Amber Alert

"Bernstein," a German name, means "amber" in English. In the early 1940s, a young composer-conductor in New York working under the pseudonym "Lenny Amber" produced piano transcriptions and arrangements of popular tunes. Among the titles arranged by young "Lenny" Bernstein are four compositions by Raymond Scott: "Powerhouse," "The Penguin," "Toy Trumpet," and "In an 18th Century Drawing Room." The sheet music is available for FREE download at RaymondScott.net. You can access the complete folder of Scott works arranged for piano and organ here. 

February 20, 1937

Raymond Scott music travels at various velocities. It can be delivered on LPs that spin at 33-1/3 revolutions per minute. There are a handful of rare 45 rpm singles. His electronic music was captured on tape that rolled at 3-3/4, 7-1/2, or 15 inches per second. The rotational speed of a Basta compact disc of Scott's Soothing Sounds for Baby varies from 210 rpm (outer edge) to 480 (inner edge). But Scott's music first came to prominence on fragile platters that whirled at 78 rpm.

It is therefore fitting that 78 years ago today, Raymond Scott entered a New York studio with his legendary Quintette to record his first commercial sides. It was a productive day. While no one knows how long the February 20, 1937 session lasted, by the time Scott and his cohorts mopped their brows and went home, they had recorded two timeless classics — "Minuet in Jazz" and "Twilight in Turkey" — and two immortal works — "The Toy Trumpet" and "Powerhouse." Not only were these four recordings all approved for commercial release, they are inarguably the definitive versions of all four works.

How long did it take Brian Wilson to complete Smile? Is it done yet?

Al Brackman, an associate producer for the Master label, which signed the RSQ, told historian Michèle Wood: "Our studio at 1776 Broadway was basically just an office with a seven- or eight-foot ceiling. There was a long hall leading to it from the elevators. Opposite the office door, there was a men's room lined with tiles. Scott insisted on recording at night so he could put one mike in the hall and another in the men's room. With that and the other mikes in the office he achieved what they call 'echo' and gave the recordings a big auditorium sound."

We don't have any photos of that makeshift Broadway chamber, but we have lots of photos of the RSQ during radio gigs (see above—saxophonist Dave Harris was cropped out by the cameraman). 

The first RSQ release was "Twilight in Turkey," backed by "Minuet in Jazz." The disc sold out within a week. "It had nothing to compete with it," said Brackman. "If you liked Scott, you had to buy Scott."

Fans first bought "Powerhouse" on the Master label, which went bankrupt in late 1937. The track was reissued on Brunswick in 1938, and in 1939 on Columbia. Same recording each time.

Shirley Temple (1928-2014)

We note the passing of legendary actress Shirley Temple yesterday at age 85. Despite her countless starring roles in major motion pictures, she is today best-known as the inventor of the non-alcoholic cocktail. Nonetheless, she has a Raymond Scott connection—or two. The first she knew about. The second, probably not.

A young (age 9) Shirley tap-danced with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson to Raymond Scott's "Toy Trumpet" in the 1937 film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (YouTube clip here.) The scene was apparently captured in one continuous take. The Raymond Scott Quintette performed the tune, but do not appear on camera (though they do appear in costume in the above publicity still).

After their breakout radio and recording success in New York in 1937, Raymond and his band were signed to 20th Century-Fox and whisked off to Hollywood. They provided music for and sometimes appeared in a half-dozen or so films with such major stars as Carole Lombard, Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor, and Sonja Henie. Scott reportedly disliked the film industry, which he found shallow. About studio execs he once griped, "They think everything is wonderful." The costumes in the above photo were no doubt another reason for Scott to despise Tinseltown. "We are musicians," he groused, "not comedians."

The Marr Archives, which houses the Raymond Scott collection, includes a disc with an unfinished composition entitled "Shirley's Tune." It dates from the RSQ's Hollywood sojourn, but the unreleased work never made it into the film and its purpose remains a mystery. However, it was sampled by The Bran Flakes on the forthcoming remix album Raymond Scott Rewired, on the track "Shirley's Temple Bells," which you can hear on Soundcloud.

75 years ago today, in 1937...

1937 was a memorable year in US history. Disney released SNOW WHITE, the first full-color, feature-length animated movie. The Hindenburg disaster occurred on May 6. Howard Hughes established a record by flying from LA to NYC in under 8 hours. The Golden Gate Bridge opened in San Francisco. Amelia Earhart disappeared. George Gershwin died. And Daffy Duck was born — on April 17, in the animated short "Porky's Duck Hunt," directed by Tex Avery for the LOONEY TUNES series. This last factoid dovetails with a coincidence that would immortalize Raymond Scott's music in pop culture.

Exactly 75 years ago today, Raymond Scott recorded his iconic hit tune, "Powerhouse." On the same date, following 8 months of rehearsals with his Quintette at CBS, he also recorded "Twilight In Turkey," "Minuet In Jazz," and "The Toy Trumpet" — not a bad day's work. The 27 year-old couldn't have known at the time, but these compositions jump-started his stellar career, and came to underscore cartoon antics for future generations.

To celebrate the milestone, check out this collection of 75 YouTube clips of Scott's classic "Powerhouse," here — and see details about our year-long 75th anniversary events schedule here.

P.S. Thank you to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing:
http://boingboing.net/2012/02/20/happy-75th-birthday-to-raymond.html

LEONARD BERNSTEIN Arrangements: "2 Pianos, 4 Hands"

In 1943, LEONARD BERNSTEIN wrote this piano duet arrangement of Raymond Scott's 1938 hit tune, "In An 18th Century Drawing Room," published under Bernstein's pseudonym Lenny Amber. (Bernstein is a German and Jewish name meaning "amber.") Bernstein, who, according to THE NEW YORK TIMES, was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history," also arranged versions of Scott's classics, "Huckleberry Duck," "The Toy Trumpet," "The Penguin," and "Powerhouse," seen below:

2 New Vinyl Album Reissues —Party Like It's 1959!

Good news for wax maniacs: to celebrate the 75th ANNIVERSARY of Raymond Scott's music, the Basta Audio-Visuals label (working with the RS Archives) has reissued a pair of classic Scott 1950s LPs in 180-gram 12" vinyl format. Both meticulously replicate the original artwork in every detail.

"THE UNEXPECTED" by Raymond Scott & The Secret Seven — While serving as an A&R director for Everest Records in 1958, Raymond Scott produced an album for singer Gloria Lynne. The LP's sidemen included many of the same session players on Scott's mysterious 1959 album, "THE UNEXPECTED" — performed by his all-star jazz-legend supergroup, The Secret Seven — whose identities remained confidential for decades. The secrecy extended to withholding the band member's names from the LP jacket, but as music historian Nat Hentoff wrote in the liner notes, "Jazz aficionados will instantly recognize the players." The members are now known to be Elvin Jones, "Wild" Bill Davis, Milt Hinton, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Kenny Burrell, Eddie Costa, Sam "The Man" Taylor, and "Toots" Thielemans. NOTE: Basta's vinyl pressing is the extremely rare STEREO mix — the stereo version will not be issued on CD/digital-download. • Order: here <<< • Listen to a track from this album: "Waltz Of The Diddles" by Raymond Scott & The Secret 7

"THIS TIME WITH STRINGS" by Raymond Scott & His Orchestra — Scott musically re-invents his compositions for full-orchestra and strings on this 1957 album. RS favorites like "Powerhouse," "The Toy Trumpet," and "Twilight in Turkey" are retooled for expanded setting — but that's not all. "There are many of the Quintette things in this LP," said the composer in the original liner notes. "Also things for dance band, material written for Broadway, the movie screen, and some of my recent writing. Indeed, a potpourri, given Hi-Fidelity dressing, and a certain vividness in string treatment." The album was recorded in glorious monophonic sound, which is retained on the vinyl. No artificial processing. Crank up the Hi-Fi! • Order: here <<< • Listen to a track from this album: "The Toy Trumpet" by Raymond Scott & His Orchestra

Yes And Also Yes

''I had a big thing for Raymond Scott loops. Hell, I could probably eke out a living producing hiphop records, using nothing but breakbeats and Raymond Scott compositions.''

—MIKE DOUGHTY

Today Mike Doughty dropped his new album, YES AND ALSO YES. There's no connection to Raymond Scott on this record, but we wanna plug it anyway. Irwin and I are big fans of Doughty's music and his 1990s band Soul Coughing — and not just because they released three tracks with Raymond Scott samples.

"Bus To Beelzebub," from their first album RUBY VROOM, was based on adapted loops from Scott's "Powerhouse," as heard in numerous Bugs Bunny cartoons. "Uh, Zoom Zip," from the same album, uses samples from the RS Quintette's recording of "The Toy Trumpet" that are so distorted they went unidentified for years. By contrast, the loops from the RSQ's "The Penguin" heard throughout SC's "Disseminated," on their 2nd album, IRRESISTIBLE BLISS, are easy to spot. I love the track and think it's one of the coolest uses of Scott samples by any artist, but Doughty is ambivalent. "The lyrics are not my proudest," he explained for SCUG.net. "Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-nonsense, but at the time we were sequencing the record I dismissed the song as 'harmelodic vaudeville.' Democracy won out, the song made the record, and it ended up being the only damn song on the record that Robert Christgau liked when he reviewed it in Spin."

Doughty has been busy — he also released an album of loop-based electronic music this month called DUBIOUS LUXURY. He explains, "I wasn’t noisy about it, at the time, but much of the sampled stuff in Soul Coughing was my work: the crazed Bugs Bunny sample on 'Bus to Beelzebub,' the peculiar Raymond Scott sample on 'Disseminated'." But don't expect more Raymond Scott samples. "After the first record, my bandmates were increasingly unreceptive to loops I brought in from other people's music. Maybe they were right, we woulda been poorer, giving our money away to other composers," he said at MikeDoughty.com. "I could only use the majority of the loops live — gone are the days when Warner Bros. would write a fat check to pay off the Raymond Scott estate and Toots Hibbert for their unsuspecting contributions! Even rappers are too smart to use samples these days."

ADDED BY I.C.: Doughty just confirmed he'll perform live on my WFMU program on Weds. September 21, between 5-6pm (Eastern). MD also performed a couple of songs on WFMU's snarky SEVEN SECOND DELAY, hosted by Ken Freedman and Andy Breckman, broadcast from the UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE on July 27.

The music of Raymond Scott, John Williams, & Danny Elfman in Nottingham

Join the Nottingham University Wind Orchestra and Brass Ensemble in an evening celebrating all aspects of the silver screen: "Epic Melodies and Looney Tunes." The epic melodies of JOHN WILLIAMS's moving "Hymn to the Fallen" (from SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) and Hans Zimmer’s stirring portrait of noble sacrifice in GLADIATOR are counterbalanced by the sublime lunacy of RAYMOND SCOTT's "The Toy Trumpet," and "Powerhouse" — the music which launched a thousand cartoons — and Paul Hart’s blistering soundtrack to an imaginary cartoon, dished up with enormous wit and panache. Also featured will be DANNY ELFMAN's theme from THE SIMPSONS. Details: here

New LOONEY TUNES Songbook

The new LOONEY TUNES SONGBOOK features 5 Raymond Scott classics:

• "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals"
• "In an 18th Century Drawing Room"
• "Powerhouse"
• "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner"
• "The Toy Trumpet"

Order from: Amazon.com

Raymond Scott for the accordion

Last year we offered in pdf format free vintage accordion charts for Scott's "Powerhouse" and "The Toy Trumpet." The offer stands.

Squeezebox practitioner Dionne Hauke (who received our charts) sends along the above ad from the back cover of an unrelated piece of 1940s sheet music. If you're aware of other Scott titles arranged for instruments other than piano or bands, please drop us a note.

Dionne Hauke (right), proprietor of Ziggie's Music, Phoenix AZ

The Dought Abides

''I had a big thing for Raymond Scott loops. Hell, I could probably eke out a living producing hiphop records, using nothing but breakbeats and Raymond Scott compositions.''

—MIKE DOUGHTY

Today Mike Doughty dropped his new album, SAD MAN HAPPY MAN. There's no connection to Raymond Scott on this record, but we wanna plug it anyway. Irwin & I are big fans of Doughty's music & his 1990s band Soul Coughing — & not just because they released three tracks with Raymond Scott samples.

"Bus To Beelzebub," from their first album RUBY VROOM, was based on adapted loops from Scott's "Powerhouse," as heard in numerous Bugs Bunny cartoons. "Uh, Zoom Zip," from the same album, uses samples from the RS Quintette's recording of "The Toy Trumpet" that are so distorted they went unidentified for years. By contrast, the loops from the RSQ's "The Penguin" heard throughout SC's "Disseminated," on their 2nd album, IRRESISTIBLE BLISS, are easy to spot. I love the track & think it's one of the coolest uses of Scott samples by any artist, but Doughty is ambivalent. "The lyrics are not my proudest," he explained for SCUG.net. "Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-nonsense, but at the time we were sequencing the record I dismissed the song as 'harmelodic vaudeville.' Democracy won out, the song made the record, and it ended up being the only damn song on the record that Robert Christgau liked when he reviewed it in Spin."

Doughty is currently working on a new batch of loop-based electronic music, but don't expect more Raymond Scott samples. "After the first record, my bandmates were increasingly unreceptive to loops I brought in from other people's music. Maybe they were right, we woulda been poorer, giving our money away to other composers," he said at MikeDoughty.com. "I could only use the majority of the loops live — gone are the days when Warner Bros. would write a fat check to pay off the Raymond Scott estate and Toots Hibbert for their unsuspecting contributions! Even rappers are too smart to use samples these days."

The Toy Trumpet for accordion

Another eBay score: like "Powerhouse" for accordion which we offered free for the asking last week, here's "The Toy Trumpet." Drop us a line and request the chart as pdf.