New Spaced-Out 2-track Single: "By Rocket To The Moon"

Fasten your safety-belt — we're going by rocket to the moon. 20 years before NASA landed the first man on the moon, Raymond Scott and his quintet made this children's record, with narration, featuring five educational songs sung by the Gene Lowell Chorus. Originally released in 1950, this oddity has now been been digitally remastered, for the first time, as part of our year-long celebration of the 75th Anniversary of RS's music. The b-side is the related 1949 instrumental, "Dedicatory Piece to the Crew and Passengers of the First Experimental Rocket Express to the Moon." Download from the Apple iTunes Store: here

Maltin Gets Ectoplasmic

Long recognized as one of the foremost American film critics and historians, celluloid über-fanboy Leonard Maltin has long been a Raymond Scott enthusiast. He recently picked up the new RS Quintette CD Ectoplasm and declared it "delightful to listen to."

The CD, we should point out, has not been maltinized in any way.

The Quintet Redux

The first CD to kick off the Raymond Scott centennial is the spooky-titled Ectoplasm. This album spotlights Scott's second six-man "quintet," whose brief existence spanned less than a year (late 1948-mid-1949). Unlike the 1937-'39 RSQ, this sextet didn't create music destined for cartoons. But if you like cartoonish art, the package (released on Basta) boasts an adapted 1951 illustration by legendary LP cover artist Jim Flora.

The arrangements sound like classic Scott, without a nostalgic aping of the first RSQ. Call it "parlor jazz," or "chamber swing"—it's breezy and cerebral, laced with Scott's trademark wit and sophistication. Like the charter RSQ, the redux version is complex and hyperactive, with an undercurrent of wry mischief, befitting the band's namesake. There's swirling horns, muted trumpet, and daredevil tempos. As ever, Scott maintained his penchant for musical vignettes: besides the invocational title track, the album includes "Snake Woman," "Bird Life in the Bronx," "Curley Cue," and "Dedicatory Piece to the Crew and Passengers of the First Experimental Rocket Express to the Moon." Got a short attention span? Lucky you: the album has 34 tracks, many of which zoom by in less than two minutes. Also featured on several tracks: crooning, theremin-like wordless vocals by Dorothy Collins.

Audio samples can be heard at RaymondScott.com.

Update 26 FEB: Now available in the iTunes Music Store.

a.k.a. Barret Eugene Hansen

''I grew up with Young People's Records. 'The Funniest Song In The World' featuring Groucho Marx and 'By Rocket To The Moon' with Raymond Scott helped mold the mind of the boy who became Dr. Demento.''

— Dr. Demento (Barry Hansen), syndicated radio personality

>> listen to this 1949 record: here

Click above for info about pronouncing URANUS!

Ecto-sketch

Ectoplasm, the forthcoming first CD collection of recordings by Raymond Scott's 1948-49 Quintet, features cover art by the late Jim Flora. The work first publicly appeared in a 1951 issue of Mademoiselle magazine illustrating a story by Robert Lowry entitled "The Mammoth Molar." The origins of the art, however, can be traced farther back to Flora's early 1940s sketchbooks:

Does that mean the Ecto-cover actually depicts Kid Ory?

HT: Jeff Winner

Raymond Scott meets Jim Flora

In a design sense, anyway. Their professional paths nearly crossed: early in his career Scott recorded for Columbia Records but left the label in 1941, one year before Jim Flora was hired by Columbia's art department. In the late 1940s, Flora (1914-1998) launched a legacy by illustrating quirky, cartoonish jazz album covers for the label. His historical portfolio includes dozens more for RCA Victor during the 1950s.

Through my working relationship with Jim Flora Art LLC, the deceased artist's estate, I've long wanted to revive this tradition by using rare Flora art on new CDs. Seattle's Reptet released Do This! in 2006, the cover bedecked with a Flora three-eyed monster we call a "triclops." Later this year, the first CD collection of the 1948-49 Raymond Scott Quintet will feature a Flora cover (above) designed by the brilliant Dutch art director Piet Schreuders. The 1951 illustration was most likely rendered during Flora's Mexican idyll. Ectoplasm refers to a Scott composition on the CD, which this author is producing for Basta Audio-Visuals.

N.B.: The Lothars album Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas (released in 2000) adapted Flora's 1955 album cover art for This Is Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (RCA Victor).

Body language

This 1957 LP contained ten recordings made in 1949 by the second Raymond Scott Quintet. Originally released on privately pressed ten-inch 78 rpm discs, the tracks were nicely remastered for the age of microgroove hi-fi.

Five Scott originals (Bird Life in the Bronx, Street Corner in Paris, Ectoplasm, Snake Woman, and Dedicatory Piece to the Crew and Passengers of the First Experimental Rocket Express to the Moon) share platter space with five serenades by Dorothy Collins. It was a strange juxtaposition of lightweight '50s chick-pop and cerebral chamber-jazz.

Collins was Scott's protégée and first sang with his orchestra in 1944 at age 16. Both commenced seven-year star turns on TV's Your Hit Parade in 1950, and they exchanged wedding vows in 1952. The LP cover photo (by Burt Owen) appears contemporaneous with the album release. The often-stormy marriage ended in a 1964 divorce.

In this 1957 photo, for an album on which they are musically paired, husband and wife sit comfortably, holding hands—at arm's length. In the foreground, she gets the fruit, he gets the ashtray.

The Raymond Scott Quintet, 1948-49

Coming later this year on Basta Audio-Visuals:

Ectoplasm: The Raymond Scott Quintet (1948-49)
Recordings by Six—and Sometimes Seven—Musicians

Featuring Raymond Scott, Dorothy Collins, Jerry Winner, Dick Mains,
Joe Palmer, Irving Manning, and 18-year-old drummer Kenny Johns.

RSQ drummer Kenny Johns

It's a different band than the original 1937-39 RSQ, but trademark Scott quirks abound: wit, sophistication, and a touch of eccentricity. Although rowdy bebop was the rage in those days, Scott preferred a more sculpted, controlled approach—jazz with a pop sensibility. His arrangements were spiced with unpredictable twists and his players crafted sharp, tasteful solos. The RSQ was complex and hyperactive, with an undercurrent of wry mischief, befitting the band's namesake.

Projected CD tracks include the following Scott originals:

"Ectoplasm"
"Street Corner in Paris"
"Snake Woman"
"Bird Life in the Bronx"
"Happy Farmer"
"Good Listening (Theme)"
"Blizzard Wit"
"Curley Cue"
"The Penguin"
"Question Mark (?)"

... along with parlor-jazz arrangements of the light classics "Humoresque" and "Song of India," and over a dozen idiosyncratic Scott arrangements of Tin Pan Alley wunderwerks. Also making its CD debut, Raymond goes lunar with the visionary opus:

"Dedicatory Piece to the Crew and Passengers of
the First Experimental Rocket Express to the Moon"

Remember: it ain't cartoon-jazz. But stay tooned.