Yuuya Mori -- Party Shimashou（パーティーしましょ）

Well, it's a Monday and the final day of winter (technically speaking, anyways) so I will confess to a guilty pleasure. Although this show was never part of my anime buddy's list, I have been watching the many excerpts from "Seitokai Yakuindomo"（生徒会役員共...Student Council Staff Members） over the past several months. This is an anime that's so overtly raunchy that various citizens from Springfield, Quahog in Rhode Island, and South Park, Colorado would probably drop their jaws at some of the gags. Heck, even the notorious Glenn Quagmire would most likely go "Whoa! Just how old are you kids?! Giggity-giggity."

The soundtrack from the show by pianist/arranger/composer Yuuya Mori（森悠也）is your usual run-of-the-mill music for a slice-of-life comedy anime but there is one track that has stood out. It is a very gentle and pleasant theme song for one of the semi-regular characters, the mild-mannered and somewhat pervy Chihiro Uomi（魚見チヒロ）titled simply "Party Shimashou" (Let's Have a Party).

It's always nice to hear a clarinet. Not because I used to play one in high school for 4 years and I certainly don't miss having the ol' licorice stick, but it's just nice to listen to one in a jazz piece (and a bossa-influenced one at that) once in a while that's not connected with a swing number.

"Party Shimashou"  reminds me a bit of the theme song from "The Critic" which was a mysteriously underappreciated ABC prime-time cartoon from the mid-1990s ("The Simpsons", I believe, was already well on its way to success, and "Family Guy" was still a few years away). And the composer for that lovely theme was none other than Hans Zimmer, the guy behind "The Dark Knight" trilogy and "Inception", and one of the fellows who had a hand in The Buggles, famous for the anthem for 80s pop music, "Video Killed The Radio Star".

I guess I'm just a sucker for clarinet music that is reminiscent of the Gershwins' "Rhapsody In Blue". Plus, as we get further into "Party Shimashou" , there is even something there that reminds me of Vince Guaraldi from all those classic "Peanuts" broadcasts. Indeed, I have the soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas".

But lest I get a little too far off on a tangent, let me say that I like "Party Shimashou" as a throwback to mellow music from decades past. Unless I have read the appearance of characters from "Seitokai Yakuindomo" wrong, I think 2012 might be the right year that the character first showed up on the show.