April 28, 2008

Raymond Scott was a musician and composer you may not have heard of but if you've ever watched Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies, you've heard his music.

He never in fact composed for cartoons but was a popular (although not universally critically acclaimed) jazzman in the 30s and 40s. He's also been called a pioneer of electronic music thanks to his invention and use of the Clavivox and Electronium. Condoria University in Montreal recently put on a centennial concert attended by his son who is producing a film documentary of his life and work called On to Something Some Youtube links: Powerhouse War Dance for Wooden Indians House Hunting Mice Lots of samples here and here. Despite his demise in 1994, he's also got a blog and a Myspace page. Wikipedia link. BastaMusic is re-releasing much of his music, including the three volumes of "Soothing Sounds for Baby", electronica for the younger set. I just caught a brief bit of a radio doc about him on the Ceeb this morning before I had to go out but the podcast won't be up until tomorrow.

  • Main link is dead right now, Islander. Looking forward to checking it out. Very interesting guy- I hadn't heard of him before this. Thanks!
  • Classic stuff.
  • A lot of the pages are down, but still an interesting site, and a remarkable man. Handsome devil, too!