Jazz Numbers/Jazzy Spies

[BettyLouSpence]

This segment played on early Sesame Street, starting in 1969. It's often called Jazzy Spies but the real name is Jazz Numbers. It essentially helped kids learn to count through song. You may recognize the voice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G5stWhPNyec

[donnie]

Wow, how about that? Now she really brought something unique to that song, didn’t she? No one else would have—or could have—done it that way.

[BettyLouSpence]

In case you wanted to know more about the making of these shorts:

Also known as “Jazzy Spies,” this 1969 series of animations was devoted to the numbers 2 through 10 (there was no film for “one” as it is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do), and was an essential element in Sesame’s Street’s first season. Highlights include the dream-like elevator door sequence of “2,” the Jackson 5 reference in “5,” and the racing fans in “10.”

Slick got involved through her first husband, Jerry Slick, who produced the segments for San Francisco-based animation studio Imagination, Inc. Headed by animator Jeff Hale, the company also produced the Pinball segments, as well as the famous anamorphic “Typewriter Guy,” the Ringmaster, and the Detective Man. (Hale, by the way, has a cameo as Augie “Ben” Doggie in the well-loved Lucas parody Hardware Wars.) He passed away last month at 92.

The delirious music was composed and performed by Columbia jazz artist Denny Zeitlin, who would go on to score the 1979 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Zeitlin plays both piano and clavinet; accompanying him is Bobby Natanson on drums and Mel Graves on bass. According to Zeitlin, Grace Slick overdubbed her vocals later.