Thanks to these fresh arrangements, the contemporary value of Scott’s work, so far ahead of its time, is plain. The slinking bassy throb of ‘Snake Woman’ wouldn’t be out of place on a Tom Waits record, while the timings, especially of the drums, on some of the Electronium sessions that have been reinterpreted by Stu and his merry men are something you might hear on a Roni Size track. The work Stu Brown is doing here is genuinely impressive, and if the starker new arrangements of Scott’s bold/odd Electronium works premiered today hook the more serious jazz aficionados, then fairweather listeners can remain happy with the kickabout cartoon capers of that first album.
We'll just quote part of the press release for this intriguing production currently running at the New York Fringe Festival (ecstatic reviews posted at bottom):
With puppetry and live action, swing dancing and physical comedy, POWERHOUSE tells the story of a brilliant man who wrote music that nearly every American has heard and yet almost no one can identify. It’s 1936 and 27 year-old Harry Warnow has it all — a beautiful wife, a hit record, a recording company, a publishing company, his very own swing orchestra and a new name: Raymond Scott. But in 30 years he would be virtually unknown. Secluded in his home studio, he would spend his time writing commercials and inventing futuristic music machines. Unbeknownst to Scott, however, his music had become imprinted on the minds of millions. For years, the animators at Warner Bros. had been scoring their Looney Tunes cartoons with Scott’s life’s work. This would be his legacy — and he never knew. Featuring puppets playing cartoons, people playing machines, and machines playing music, the acclaimed Sinking Ship Productions presents the world premiere of POWERHOUSE at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival.You can download a pdf of the show's press release here. The production opened Saturday. Scott's son Stan Warnow was impressed, emailing: "It was well done and inventive. Staging and directing were very good. It was fluid and moved right along, lots happening on stage." Although we haven't yet seen the production, we met with Jon Levin and Josh Luxenberg a few months ago while they were researching the project. Their absorption with the details of Scott's legacy conveyed impressive intentions to tell the story respectfully, if idiosyncratically. And they were nice guys, so we're cheering them on.
Powerhouse, which somehow manages to pack very funny puppetry, exuberant dance numbers, fascinating historical tangents, a mountain of narrative and a vivid sense of period mood into one steam train of a drama, is the rare Fringe show that lives up to its title.
Finally, after all these years, I met Raymond Scott! I had read he was only about 5'9", but apparently that was just part of the Scott mythology. He's actually 6'5". Photographic evidence:
Photo: Das Überbabe
• YouTube • Vimeo • MySpace VideoDownload a free MP3 of Taki76's "Powerhouse" cover and other goodies here.
Sweet Wishes, a short film by Mark Ryden and Marion Peck. Donuts and cheesecake in the prop budget. Mops, too.
Soundtrack: "And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon," by RS + The Secret 7, chipmunked vocals by Dorothy Collins.
"A few years ago I obtained some sheet music from the Raymond Scott archives so I might perform it for the soundtrack of my college senior thesis animation. Unfortunately I was never able to finish the animation or record the music because of the schedule I was on.
"What I finished (basically sans ending ... and a weak middle...) is available on YouTube.
"Recently I've been working in animation in and around Manhattan, and I've really wanted to play Scott's music again — mostly for myself, not so much for a soundtrack."
"Good Morning Cephalgia" contains five Raymond Scott Quintette recordings ("Powerhouse," "The Penguin," "Toy Trumpet," "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," and "In an 18th Century Drawing Room"). 
Smolenski is currently working at a studio called Flickerlab and animating a short for Conan O'Brien called "Pale Force."
