Raymond Scott

Last night, I went with friends to a special concert, the Raymond Scott Centennial Event at the Loyola campus of Concordia University in Montreal. It was one of those concerts only a university could mount, because of the number of personnel involved, and the scope. It was a one-time only show, so I feel lucky to have caught it.

Raymond Scott was a composer and bandleader relatively few people remember. But everyone knows his music, as soundtracks for classic Warner Brothers cartoons. He actually never wrote the music for these cartoons. His tunes were part of Warner Brothers library, and were borrowed by cartoon composer Carl Stallings without credit. Scott's tunes such as Powerhouse and The Toy Trumpet sold millions in their day. But Scott was less interested in making money, or even leading a band, than he was in tinkering and innovating. Not a "people person" to say the least, he was happier building machines which were the ancestors of today's synthesizers, perhaps aiming to replace human musicians altogether.

The stage at Loyola's Oscar Peterson Concert hall was divided in two. On one side, the traditional big band. The other side held the electronica, operated by people in white coats.

Whitecoats, making music in Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. (photo by R. Gagnon):


With almost three hours of music, there was enough going on for several concerts. The big band stuff was exhilarating: it's fun music, and the musicians obviously enjoyed themselves. Towards the end of the first set there was a violin and piano suite that reminded me of French composers such as Ravel. It would have been a pleasure having a whole evening of either of these.

And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon (Photo by R. Gagnon):


Sprinkled throughout was Scott's electronic work, including his Soothing Sounds for Baby, which was marketed as a scientifically therapeutic program of sounds. Rather than soothing, the music with its repetitive tones tended to aggravate me: there's just not a lot of variation. But a baby, who was brought on stage to noodle with a keyboard, as seen below, seemed to like it just fine. Scott composed a lot for industrial films, and commercials, as well as experimental projects with future Muppet-master Jim Henson. There are hundreds of disks of material yet to be released. Producer Irwin Chusid, who gave a very enlightening but poorly-attended talk about Scott the night before, has dedicated himself to a life-long project of getting it out there. Scott's son, Stan Warnow, was shooting material for a documentary film about his father, which I'll be waiting for.

Baby (far right), jamming on some Soothing Sounds, with the Unireverse (Photo by R. Gagnon):