Uploaded November 2014 | Updated September 2026, 13 hours ago
"The original well-known recording of ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ was by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and was a No. 1 record for nine weeks in 1941," Alpert tells Billboard. "This song has a melody that I have always loved and often, out of nowhere, find myself whistling. My co-producer (Randy Badazz Alpert) and I wanted to create something very different, very cool and unique-sounding for our version of this classic song. We chose to mix electronic sounds and rhythms with orchestral strings. When I discovered that people were really liking this new record, I thought about maybe doing a video."
Once the decision was made to film a video, Randy had an idea on which direction to go. "He has always loved stop-motion animation and suggested a really cool new video/filmmaker named Kurt Nishimura who also loves experimenting with stop-motion video," says Alpert. "We knew we wanted a video that was artistically unique, very different, a bit psychedelic and engaging. When we played the song for Kurt he immediately lit up. Ideas and concepts were exchanged back and forth and in about four weeks' time we had our version of 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo,' the video."
The track is from Alpert's latest disc, In The Mood, released on Sept. 30. The project marked his second consecutive top 10 debut on the Jazz Albums chart and a spot in the Billboard 200.
"The original well-known recording of ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ was by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and was a No. 1 record for nine weeks in 1941," Alpert tells Billboard. "This song has a melody that I have always loved and often, out of nowhere, find myself whistling. My co-producer (Randy Badazz Alpert) and I wanted to create something very different, very cool and unique-sounding for our version of this classic song. We chose to mix electronic sounds and rhythms with orchestral strings. When I discovered that people were really liking this new record, I thought about maybe doing a video."
Once the decision was made to film a video, Randy had an idea on which direction to go. "He has always loved stop-motion animation and suggested a really cool new video/filmmaker named Kurt Nishimura who also loves experimenting with stop-motion video," says Alpert. "We knew we wanted a video that was artistically unique, very different, a bit psychedelic and engaging. When we played the song for Kurt he immediately lit up. Ideas and concepts were exchanged back and forth and in about four weeks' time we had our version of 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo,' the video."
The track is from Alpert's latest disc, In The Mood, released on Sept. 30. The project marked his second consecutive top 10 debut on the Jazz Albums chart and a spot in the Billboard 200.
