About The Album

and The Artists 

The Album

When we were kids, the quantity of music produced expressly for children was relatively small, but the quality of much of the music and production was incredibly high. Those records were truly musical events, with a scale and a purpose all their own.

We wanted to bring that feeling back, and we also wanted to incorporate the styles of music our parents and grandparents listened to when we were growing up.

What we arrived at was a warm smash of musical heritage spanning the decades from the 1920s through the 1960s. It’s vintage music reimagined for modern audiences, and it’s bilingual, too!

This album is probably not what first comes to mind when most people think of children’s music. Our musicians come from vastly different backgrounds and are recognized masters of a variety of genres and styles. This is as much a jazz and swing album for everyone as it is a children’s record.

The record has a wonderfully nostalgic vibe, and, like much classic childhood nostalgia, it feels cozy and familiar sometimes, crazy and buoyant at certain moments, and even, at points, a bit melancholy. Swingset Serenade brings grownups the delightful feeling of having just found something they’d forgotten they’d lost – it’s a very charming piece of magic. For kids, the album is immersive, approachable, clever, and fun; there are dozens of musical jokes and motifs hidden throughout, and it’s designed for kids to enjoy more aspects of the record as they grow and develop into young music lovers and musicians.

We spent years developing this album and recording it, and it’s as complete and joyous as we could make it. We hope you and yours enjoy it for many years to come - thank you for listening!!

Meet Melanie and Tom!

  • One of my earliest musical experiences was listening to my grandfather in the Philippines play jazz standards on the ukulele. Music was the one consistent means of expression I had when, still quite young, I moved back to the United States to a different culture and climate. Singing to myself about daily life was one way I processed these changes.

    Most of the songs on my first two albums were simply an extension of what I naturally did — sing about daily life. With the birth of my daughter, my life, more than ever, became what others have described as a “living musical”. My albums "Alphabet Parade" and "Rainbow Lemonade" are in many ways a history of how I interacted with my young child.

    As a Spanish teacher I apply the same “sing-a-song” approach in the classroom. My students have come to expect a song with every lesson and often ask me to play my guitar. As a tribute to them, "Swingset Serenade" includes three songs in Spanish.

    "Swingset Serenade" also beautifully marks the passage of time. Now I see the wonder of childhood and the joy of learning that the album captures reflected in the exuberance of my daughter’s young child.

  • I've been writing playful and engaging music for the past twenty-five years. As a young musician, I loved ragtime, blues, and jazz, which grew into an exploration of other twentieth century roots music throughout the hemisphere, including salsa, ska, rocksteady, reggae, samba, bossa nova, and Tropicalia. After a formal music education, I began a career as a touring musician, moving into composing, arranging, and studio production when artists began to ask me to arrange songs for their records.

    To date, I've had the joy of working on over a hundred albums and projects, ranging from children’s album appearances to works performed by nationally recognized jazz ensembles. When I'm not making music, I'm working on house projects of any and every size with my wife Corey and our cats Julia and Martha.