Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994)[1] was an American composer, band leader, pianist, record producer, and inventor of electronic instruments.
For other people with the same name, see Ray Scott.
Raymond Scott
Harry Warnow
September 10, 1908
New York City, U.S.
February 8, 1994 (aged 85)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Piano
- celeste
- electronics
1931–1985
Mark Warnow (brother)
Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early pioneer of electronica. Though Scott never scored cartoon soundtracks, his music is familiar to millions because Carl Stalling adapted it in over 120 Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and other Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. His compositions may also be heard in The Ren and Stimpy Show (which uses Scott's recordings in twelve episodes), The Simpsons, Duckman, Animaniacs, The Oblongs, Batfink, Puppetoons, SpongeBob SquarePants and Bluey. The only time he composed to accompany animation was three 20-second commercial jingles for County Fair Bread in 1962.
Middle career[edit]
After serving as music director for programs Broadway Bandbox from 1942 to 1944, Scott left the network. He composed and arranged music (with lyrics by Bernie Hanighen) for the 1946 Broadway musical Lute Song starring Mary Martin and Yul Brynner.
In the late 1940s, contemporaneous with guitarist Les Paul's studio work with Mary Ford, Scott began recording pop songs using the layered multi-tracked vocals of his second wife, singer Dorothy Collins. A number of these were commercially released, but the technique failed to earn him the chart success of Les Paul and Mary Ford.
In 1948, Scott formed a six-man "quintet" which served for several months as house band for the CBS radio program Herb Shriner Time. The group made studio recordings, some of which were released on Scott's short-lived Master Records label. This was not the Irving Mills-owned label of the same name; Scott allegedly named his label in tribute to the defunct Mills enterprise.
When his brother Mark Warnow died in 1949, Scott succeeded him as orchestra leader on the CBS Radio show Your Hit Parade . During the following year, the show moved to NBC Television, and Scott continued to lead the orchestra until 1957. Collins was a featured singer on Your Hit Parade. The high-profile position paid well, but Scott considered it strictly a "rent gig" and used his salary to finance his electronic music research out of the limelight.
In 1950, Scott composed his first—and only known—classical work, entitled Suite for Violin and Piano. The five-movement suite was performed at Carnegie Hall on February 7, 1950, by violinist Arnold Eidus and pianist Carlo Bussotti, who recorded the work.[4])
In 1958, while serving as an A&R director for Everest, Scott produced singer Gloria Lynne's album Miss Gloria Lynne.[5] The sidemen included many of the same session players (e.g., Milt Hinton, Sam Taylor, George Duvivier, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Eddie Costa, Kenny Burrell, Wild Bill Davis) who participated in Scott's 1959 Secret 7 recording project.
The cartoon connection[edit]
In 1943, Scott sold his music publishing to Warner Bros., who allowed Carl Stalling, music director for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, to adapt anything in the Warner music catalog.
Stalling began peppering his cartoon scores with Scott quotes, such as in The Great Piggy Bank Robbery. Scott's tunes have been licensed to The Simpsons, The Ren and Stimpy Show, Animaniacs, The Oblongs, Batfink, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Duckman. "Powerhouse" was quoted ten times in the Warner Brothers feature Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003).[17]
Obscurity and rediscovery[edit]
Interest in his work revived in the early 1990s, after Irwin Chusid met Raymond and his wife Mitzi at their home in California and discovered a collection of unreleased recordings of rehearsals and studio sessions.[18] In 1992, the release of Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights by Columbia, produced by Irwin Chusid with Hal Willner as executive producer, was the first major-label compilation by his 1937–39 six-man quintet. A year earlier, Chusid and Will Friedwald produced an album of quintet broadcasts titled The Man Who Made Cartoons Swing for Stash. The director of The Ren & Stimpy Show, John Kricfalusi, began using quintet recordings. In the late-1990s, The Beau Hunks, a Dutch ensemble that performed music written by Leroy Shield for Laurel and Hardy movies, released two albums of by Scott's sextet: Celebration on the Planet Mars and Manhattan Minuet (both released by Basta Audio-Visuals). Members of The Beau Hunks (reconfigured as a "Saxtet", then a "Soctette") performed and recorded Scott works, sometimes in collaboration with the Metropole Orchestra.
The posthumously released Manhattan Research Inc. (Basta, 2000, co-produced by Gert-Jan Blom and Jeff Winner) showcases Scott's pioneering electronic works from the 1950s and 1960s on two CDs (the package includes a 144-page hardcover book). Microphone Music (Basta, 2002, produced by Irwin Chusid with Blom and Winner as project advisors), explores the original Scott Quintette's work. The 2008 CD release Ectoplasm (Basta) chronicles a second (1948–49) incarnation of the six-man "quintet" format, with Scott's wife Dorothy Collins singing on several tracks. In June 2017, Basta issued a 3-LP/2-CD set entitled Three Willow Park: Electronic Music from Inner Space, featuring 61 unreleased electronic recordings made by Scott between 1961 and 1971 (Basta, 2017, produced by Gert-Jan Blom, Irwin Chusid, and Jeff Winner).[17] AllMusic named the set one of the "Best Compilations of 2017".[19]
Devo founding member Mark Mothersbaugh, through his company Mutato Muzika, purchased Scott's only (non-functioning) Electronium in 1996 with the intention of restoring it.[11][20]
J Dilla sampled "Lightworks" and "Bendix 1: The Tomorrow People" for the track "Lightworks" and "Sprite: Melonball Bounce" for the track "Workinonit" on his final album Donuts.
In 2023, Scott received a posthumous Grammy Award nomination in the Best Instrumental Composition category for "Cutey and the Dragon." The work was begun on paper by Scott in 1982 and completed in 2022 by Gordon Goodwin (who also received a nomination as co-composer). Its debut recording appears on the 2023 album Raymond Scott Reimagined by Quartet San Francisco and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band.[21][22]
Death[edit]
On February 8, 1994, Scott died of pneumonia in North Hills, Los Angeles, California.
Films and television[edit]
In addition to Warner Brothers cartoons (which were intended for theatrical screening), the following films include recordings or works composed or co-composed by Scott: Nothing Sacred (1937, various adapted standards); Ali Baba Goes to Town (1938, "Twilight in Turkey" and "Arabania"); Happy Landing (1938, "War Dance for Wooden Indians"); Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938, "The Toy Trumpet"; with special lyrics by Jack Lawrence); Just Around the Corner (1938, "Brass Buttons and Epaulettes" [performed by Scott's Quintette, but not composed by Scott]); Sally, Irene and Mary (1938, "Minuet in Jazz"); Bells of Rosarita (1945, "Singing Down the Road"); Not Wanted (1949, theme and orchestrations); The West Point Story (1950, "The Toy Trumpet"); Storm Warning (1951, "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals"); The Trouble with Harry (1955, "Flagging the Train to Tuscaloosa"; words by Mack David); Never Love a Stranger (1958, score); The Pusher (1960, score); Clean and Sober (1988, "Singing Down the Road"); Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989, "Powerhouse" [uncredited, affirmed in out-of-court settlement]); Search and Destroy (1995, "Moment Whimsical"); Funny Bones (1995, "The Penguin"); Lulu on the Bridge (1998, "Devil Drums"); Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003, "Powerhouse"); Starsky and Hutch (2005, "Dinner Music for Pack of Hungry Cannibals"); RocknRolla (2008, "Powerhouse"); Best of Enemies (2015, "Portofino"); The Space Between Us (2017, "Song of India"); and Won't You Be My Neighbor (2018, "Waltz of the Diddles").[23]
In April 2021, Scott's "Powerhouse" was used in the CBS TV show Young Sheldon, in the opening scene of the episode "Mitch's Son and the Unconditional Approval of a Government Agency" (season 4, ep. 14).[24]
Scott's son, film editor Stan Warnow, released the documentary Deconstructing Dad: The Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott in 2010.[25][26]