Yes, you know him, you love him - this guy, the leader of the CBS Orchestra and composer of Powerhouse, the one, the only Raymond Scott!
Posted a birthday tribute to Raymond Scott way back in 2010.
Missed his 100th birthday by two years!
Love him madly for such amazing and catchy compositions as the following, all brought to the masses courtesy of one Carl W. Stalling. Massive and unending kudos, bravos and huzzahs to Irwin Chusid for his fantastic work on these restorations.
In the 1940's, on the radio, Raymond Scott and crew performed unconventionally swinging big band tunes, some of which re-imagine and revamp his 1930's "Quintette" compositions.
They present Scott's unique spin on the big band sound.
"Junkman's Shuffle" is especially catchy.
Did not, unfortunately, find a recording to post with Raymond Scott leading the CBS Orchestra as the CBS Jump Band on the show Jump Time in August 1942. This was the first racially integrated studio orchestra for radio at CBS and featured jazz giants Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Shavers.
Today's post spotlights a few of the 20 stellar tracks that were uploaded to the Works For Orchestra 1934-1960 volume 9 YouTube playlist in January of this very year. The following has a wistful Ellington/Strayhorn vibe.
Here, none other than mid-1930's #1 box office star Shirley Temple sings The Toy Trumpet!
Raymond Scott turned his attentions to inventing and developing new electronic instruments.
The Ectoplasm album, recorded in 1948-1949, features the innovative electronic instruments and synths Scott had been building for years, paired with the vocals of Dorothy Collins. It is up on YouTube in its entirety.
The Manhattan Research album presents further electronic music featuring instruments designed by Raymond Scott and the voice work of Dorothy Collins (Mrs. Scott).
The 1957 album This Time With Strings is as cool, highly creative and astonishing as all his other recordings. The incomparable Ron Carter, still with us and performing in 2026, rocks the upright bass on this album - he played with Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy and Raymond Scott!
We extend extended, respectful and extraterrestrial hat tips to Raymond Scott, Dorothy Collins and all the super talented musicians who worked with Scott's various ensembles.
We're kicking back this Labor Day weekend and enjoying some great music. Last week it was the varied sounds of the incomparable Declan McManus a.k.a. Elvis Costello. This week it's the equally incomparable Raymond Scott.
Much Raymond Scott material I had never heard before has been released in recent years. The albums are available on YouTube and all the streaming services, albeit apparently not on DVD or vinyl.
There is a rather amazing YouTube channel featuring tremendous music by Scott, including playlists for the Quintettes and his Orchestra.
The latest on these releases from Raymond Scott.net: "A new series of five 20-track digital compilations presents remastered recordings — many never previously released — of Raymond Scott's Works for Orchestra. Spanning 1935 to 1957, these 100 tracks highlight Scott's adventurous and eclectic approaches to composing and scoring for large ensembles.
Most tracks were transferred from discs in the Scott collection at the Marr Sound Archives, with digital restorations produced by Scott historian/curator Irwin Chusid.
The five sets include dozens of Scott originals — including some early Quintette titles arranged for orchestra — and a handful of cover versions. These collections are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all digital retail and streaming platforms."
"Raymond Scott: Quintettes or Less presents two 20-track digital (only) collections of mostly previously unreleased Scott recordings featuring the composer working with bands of less than seven players. Scott's original 1937–1939 "Quintette" actually had six members, so we're going with Raymond's math in curating these sets.
"Lots of surprises, including RSQ alternates and early versions, crisp radio performances, and previously unheard 1940s quintets and sextets. Curated and restored by Irwin Chusid. Both sets are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all digital retail and streaming platforms."
Do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have a single favorite musical composition to ever appear in a cartoon? Well, there may be a 45-way tie, but, without a doubt, atop the list would be Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet."
We've missed Jeff and the group a great deal since leaving California for upstate New York in 2016. Happy to see a new release from them. Happy Labor Day Weekend!
Chuck Jones elaborates on Carl Stalling's contributions to Warner Brothers cartoons.
Do we have a single favorite musical composition to ever appear in a cartoon? Well, there may be a 25-way tie, but, without a doubt, atop the list would be Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet."
Paramount among the outstanding interpreters of Raymond Scott's mellifluous compositions: Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet.
And, when it comes to cartoon music, we love how Jeff Sanford's band swings The Flintstones theme song!
Then there's Scott Bradley of MGM cartoon fame. We thank "Soundtrack Fred" for the following compilation.
Wish I could have attended this splendid concert of Scott Bradley's music by BBC Proms.
Another group we'd LOVE to see that rocks the Rocky The Flying Squirrel music: San Diego's outstanding Hillcrest Wind Ensemble.
And then there's the great Darrell Calker, prolific composer for both animated cartoons and live-action features.
When Calker's music was not just background, but featured prominently in the cartoons he scored for Walter Lantz and Screen Gems - a la Stalling and Bradley - it could be quite wonderful, 1940's style.
His scores are a driving force in the Lantz Studio's Swing Symphonies and Musical Miniatures.
Calker's scores are especially noteworthy in the Walter Lantz "Cartunes" directed by Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy.
The following Swing Symphony features trombonist, vocalist and frequent Louis Armstrong bandmate Jack Teagarden, who always sounds great.
Speaking yet again of the Cartoon Research website, am right now reading an excellent article about the themes from Paramount cartoons, Famous (Cartoon) Music - prompting this writer to admit his unabashed fondness for the Paramount Noveltoons theme song.
Sometimes, this cartoonologist grudgingly likes the Noveltoons - well, at least through the 1945-1946 season or the departure of gonzo animator Jim Tyer for Terrytoons, whichever came first - but feel the series boasts the second cartooniest of ultra-cartoony opening themes.
One post-1946 Noveltoon with a Winston Sharples score that belongs in the toon music discussion is Hep Cat Symphony (1949). It's a cross between "cat chases mouse" and the "cartoon concert" sub-genre, best exemplified by Disney's The Band Concert and Symphony Hour, Bugs Bunny in Rhapsody Rabbit and Tom & Jerry in The Cat Concerto.
It's an understatement that the very tight production schedules at Famous Studios were less than conducive to good comedy, so Hep Cat Symphony is among those rare cases when talented storymen Carl Meyer and Jack Mercer get an opportunity to break formula and write clever and funny gags.
In closing, here is a delightfully incoherent cartoon from the series featuring the cartooniest opening theme song, bar none: the dreaded Columbia Phantasies. It makes NO SENSE, even by 1940's cartoon standards - and that's why the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog likes it!
Today, composer-saxophonist-educator Jeff Sanford leads his nonet of virtuoso musicians through a rip-roaring performance at Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco's Glen Park.
Selections from the Cartoon Jazz Nonet's eclectic repertoire of compositions by Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton, John Kirby and other geniuses of mid-20th century music share the bill with new compositions by composer Lenny Carlson and a host of more modern-day movie music classics as well.
The Place: Bird & Beckett on 653 Chenery Street Showtime: 7:30 p.m.
Presented by the Jazz Philanthropists Union and the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project with support from Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund! $25 cover charge. $10 for students, musicians, low income.
As our friend and collaborator Robert Emmett from KFJC-FM likes to say, silent films are never silent, so, this Friday night, vintage films and cartoons produced 100 years ago will be accompanied live by the music of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet at Angelica's in downtown Redwood City!
From the press release:
Angelica's and Montuno Productions present Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet, a smaller version of the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra, which Jeff Sanford organized in 2003 to play the eccentric, highly entertaining and challenging music of American composer Raymond Scott. This music is known to millions around the world—it was the soundtrack to 120 classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.
The vision of the Septet extends far beyond Raymond Scott’s music these days. Among other icons, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington are represented, as is Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet in the 1930s.
Since 2009, Lenny Carlson has been composer-in-residence for both the Septet and the Orchestra.
Lenny has taken the spirit of Raymond Scott and updated it, combining classical and jazz elements with klezmer and folk styles from around the world.
The show will also feature a comedy and magic performance. Old school 16mm films will be presented by film historian Paul Etcheverry.
The Date: Friday August 5, 2016 Showtime: 8:30 p.m. The Place: Angelica's, 863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA
If you wish to be seated with another ticket purchasing customer please send a request to info@angelicasllc.com.
Band members will be interviewed on KALW-FM on Thursday (August 4) at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. For more info, see: Angelica's website
Cartoon Jazz Orchestra official website
Cartoon Jazz Orchestra Facebook page
As far as Mr. Blogmeister goes, the shopping mega-malls, department stores and big box monstrosities can all go commit a physically impossible sexual act, since this 2013 Christmas season, The Raymond Scott Archives is offering SUCH-A-DEAL involving Scott's classic Manhattan Research, Inc. album.
The groundbreaking album features Mr. Scott playing electronic instruments he designed, with Dorothy Collins on vocals. Did Brian Eno and Pere Ubu's Allen Ravenstine hear this album?
I'll listen to Manhattan Research with pleasure, wonder if Ray had coffee with Morton Subotnick and/or Frank Zappa and extend a tip of the Jack Buchanan-Fred Astaire-Jimmie Hatlo top hat to Raymond Scott archivist and keeper of the Powerhouse flame Jeff E. Winner.
And I'll also watch this clip!
THIS AND ALL RAYMOND SCOTT ALBUMS, plus a few days to get away from it all with Madame Blogmeister (that means the inevitable mandatory viewings of Cockeyed Cavaliers Bogey and Eddie Robinson in Brother Orchid (puncuated by gratuitous Eddie G. Robinson impersonations), preceded by the Leo n' Charley comedy masterpiece Mighty Like A Moose, AND a chance for me personally to live another day reasonably healthy plus at least one moment in 2014 of Peace On Earth - is what Your Correspondent wants for Christmas.
The 20th Century was graced by many musical innovators, and among the most fascinating of them was Raymond Scott. While I am way too damn lazy to write a blog, and thus, two years late to celebrate Scott's centenary, today's entry toasts his lengthy, restlessly creative, varied and one-of-a-kind career as composer, bandleader, arranger, orchestra conductor and inventor of such electronic instruments as the Electronium.
The striking original compositions performed by his 1930's ensemble, The Raymond Scott Quintette, were eventually licensed by Warner Brothers for use in their cartoons.
The Raymond Scott Quintette
Stamped in the collective consciousness via the six minute masterpieces directed by Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson and Art Davis (among other animation luminaries), these amazing songs are available on the Restless Nights And Turkish Twilights and Microphone Music CDs.
Raymond Scott's contributions to Carl Stalling's inspired soundtracks for Looney Tunes And Merrie Melodies were just one accomplishment from a career spanning four decades.
We close with "Lightworks" from the Manhattan Research, Inc. album, with Dorothy Collins on vocals and Raymond playing electronic instruments he designed, and the electronic music composition, "Little Miss Echo" (which makes me wonder if Brian Eno and Pere Ubu's Allen Ravenstine were fans of Scott's early synth work).
It's Labor Day Weekend, so I'm really too lazy to write today. So here's a clip from Happy Landing (1938) featuring the music of the amazing Raymond Scott Quintette and tapdancers dressed in Sitting Bull costumes.
So dear readers, however many or few, have a great weekend! If you're gainfully employed, enjoy and relish the time off. If you're out of work, I sincerely hope that paying and fulfilling employment (or an inspirational entrepreneurial brainstorm) comes soon!
Continuing the "harmonica obsession" thread, here are The Philharmonicas, playing an amazing cover of Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" in The Dipsy Doodler (1940), a Vitaphone Melody Master musical short starring Larry Clinton (no relation to Bill) and His Orchestra.
What I want to know now is where to find a clip of Jean "Toots" Theilemanns performing Thelonious Monk's finger-and-brain busting "Skippy", a Mount Everest for musicians!
