Nursery Rhymes to Sounds of Jazz

Audio

Jazz-a-Bye: The Swing Set. ProDUCKtunes. CD: $14. Ages infant to 6 years. www.jazzabye.com

Nursery rhymes are cool, smooth and mellow in these sophisticated instrumental arrangements of “Ring Around the Rosie,” “Hey Diddle, Diddle,” “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and other familiar childhood ditties to soothe jazz babies of all ages.

It’s the real thing, too, performed by a sterling quartet--John Casebier on drums, Dave Goldstein on piano, David Hughes on bass and Donny Sierer, who did the arrangements, on saxophone.

*

Buck Howdy: Skidaddle! Prairie Dog Entertainment. CD: $14. Ages 2 to 8. www.BuckHowdy.com

“Never try to ride a horsefly/ never, ever eat a cow pie/you can’t honk a saddle horn and make a tune/you can’t cook a meal on a firefly/you shouldn’t wear a suit with a railroad tie/if’n you wanna be a buckaroo.... “

Little buckaroos-in-training and their parents will be charmed by cowboy singer-guitarist Buck Howdy’s deceptively simple, sittin’-around-the-campfire style and the down-home guitar, banjo and fiddle accompaniment.

This singer’s fine-tuned melodious baritone, with its easy country twang, is oh-so-easy on the ear, and all the songs, from the cheerfully silly “Buckaroo” title track to the traditional, crooning cowboy tunes “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and “Don’t Fence Me In,” are warmed with appealing sincerity.