Dan Zanes spent much of the early 2000s churning out exciting, theme-based children’s records that introduced the younger set to everything from gospel to salsa to sea shanties. On Little Nut Tree, Zanes & Friends go back to the “anything goes” formula, offering up 16 new songs built on a simple foundation of fun, and to top it all off, Little Nut Tree comes packaged in a colorful, durable (little hands make messes) board book. Recorded in Zanes’ native Brooklyn (the better to allow a revolving cast of his famous friends to chime in), the album opens with Zanes and Sharon Jones (of the Dap-Kings) waltzing through an amiable version of the Etta James classic “In the Basement.” Joan Osborne stops by to lend her pipes to the Zanes original “Everybody’s Going to Be Happy,” and Andrew Bird does the same, laying down some predictably solid fiddle work and otherworldly whistling to another Zanes-penned tune, “I Don’t Need No Sunny Skies.” Zanes, resplendent in a pumpkin orange suit and sporting a graying, Lyle Lovett/Kramer-inspired nest of hair, may be an unlikely pied piper, but there’s no denying the gleeful ease with which he summons his wee horde. – James Christopher Monger