Song of the Day 3/5: Melbourne Ska Orchestra, “Get Smart”

Feeling down? I find that there’s nothing like a little ska revival music to brighten my mood.

Today’s exhibit A: the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, an Aussie outfit that shows how well the genre takes to a big-band treatment. The band has been around for more than 20 years, and is part of a global ska underground (there’s a whole Latin-ska contingent out there, too). You’d have to search pretty hard to find another tune that features solos on both steel drum and baritone sax.

The “Get Smart” theme was written by Irving Szathmary, a child prodigy on piano who in the ’30s became an arranger for big bands led by Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Jack Teagarten, among others. He was the oldest of six children; his youngest brother was comedian Bill Dana. Szathmary, who was born Isadore Szathmary but changed his first name while still in his teens, demanded his brother adopt a stage name because “Don’t you know that I have a reputation in music?”

Dana was the one who introduced him to TV producer Leonard Stern, who commissioned Szathmary to write a theme song for the sitcom “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster.” That show was cancelled after one season, but Stern tapped Szathmary two years later for the theme to his James Bond parody. He went on to score every episode of “Get Smart.” When the show ended he retired to Malta, where he died in 1983.