| Raymond Scott |
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Information AboutRaymond Scott |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT RAYMOND SCOTT | |
| american electronic musicians | |
| american composers | |
| 1908 births | |
| 1994 deaths | |
| electronic music pioneers | |
| juilliard school of music alumni | |
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Scott's music is most familiar from its use in Warner Brothers Animated Cartoons . His composition "Powerhouse" was used in over 40 classic WB animated features, and is instantly familiar to any earthling over the age of 4. He also was an orchestra conductor, big band leader, film and TV composer, and innovator in Electronic Music . A 1931 graduate of the Juilliard School Of Music , Scott began his professional career as a pianist for the CBS Radio house band. In 1936, while at CBS, he formed his band, the Raymond Scott Quintette. It was a six-piece group, but the puckish Scott thought ''quintette'' (his spelling), sounded "crisper" and told a reporter he feared that "calling it a 'sextet' might get your mind off music". The quintette was an attempt to revitalize Swing music through tight, busy arrangements and reduced reliance on Improvisation . Scott called his musical style "descriptive jazz," and gave his pieces titles like "New Year's Eve in a Haunted House," "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," and "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner." While popular with the public, Jazz audiences disdained it as novelty music. Scott believed strongly in composing and playing by ear. He composed his pieces by humming phrases to instrumentalists in his ensemble. During the process of putting a composition together, his players might improvise, but, once complete, the piece was fixed and no further alteration was permitted. It was all done in the ear and in the head; his players memorized their parts; and no notes were written down. The quintette performed from 1937 to 1939 and made recordings many of which were hits at the time. Scott never composed a note that he intended for use in cartoons. According to his wife, not only did he not compose for cartoons, he did not watch them either. But in 1943, the music found a home at Warner Brothers , where music director Carl Stalling was a Scott fan. Warner Brothers purchased Scott's music publishing rights and proceeded to allow Stalling to quote the music extensively in his cartoon scores. Besides being used in ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'', Scott's tunes have propelled the hijinks of ''The Simpsons'', ''Ren and Stimpy'', ''Animaniacs'', ''The Oblongs'', ''Batfink'', and ''Duckman'' cartoons. "Powerhouse" was quoted ten times in the 2003 full-length WB feature ''Looney Tunes: Back in Action''. " Powerhouse " has also been used as a theme for the Cartoon Network , as well has having been quoted by the Rock Band Rush in their 1978 song "La Villa Strangiato" on their '' Hemispheres '' album, and reinterpereted as the song "Bus to Beelzebub" by the New York band Soul Coughing , who have made extensive use of Raymond Scott compositions, particularly Scott's "The Penguin" in their song "Disseminated". They Might Be Giants have also incorporated " Powerhouse " into their music, breifly including it in their song "Rhythm Section Want Ad" from their album '' Lincoln '' Outside of cartoon soundtracks, one of his best-known compositions is "The Toy Trumpet," a cheerful pop-music confection that is instantly recognizable to many people who cannot name the title or composer. In the 1938 film ''Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm'', Shirley Temple sings a version of the song with lyrics. Another Scott composition, "In An Eighteenth-Century Drawing Room," is an unremarkable but commercially successful pop adaptation of the opening theme from Mozart's Piano Sonata In C, K. 545 . Opening bars of melody line of "The Toy Trumpet" Scott was an early Electronic Music pioneer. As well as designing novel instruments such as the Clavivox and Electronium , he recorded records of entirely electronic music, such as 1963's ground-breaking '' Soothing Sounds For Baby '', a series of albums designed to lull infants to sleep, and which today sounds uncannily like the ambient work of Tangerine Dream or Brian Eno from the mid 1970's. In those days, his electronic music did not find much favor with the record-buying public, but his electronics lab, "Manhattan Research, Inc." had considerable success in providing striking, ear-catching sonic textures for broadcast commercials. He served as director of Motown 's electronic music and research department from 1972 to 1977. Bob Moog , developer of the Moog Synthesizer , met Scott in the 1950s, designed circuits for him in the 1960s, and acknowledged him as an important influence. Scott developed the first devices capable of producing a series of electronic tones automatically in a sequence. Scott credits himself as inventor of the Sequencer (although these electromechanical devices, with motors moving photocells past lights, bore little resemblance to the all-electronic sequencers of the late sixties). A number of Scott's original recordings have been re-released on such albums as ''Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights'' (Sony Legacy) and ''Microphone Music'' (Basta), both featuring the 1937-39 RS Quintette; and ''Manhattan Research, Inc.'' (Basta), which showcases Scott's groundbreaking electronic works from the 1950s and '60s on two CDs (the package includes a 144-page hardcover book). In the mid-1990s, the Beau Hunks (a Dutch ensemble originally formed to perform music created by Leroy Shield for the Laurel And Hardy movies) released two albums of Scott's music. Clarinetist Don Byron has recorded and performed his music, as has the Kronos Quartet . The New York-based septet The Raymond Scott Orchestrette has recorded an album and does occasional performances of radically modernistic interpretations of Scott compositions. QUOTATIONS
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