I discovered again the music of Raymond Scott, a composer and purveyor of electronic devices for 50 years. His music was well-known to fans of 1940s and 1950s Warner Brothers cartoons; millions of people knew his famous melodies. The man also pioneered the use of electronic devices for the sequencing of musical tones. He fell into obscurity, dying in 1994 after a series of heart attacks and strokes left him debilitated up until his death.His music is a diabolical mixture of big-band jazz, frantic bebop, European chamber music and sounds from an immense variety of sources. I have a sound file to the right you can click to enjoy a Raymond Scott snippet. I'd recommend the Manhattan Research Inc. recording. It's a grand collection of chamber music performed on his ever growing collection of electronic sound generating equipment. The once CD that aided in his revival of sorts in the early 1990s was the record Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights, a compilation of his most well-known cartoon themes all done in a big-band jazz orchestra format.
Some Links on Raymond Scott
- Official Website of Raymond Scott
- Wikipedia Entry on Raymond Scott
- Video of the Raymond Scott Quintette - War Dance for Wooden Indians
- Amazon.Com Collection of his CDs
Other news: Southern's webserver underwent an unauthorized and unintentional erasure of ALL data. Backups were old but they did the trick.
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