Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott is one of my favorite composers of the early-mid 20th century. He had a “jazz” band that recorded a number of songs for CBS radio broadcasts. I put jazz in quotations because improv is a defining characteristic of jazz music, but Scott “wrote” out all the parts to be played by his musicians, and only had limited sections for ad-libbing. Wrote is also in quotations because he would play the parts he had come up with on the piano, and the musicians would listen and play it on their instruments, so nothing was actually written down. Here is his “quintette” playing some zippy little numbers:
“War Dance for Wooden Indians”
You may recognize powerhouse from early Warner Bros cartoons and a couple of Ren and Stimpy episodes. Scott recorded these pieces in the late 30s and maybe early 40s, and the rights were then obtained by Warner Bros and appropriated by the music director for the cartoons, Carl Stalling. So Scott’s melodies have become hardwired in people’s brains after their extensive use in the cartoons. Scott did not compose any of the music specifically to be used in the cartoons, but the frantic rhythms and wacky horn parts were particularly well suited for the job. Incidentally, the drummer for his band was Johnny Williams, the father of film composer John Williams.
In addition, Scott was also a technology hound, and in the 50s created a number of electronic instruments which were really among the first synthesizers. With these he created some of the earliest examples of fully electronically produced music, and sounds decades ahead of its time. He apparently worked on a couple of these instruments and/or songs with a young Jim Henson.
