The Beau Hunks Sextette: Powerhouse

Beau Hunks Sextette drummer Louis Debij leans into the "Powerhouse" 'B' section

Dutch TV footage of the original Beau Hunks Sextette's performance of Scott's "Powerhouse" from 1994 has been uploaded by designer/historian Piet Schreuders. The seg features some great camera angles of the players.

The band was originally called The Wooden Indians (after a Scott title) when their all-RS tribute CD, Celebration on the Planet Mars, was released by the VPRO that year. When it was reissued the following year on Basta, the band morphed into the BH6, an acknowledged spin-off of the much larger Beau Hunks Orchestra.

Bassist Gert-Jan Blom was in the vanguard of the RS revival. He first contacted me in 1992 after the release of the first Scott CD compilation, Powerhouse: Volume 1, which I co-produced in 1991 with Will Friedwald for the now-defunct Stash label. At the time, Scott was an obscure historical footnote; "Powerhouse" consisted of several melodies instantly familiar to every Earthling from its incessant use in Warner Bros. cartoons, but few knew its name or the composer. Gert-Jan recognized the importance of this music, and began to champion Scott in his native Netherlands in concert, on radio, and on CD. He was a significant force, along with Jeff Winner, in the first commercial release of Scott's historic Manhattan Research Inc. electronica from the 1950s and '60s.

Beau Hunks saxophonist Robert Veen has revived saxophone classics from the early 20th century on several of his own CDs