On today's date in 1920, an evening of modern ballet in Paris included the premiere performance of a jazzy romp called "Le Boeuf sur le Toit," a title that literally translated means "The Bull of the Roof." The music was by a 27-year old French composer, Darius Milhaud, who had spent the last year of World War I as an attaché at the French embassy in Rio de Janeiro.

"Still haunted by my memories of Brazil," wrote Milhaud, "I assembled a few popular melodies, tangos, sambas and even a Portuguese fado and called this fantasia 'Le Boeuf sur le toit,' the title of a Brazilian popular song. I thought this music might be suitable for an accompaniment to one of Charlie Chaplin's films." But Milhaud's friend, the poet Jean Cocteau, convinced him this music would make a great ballet score, and concocted a surreal scenario worthy of a manic Chaplin two-reeler for its 1920 premiere.

Closer to our own day, in 1995, the American jazz guitarist Bill Frisell prepared a brand-new score for the classic 1925 Buster Keaton silent-screen comedy titled "Go West." Frisell's country blues sensibility resulted in a score as droll and deadpan as Buster Keaton's unique brand of cinematic comedy. Frisell and his band provided live accompaniment to Keaton's film at movie theaters in San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere around the country, and recorded the score for Nonesuch records.