JEREMY COHEN, FIRST VIOLINIST of the exuberantly eclectic Quartet San Francisco and proprietor of the private label on which this collection appears, has put together a lively Grammy-nominated program that, in part, celebrates the 100th anniversary of composer Raymond Scott’s birth. Unless you remember the early 1950s, you probably don’t know Scott’s name, but you certainly know some of his music.

Scott worked at CBS radio in the 1930s, running an oddball jazz combo called the Raymond Scott Quintette and playing witty originals with such eccentric titles as “Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals.” Scott went on to other things, including serving as bandleader on Your Hit Parade, writing music for Broadway, assembling (in 1946) one of the world’s first electronic-music studios, and inventing one of the first analog synthesizers. In 1943, Warner Bros. bought the rights to Scott’s back catalog, and composer Carl Stalling began working Scott’s maniacal music into popular cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and pals. Scott’s “Powerhouse” was sure to back-up action in industrial settings, and decades later it accompanied the animated antics of the popular MTV cartoon characters Ren and Stimpy.

“Powerhouse” and six other Scott originals are scattered through this entertainingly unfocused romp with Quartet San Francisco. The rest of the track list ranges from Chick Corea’s “Spain” (in a performance that actually sounds Spanish, unlike a lot of the tune’s more famous jazz treatments) through Leonard Bernstein’s “Gee, Officer Krupke” (from West Side Story) to funkified items by the Average White Band and Tower of Power.

Now you know why the disc is called Whirled Chamber Music.

Whirled, for sure, but also great chamber-music playing. Quartet San Francisco can handle just about anything; indeed, the tougher something is to play, the more fun the musicians seem to have. And beyond that, the group strives to play each piece in the style in which it was composed. They know how to hook, slide, swing, or dig in to bring out the precise character of every item. Despite the string-quartet setting, none of this ever sounds prissy or unintentionally silly. Quartet San Francisco has the spirit and the chops for a wild spin through jazz, funk, rock, bluegrass, and whatever the heck you call the music of Raymond Scott. Quartet San Francisco can handle just about anything.

—James Reel