WED., MARCH 22, 2006
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Raymond Scott's Loony Tunes
by Neal Pollack
In the course of writing this column, I've had a chance to write about musical fetishes of mine — such as Ute Lemper, Elmer Bernstein, and Dissidenten — that I never would have had opportunity to publicize otherwise. The work has also led me to strange genres that I hadn't previously considered, or even known to exist: the frenetic video-game rock of the Advantage, the droll audio oeuvres of comedians as disparate as erudite Englishman Eddie Izzard and the delightfully crass Margaret Cho, found-audio albums about the Lower East Side. I owe all these amazing aural experiences to eMusic. And given the curio shop quality of the site's Soundtracks/Other section, it's appropriate that I bow out with a piece about the great Raymond Scott.
Take mercurial big-band jazzman Artie Shaw, cross him with synthesizer inventor Robert Moog, and add a spoonful of genius cartoon director Chuck Jones, and you have something close to the unique American formula that created Scott. Scott first came to prominence in 1936, while a pianist at CBS Radio, when he formed the Raymond Scott "Quintette." (It was actually a six-piece band, but Scott said that "sextet" might "take people's minds off the music.") Scott detested swing music — "the public fancy has been captured by a limited formula of brass against reeds," he said, "bleating out a limited variety of tempos that are standardized" — and he sought to improve it.
His solution was to create tight, highly individualized arrangements with a goofy sense of humor. Some of his more popular tunes were "Square Dance for Eight Egyptians", "Siberian Sleigh Ride," and his biggest hit, "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals." The public enjoyed the stuff, but jazz audiences dismissed it as novelty music. Thankfully, Warner Brothers bought Scott's catalogue in 1943, thereby ensuring his immortality. Warners used the music to underscore dozens of Looney Tunes shorts; later, it featured prominently in "Ren & Stimpy" and "Animaniacs." Cartoon Network still uses Scott's brilliant, uncanny "Powerhouse" as its theme.
This visionary man understood the future of music back when many people were still unable to afford a phonograph. "The composer must bear in mind that the radio listener does not hear music directly," Scott said in 1938. "He hears it only after the sound has passed through a microphone, amplifiers, transmission lines, radio transmitter, receiving set, and, finally, the loud speaker apparatus itself." Scott made his bread recording commercial jingles but he also became a mad scientist of sorts, pioneering electronic music in a day when that took a whole lot of primitive hardware. He invented something called the electronium, which randomly generated musical themes and rhythms; then, if the composer found something he liked, it then acted out instructions. Motown even hired him as director of its electronic music department from 1971 to 1977.
eMusic has recently come into a nice little cache of Scott's recordings. There's a good collection of his commercial jingles, for those of you who collect such things, as well as a full studio album from the early '60s, when Scott's experimental electronic recording period was at its height. But the Scott album with the widest appeal is surely Microphone Music, a two-volume set that captures the sound and spirit of his Quintette in its loopy, giddy glory.
When you listen to Microphone Music, it's like Daffy Duck is burrowing a tunnel into your mind. Each song contains a perfectly calibrated mix of the whimsy and anarchy that forms the philosophical basis for every great cartoon since the genre's golden age. Scott's compositions are at once fantastical and very cool. The protagonist may be falling off a tall ladder or running from a dog at the moment, the songs say, but soon enough, he'll be taking a nice hot bath or shuffling off into the sunset in the company of a lady rabbit with long eyelashes and plenty of lipstick. The music is fun, trippy, and wholly original; you can hear elements of today's most whimsical pop compositions — Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne owes a lot to Raymond Scott, as does former Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh. So I recommend that you go back to the source. Long may the six-piece Quintette reign.
On a personal note, this is my final column for eMusic. Thanks so much to eMusic for the opportunity and all the great downloads. This site has been a great musical education for me. I hope you all find it equally rich. And with that, I bid you farewell.
Take mercurial big-band jazzman Artie Shaw, cross him with synthesizer inventor Robert Moog, and add a spoonful of genius cartoon director Chuck Jones, and you have something close to the unique American formula that created Scott. Scott first came to prominence in 1936, while a pianist at CBS Radio, when he formed the Raymond Scott "Quintette." (It was actually a six-piece band, but Scott said that "sextet" might "take people's minds off the music.") Scott detested swing music — "the public fancy has been captured by a limited formula of brass against reeds," he said, "bleating out a limited variety of tempos that are standardized" — and he sought to improve it.
His solution was to create tight, highly individualized arrangements with a goofy sense of humor. Some of his more popular tunes were "Square Dance for Eight Egyptians", "Siberian Sleigh Ride," and his biggest hit, "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals." The public enjoyed the stuff, but jazz audiences dismissed it as novelty music. Thankfully, Warner Brothers bought Scott's catalogue in 1943, thereby ensuring his immortality. Warners used the music to underscore dozens of Looney Tunes shorts; later, it featured prominently in "Ren & Stimpy" and "Animaniacs." Cartoon Network still uses Scott's brilliant, uncanny "Powerhouse" as its theme.
This visionary man understood the future of music back when many people were still unable to afford a phonograph. "The composer must bear in mind that the radio listener does not hear music directly," Scott said in 1938. "He hears it only after the sound has passed through a microphone, amplifiers, transmission lines, radio transmitter, receiving set, and, finally, the loud speaker apparatus itself." Scott made his bread recording commercial jingles but he also became a mad scientist of sorts, pioneering electronic music in a day when that took a whole lot of primitive hardware. He invented something called the electronium, which randomly generated musical themes and rhythms; then, if the composer found something he liked, it then acted out instructions. Motown even hired him as director of its electronic music department from 1971 to 1977.
eMusic has recently come into a nice little cache of Scott's recordings. There's a good collection of his commercial jingles, for those of you who collect such things, as well as a full studio album from the early '60s, when Scott's experimental electronic recording period was at its height. But the Scott album with the widest appeal is surely Microphone Music, a two-volume set that captures the sound and spirit of his Quintette in its loopy, giddy glory.
When you listen to Microphone Music, it's like Daffy Duck is burrowing a tunnel into your mind. Each song contains a perfectly calibrated mix of the whimsy and anarchy that forms the philosophical basis for every great cartoon since the genre's golden age. Scott's compositions are at once fantastical and very cool. The protagonist may be falling off a tall ladder or running from a dog at the moment, the songs say, but soon enough, he'll be taking a nice hot bath or shuffling off into the sunset in the company of a lady rabbit with long eyelashes and plenty of lipstick. The music is fun, trippy, and wholly original; you can hear elements of today's most whimsical pop compositions — Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne owes a lot to Raymond Scott, as does former Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh. So I recommend that you go back to the source. Long may the six-piece Quintette reign.
On a personal note, this is my final column for eMusic. Thanks so much to eMusic for the opportunity and all the great downloads. This site has been a great musical education for me. I hope you all find it equally rich. And with that, I bid you farewell.
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