s melancholic soundtracks heavily influenced the team, Bartlett noted that finding a contemporary 1990s sound was essential to avoiding a mere imitation.
It’s kind of in all of our blood, and a lot of what we think of as jazz really comes from the blues, and the blues has this amazing quality of being both sad and funny at the same time,
Lang said. To me, it’s like the perfect cartoon music.
Although much of the show’s original music remains absent from major streaming platforms, dedicated millennial fans have kept the tunes alive through YouTube clips and limited-release vinyl records.
We’re just really living in a dream world because we’re playing stuff for an audience that already loves all the stuff that we’re playing,
Lang said. They have this really intimate connection with the music. So composing it was a lot of fun, but there’s absolutely nothing that compares to playing it live.
The PS 118 All Stars continue their nationwide schedule with this week’s St. Louis performance, bringing the distinct blend of muted trumpets, brushed drums, and hip-hop beats back to the Midwestern audiences who grew up watching city kids ride the bus and tangle with urban legends.
