Raymond Scott Rewired

UPDATE (Feb 6): Raymond Scott Rewired now has a website.

As a musician, composer, bandleader, and inventor, Raymond Scott was a perfectionist, but not a stylistic purist. His late-1930s six-man "Quintette" crafted novelty jazz that layered ethnic contours and pan-global riffs over a propulsive beat. In the 1940s Scott's antic melodies were adapted in Warner Bros. cartoons because WB music director Carl Stalling found the compositions genetically animated. Scott's mid-century orchestral works were danceable, except when they veered into complex, cerebral concert-jazz. In the 1950s and '60s Scott invented and recorded with electronic instruments. He was a genre-hopper, reflecting a musical restlessness and adventurousness. Scott loved what he did, but craved what came next.

As archivist for the Scott musical estate, I commissioned three remix artists to take apart Scott's catalog and reshape it in a fresh way. The Bran Flakes (Otis Fodder, Montreal), The Evolution Control Committee (TradeMark Gunderson, U.S.), and Go Home Productions (Mark Vidler, U.K.) were ftp'ed hundreds of Scott recordings in various genres, including unreleased material, spanning the 1930s to the 1980s. They were invited to have fun, but keep it rhythmic. Each contributed six audio montages with new titles, and they collaborated on Scott's signature tune, "Powerhouse."

The result is RAYMOND SCOTT REWIRED, produced for the Basta label. The album will be released in North America on February 18. Three tracks can be streamed on Soundcloud.

Over 250 sample sources were used in the construction of these 19 tracks. Those samples were edited, looped, flipped, and stretched; they were tweaked with EQ, pitch-shifted, compressed, and transformed. Disassembling one man's sonic legacy and reassembling the pieces into something different, something worth hearing repeatedly, requires an intuitive gift that approaches songwriting. Scott fans will recognize some passages, but in countless cases, the source recordings have been altered beyond recognition. The composer himself would have difficulty identifying his own works. The reconfigurations were done playfully, but respectfully. Nothing was destroyed. The originals still exist.

The cover art was adapted from an unfinished, untitled, black & white Jim Flora illustration from the 1950s.

Marathon Cadenzas

Last August, Dance Heginbotham, led by John Heginbotham, danced to the music of Raymond Scott at New York's Lincoln Center Out of Doors. The work, Manhattan Research, was premiered with live accompaniment by the Raymond Scott Orchestrette.

The dance world's new-found romance with Raymond continues when the Paul Taylor Dance Company premieres MARATHON CADENZAS at Lincoln Center in March. The work features choreography to the Raymond Scott Quintette's classic 1937-39 recordings of "The Penguin," "Oil Gusher," "Minuet in Jazz," "Girl at the Typewriter," "Twilight in Turkey," and "Peter Tambourine." (What—no "Powerhouse"?) Four performances are scheduled at LC's David H. Koch Theater on March 14th, 20th, 22nd, and 30th.

The Taylor Dancers will be at LC for a three-week run, which will include other repertoire. Package deals for multiple performances can be purchased here.

Marathon Cadenzas will also be performed on tour, but venues have not yet been announced.

A mixed-up, mashed-up composer

Coming from the Basta label in February 2014.

We turned over the entire Raymond Scott catalog ...

... to three celebrated mixologists who work under group names: The Bran Flakes, The Evolution Control Committee, and Go Home Productions.

They were given hundreds of recordings owned by the Scott estate, in all genres, including unreleased material, spanning the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s. Jazz, orchestral, electronic, experimental, studio chatter, one-of-a-kind rarities.

These gents were invited to have fun, keep it rhythmic, and make it percolate. Each contributed six audio montages with new titles, and they collaborated on Scott's signature tune, "Powerhouse."

The project is titled RAYMOND SCOTT REWIRED.

It's finished. Mixed, mastered, designed, packaged, and manufactured. You can preview three tracks on Soundcloud. Official release date is February 18.

Note: This post was originally published in May 2013. However, the US release was postponed due to a change of distributor for this release. 

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

"Established in 2003, The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival has fast become Ireland's premier feature film festival and takes place in Ireland's capital city over the course of eleven days and nights each February."

The award-winning Raymond Scott documentary film, "DECONSTRUCTING DAD," will be screened at The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival on February 16th. Directed by Raymond Scott's son, STAN WARNOW, and co-produced by JEFF WINNER (me), the documentary features: JOHN WILLIAMS, multi-Academy Award®-winning movie soundtrack composer (JAWS, STAR WARS, HARRY POTTER), MARK MOTHERSBAUGH, Emmy Award®-winning movie & TV score writer, & co-founder of DEVO, DJ SPOOKY, aka PAUL D. MILLER, turntablist, producer, & author, and others. Get tickets: here

RS Orchestrette/Ghost Train Orchestra concert videos

If you missed the Raymond Scott Orchestrette/Ghost Train Orchestra double bill at Subculture on October 26, we have video with decent audio thanks to Mike Nogami, a well-known Japanese photographer who sat near the stage. Our mutual friend, Takashi Okada, has posted 14 clips (seven of each band) on YouTube for your enjoyment. (Links below by title.) Not captured was GTO's grand finale, a spectacular nine-minute-plus arrangement of Scott's "Celebration on the Planet Mars," which closes the band's new album, Book of Rhapsodies. Incidentally, the respective RSO and GTO drummers look remarkably similar. They are, in fact, one and the same: GTO's Rob Garcia filled for the RSO's Clem Waldmann, who had a prior commitment.

The Raymond Scott Orchestrette

(all titles by Raymond Scott)

Twilight in Turkey / Oil Gusher

Tobacco Auctioneer

Peter Tambourine

Manhattan Minuet

Little Miss Echo

Square Dance for Eight Egyptian Mummies

Powerhouse

The Ghost Train Orchestra

(all arrangements by Brian Carpenter)

Charlie's Prelude (Louis Singer)

Beethoven Riffs On (Louis Singer)

Volcanic (Reginald Foresythe)

Dawn on the Desert (Charlie Shavers)

It's Silk, Feel It! (Alec Wilder)

Her Old Man Was at Times Suspicious (Alec Wilder)

At An Arabian House Party  (Raymond Scott)

F*ck Art (Let's Dance)

Our friend Sally Eckhoff, a former contributor to the Village Voice, has a new book called F*ck Art (Let's Dance), a memoir about her days living in New York's East Village. A writer for the Paris Review called it, "A Sentimental Education reimagined by The Cramps." Sally tells us there's a Raymond Scott angle, and we invited her to inform our readers. She wrote:

One of the characters is a real-life Oliver Sacks-type genius and piano virtuoso who discovers Raymond Scott in the 1970s, when people with that kind of mind were generally ignored or misunderstood. The guy thought he hit the lottery. Here's a quote about watching him learn to play "Powerhouse: "The songs starts with a grumpy, mechanized rhythm, like someone stomping downstairs, and later fires up into a madly-escalating riff that has unfinished phrases flying out of the horn section like parts off an assembly line."

If you want to read something about the East Village that's not full of famous cranky people in black clothes and their famous cranky friends, check out my book. It's brand-new, in paperback and eBook from Water Street Press, and you can get it on Amazon, iTunes, and all the usual places.

Nine daffy Norwegians

If you live in the New York City metro area, chances are high you missed the MeanEnsemble's March 2013 performances of Don't Beat Your Wife (Every Night): A Tribute to Raymond Scott and the Perfect World of Commercials at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. We were there—and we didn't see you. In fact, the first night's attendance was about six (not including the band and staff), and the second night's "crowd" numbered about 15. Which is a shame for two reasons: 1) because it was a spectacular and highly entertaining show, and 2) the band hails from Norway and rarely visits the U.S. There was apparently some serious PR fail that resulted in very little public awareness of the event. Nonetheless, the musicians performed admirably and most entertainingly.

A high-quality, beautifully directed video of the entire program (as performed in a studio in their home country) will be screened on Saturday, November 23, 2:00pm, at the WFMU Record Fair, held at the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street. I will introduce the video and provide a little context for those unfamiliar with Scott's legacy.

The MeanEnsemble vid will be followed by our friends Sport Murphy, Steve Young and Laura Lindgren's absurdist extravaganza based on their new book, Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals.

No Exit showcases Raymond Scott

No Exit ensemble will start their fifth season by focusing on the music of the legendary Raymond Scott Quintette, with concerts scheduled in Cleveland and Buffalo (see below).

No Exit's artistic director Timothy Beyer says: "We did a series of concerts inspired by jazz luminary Eric Dolphy. It proved to be one of our most popular programs and was a great deal of fun to put together. We're basically doing the same thing this time around with Raymond Scott." 

This will be the Cleveland-based ensemble's first program to consist entirely of world premiere pieces. The concerts will feature new arrangements of Scott's music by pianist Geoffrey Burleson, saxophonist/composer and founder of the Either/ Orchestra Russ Gershon, and composers Greg D'Alessio, Chris Auerbach-Brown, and Eric Gonzalez. Also on the program are original pieces by No Exit's own James Praznik and Timothy Beyer which were inspired by the music of Scott's Quintette.

November concerts are scheduled in Cleveland and Buffalo:

Nov. 15 at Spaces, Cleveland

Nov. 16 at PAUSA Art House, 19 Wadsworth Street, Buffalo, NY

Nov. 18 at Cleveland State University, Drinko Auditorium

Beyer: "Scott was a truly brilliant guy whose genius couldn't be contained within a single medium. He was one of the early pioneers of electronic music — some of which will be featured on the program along with pieces inspired by his jazz Quintette — and developed many early devices for composing and creating electronic works. He had his own unique sensibility, a very singular vision as to how music should be and didn't seem too concerned with what everyone else was doing. Just a remarkable artist who throughout his prodigious career always seemed to be doing something all his own."

Beyer adds: "There has been a big resurgence of interest in Scott's music over the last decade or so. While Raymond Scott may not yet be a household name, most folks have heard his music whether they know it or not. I'm certain that there will be many people at the concerts thinking to themselves, I've heard that tune before!"

No Exit on Facebook

Gotye: State of the Art

Earlier this year we noted that Australian-based international pop star Gotye, with his multi-platinum album Making Mirrors, had (indirectly) put Raymond Scott back at the top of the charts. Scott's voice (from the Manhattan Research, Inc. 2-cd set) is sampled in the album track "State of the Art." We hadn't gotten around to posting the official video for the song, and herein rectify our oversight. Unfortunately, Scott's voice was omitted from the video soundtrack, but it's still a great recording, set to eye-popping animation by Greg Sharp and Ivan Dixon of Rubber House.

Sic transit Gloria

Singer Gloria Lynne was discovered in 1958 by Raymond Scott, who signed her to her first recording contract that same year. Scott produced her debut album, Miss Gloria Lynne, for Everest Records, a label for which he briefly served as A&R director. The musicians on Lynne's album were many of the same session aces from Scott's Secret 7 project.

Lynne died of heart failure at age 83 on October 8. An obit in the October 18 New York Times describes the rough times she faced when her career went into decline. She had one major hit, "I Wish You Love," in 1964, and it became her signature tune. (Scott produced only her debut album.)

In the Miss Gloria Lynne liner notes by jazz scholar Nat Hentoff, Scott was quoted on the magnitude of her talent and strengths:

"Overall, she has a sincerity and power. She's been based in gospel music and she also has a jazz talent, and this is the first chance she's had to sing with a swinging group. As for her vocal resources, she's at a stage at her beginning that most people don't reach until the middle or end of their careers. She's extremely warm and she can tell a story. She's young and fresh and should have a remarkable future." 

For Lynne's debut, Scott recruited Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet), Sam "The Man" Taylor (piano), Eddie Costa (vibes), "Wild Bill" Davis (organ), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Milton Hinton (bass), George Duvivier (bass), Tom Bryant (bass), and Jo Jones (drums). All except the last three were part of Scott's Secret 7.

QUESTLOVE & others present live concerts titled "ELECTRONIUM: The Future Was Then"

Ahmir “QUESTLOVE” Thompson (THE ROOTS) returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music with an all-star mash-up that celebrates pioneering works of electronic music. From the press release: 

The production’s title references the first electronic synthesizer created exclusively for the composition and performance of music. Created by composer-technologist Raymond Scott, the Electronium was designed but never released for distribution; the one remaining machine is undergoing restoration. Complemented by interactive lighting and aural mash-ups, the music of Electronium: The Future Was Then honors the legacy of The Electronium in a production that celebrates both digital and live music interplay. 

R&B singer-producer Tom Krell (How to Dress Well), avant-R&B outfit Sonnymoon, beatboxer Rahzel, guitarist Kirk Douglas (The Roots), DJ-composer Jeremy Ellis, and conductor Andrew Cyr & Metropolis Ensemble join Grammy Award winner Questlove to sample and deconstruct seminal recordings by everyone from RAYMOND SCOTT and Bob Moog, to Stevie Wonder and George Clinton, into a feverishly modern new playlist. Old-school blips and beeps, sine waves, and analog synth solos mix with live vocals and contemporary electronics in this ecstatic riff on the analog revolution that paved the way for our music today.

TICKETS & DETAILS: here

Raymond Orchestrette & Ghost Train OCT 26

Illustration/design by James Weinberg

The Orchestrette boards a Ghost Train

Raymond Scott Orchestrette gigs have been few and far between (they have a lousy—cough, cough—booking agent). Now, following their triumphant August 8 Lincoln Center Out of Doors stint accompanying the John Heginbotham dance ensemble, the RSO has been invited to open for the Ghost Train Orchestra's CD release party on October 26. The GTO also features Raymond repertoire (along with Alec Wilder, John Kirby and Reginald Foresythe), so the evening offers a double shot of Scott. The concert takes place at a new downtown Manhattan venue, SubCulture, at 45 Bleecker Street.

GTO is led by Brian Carpenter, who has been studying Scott scores and creating new arrangements over the past five years. His previous band, Beat Circus, released a 2008 CD entitled Dreamland, whose cover was illustrated by Orchestrette multi-instrumentalist Brian Dewan.

Happy 105th Birthday to Raymond Scott

105 years ago today, Raymond Scott was born in Brooklyn, NY — listen to "Happy Birthday To You" by Raymond Scott & His New Orchestra, vocal by Clyde Burke, 1940: