Raymond Scott Reimagined - An Unprecedented Musical Journey

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Composer, inventor, visionary pianist, engineer, electronic music producer, control freak"

—Irwin Chusid (Scott archivist, catalog administrator, and historian)

Raymond Scott was born Harry Warnow on September 10, 1908, in Brooklyn. At age 16 he played his first job as a professional pianist. At 23, he was hired as staff pianist for the CBS Radio orchestra, and soon assumed the name Raymond Scott (which he allegedly picked out of a Manhattan phone book). In 1938 he signed with 20th Century Fox and moved to Hollywood with his group, the Raymond Scott Quintette, which performed and appeared in major motion pictures. In 1943 Warner Brothers began adapting his compositions in Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck soundtracks, although Scott never specifically composed a note for a cartoon. He was a pioneer in the world of electronic instruments, advancing the technology during the 1950s. He invented, built and recorded with his own instruments.

“The phrase ‘jazz repertory’ has many definitions and dimensions. Perhaps the most basic is: the study, preservation and performance of the many diverse musical styles in jazz. In recent years, the phrase most often applies to big bands and jazz ensembles performing classic and new music written for reeds, brass, and rhythm section in various sizes and combinations.” 

- Jeffrey Sultanoff, Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz [p.512]

Regular visitors to JazzProfiles are no doubt familiar with the concept of Jazz Repertory as I used it as a context in which to place two previous blog features about the unique composer-arranger, Raymond Scott: [1] The Raymond Scott Chesterfield Arrangements commissioned and performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in 1937-38 and subsequently recorded by The Metropole Orchestra with The Beau Hunks Saxtette and [2] The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette involving their two beautifully recorded BASTA CDs. Both of these musical aggregations are based in Holland.

In line with the best aspects of Jazz Repertory, today marks the release of new interpretations of Raymond Scott’s music as described in the following notice from 1888 Media.

'RAYMOND SCOTT REIMAGINED'. An Unprecedented Musical Journey Arrives July 21, 2023 via Violinjazz Recordings

The Project Is A Collaboration Between Quartet San Francisco, Gordon Goodwin, Take 6 and The Raymond Scott Archives

San Francisco, CA: 

Violinjazz Recordings, the label of acclaimed Grammy-nominated musician Jeremy Cohen, principal violinist and founder of Classical Crossover specialists Quartet San Francisco, has announced the release of 'Raymond Scott Reimagined,' an unprecedented new collaboration teaming Quartet San Francisco with accomplished Grammy/Emmy Award-winning composer/producer/arranger Gordon Goodwin and revered Grammy-winning a cappella group Take 6.

The thrilling 14-track collection, which includes Goodwin's fresh arrangements of eight Scott classics, including mainstays "Powerhouse," "Twilight in Turkey," "Huckleberry Duck," "The Quintette Goes to a Dance" and "In an 18th Century Drawing Room," also introduces an entirely brand new composition, "Cutey and the Dragon," which was crafted from an unfinished sketch Scott made in 1982 with Goodwin completing the composition in a manner that honors the great composer's style and verve.

The album, available for order at Vioiiniazz Recordings, also contains several interstitials of Raymond Scott's voice, along with spoken word from audio historian Art Shifrin and Grammy-winning composer/conductor John Williams, excerpted from the documentary film, 'Deconstructing Dad (directed by Raymond's son, Stan Warnow), has been two years in the making but, in actuality, is a journey of nearly 50 years.

Jeremy Cohen, the project's Executive Producer, explains, "I grew up during an era when a simple turn of the television dial could bring one's world from Leonard Bernstein to animation and cartoons. Escape, creativity, and whimsy fueled my imagination where animation offered a humorous view of the world. As a kid studying classical violin, I was fascinated by Carl Stalling's incorporation of iconic classical music into the Warner Brothers cartoon soundtracks."

"Raymond Scott, who never actually wrote music expressly for animation, was widely quoted in Merrie Melodies cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy and pals. Scott's music sat right alongside the world's most recognizable classical music and became part of the soundtrack of my imagination. Scott's 'Powerhouse' brings musical shape to emotions."

"In the 1990s, I was introduced to Raymond Scott with the album The Music of Raymond Scott: Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights' (Columbia, 1992, Irwin Chusid, producer) and let's just say that at that moment, the lantern was lit for a longstanding quest. Scott's music found its way into arrangements for my group, Quartet San Francisco. We found boundless passion and energy for bringing this music to our audiences."

While the basis of the album would be an alliance between Quartet San Francisco and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Jeremy and Gordon decided to engage a variety of ensembles to partner with the string quartet. These include pairing the string quartet with the big band on "Powerhouse," "The Quintette Goes to a Dance," "Twilight in Turkey," and "Cutey and the Dragon," incorporating a smaller ensemble of three horns on "Toy Trumpet" and a saxophone quintet on "Yesterday's Ice Cubes." Two pianos enhanced "Huckleberry Duck" with the gorgeous vocals of Claude V. McKnight III, Mark Kibble, Joel Kibble, Dave Thomas, Alvin Chea and Khristian Dentley (of the group Take 6) joining on "In an 18th Century Drawing Room" and "Serenade." The results are spellbinding.

Gordon Goodwin, co-producer, composer, arranger, and bandleader of The Big Phat Band, recalls his introduction to the iconic composer and approach to the project, "I took a deep dive into the music of Raymond Scott when I was working as a composer for Warner Brothers Animation. His music made quite an impact on me, so when Jeremy approached me about collaborating on a project featuring Scott's music, the answer was an immediate and enthusiastic yes!"

"There is a long list of great Raymond Scott songs from which to pick, but we knew that were some tunes we had to include, such as 'Powerhouse' and ‘Toy Trumpet,' but we were excited when the Raymond Scott Archives presented us with an unfinished lead sheet to a song called 'Cutey and the Dragon' that Scott was working on with, and for, his granddaughter Kathy. They asked if I wanted to arrange it, but as I examined the lead sheet, I realized that it really wasn't a finished composition, but rather a work in progress. So the Scott family gave me the honor of finishing the composition. This allows us to present something rare—a previously unheard composition by Raymond Scott."

"Another highlight was "Twilight in Turkey," which features Don Williams on timpani, along with Wade Culbreth on mallet percussion. This is special because Don's father Johnny Williams was the drummer for the Raymond Scott Quintette. He is also the father of film composer John Williams. Don was able to allow us the use of his father's cowbell and torn toms, so this track has a direct and unique connection to this music's creator."

"When we considered the vocal component for this music, there was really only one consideration. Take 6 has set the bar for a cappella singing over the past three decades, and I knew that their sound and versatility would make for a distinctive contribution."

A distinctive collaboration is quite the understatement. Between the three main collaborators, QSF, Goodwin and Take 6, they've earned 60 Grammy nominations, scoring 12 wins. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the size and scope of Reimagined as two dozen best-in-class musicians amplify the sound and vision including Wayne Bergeron (trumpet), Ray Brinker (drums), Joey De Leon (percussion, congas, bongos), Justin Smith (guitar), Andy Waddell (guitar), Kevin Axt (bass), Sal Lozano (alto sax), Brett McDonald (alto sax, piccolo, clarinet), Brian Scanlon (tenor sax), Thomas Luer (tenor sax), Jay Mason (baritone sax), Daniel Fornero (trumpet), Aaron Janik (trumpet), Dan Savant (trumpet), Andrew Martin (trombone), Charlie Morillas (trombone), Francisco Torres (trombone), Craig Gosnell (bass trombone), Wade Culbreath (marimba, vibes, xylophone, cowbell), Meredith Clark (harp) and Don Williams (timpani, tom-toms) with Goodwin on piano and tenor sax and esteemed accompaniment by the other three virtuosos in Quartet San Francisco, Joseph Christiansen (violin), Chad Kaltinger (viola) and Andres Vera (cello).

Also in the mix is 7-time Grammy-winning engineer Leslie Ann Jones, who's recognized for her work with Kronos Quartet, Chanticleer and Rosemary Clooney and whom Cohen's worked with on previous projects including Pacific Premieres: New Works by California Composers. For Raymond Scott Reimagined, Jones recorded the joint sessions at Lucasfilm's Skywalker Sound, the famed studio on George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California. Additional recording took place at Dragonfly Creek Recording in Malibu and Lake Balboa Sound in Los Angeles….

Buckle up 'cause the dectet is going to a dance. It's gonna be a mighty dynamic powerhouse in a 21st century listening room.”

The excitement and enthusiasm that Jeremy, Gordon and company have for this project literally explodes through this repertorial revisiting with Raymond Scott’s magnificent music, no less so because of the brilliant audio quality of the recording.

The musicianship on display here is first rate, both individually and collectively. And the idea of inserting actual spoken word excerpts by Raymond Scott is as instructive as it is brilliant. 

“The artistry of Raymond Scott wove itself into the fabric of American culture. This celebration of Scott's music in a collaboration of 32 musicians brought together by Jeremy Cohen and Gordon Goodwin presents Quartet San Francisco, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, and Take 6. These new arrangements by Goodwin of Scott's compositions, and the premiere of Goodwin's rendering of Scott's unfinished lead sheet, written with and for his granddaughter Kathy, pay tribute to the celebrated genius of Raymond Scott.”

Part 2 Jazz Repertory - The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette

This feature is a continuation of the Jazz Repertory theme initiated on JazzProfiles with an earlier piece on The Raymond Scott Chesterfield arrangements commissioned and performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in 1937-38 and recently recorded by the Metropole Orchestra with The Beau Hunks Saxtette.

JazzProfiles now focuses exclusively on The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette involving their two beautifully recorded BASTA CDs that deserve to be heard and appreciated by the widest possible audience.

It may also be helpful to keep in mind that during the early decades of the 20th century, the saxophone may have been the equivalent of today’s electric guitar in terms of popularity or to put it another way:” During roughly four decades, the saxophone evolved from a rather cumbersome marching band instrument into a hugely popular and versatile Jack of all Trades.”

As was explained in the earlier piece, in searching for a context in which to highlight this music, the editors at JazzProfiles came across the phrase “Jazz Repertory” as used by Jeffrey Sultanof in his essay of the same name that appears in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 512-521].

According to Mr. Sultanof: “The phrase ‘jazz repertory’ has many definitions and dimensions. Perhaps the most basic is: the study, preservation and performance of the many diverse musical styles in jazz. In recent years, the phrase most often applies to big bands and jazz ensembles performing classic and new music written for reeds, brass, and rhythm section in various sizes and combinations.” [p.512]

And, as was the case with the earlier Dutch Metropole Orchestra and Beau Hunks Saxtette performance of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s Raymond Scott Chesterfield arrangements, the two retrospectives by the Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette would seem to fit precisely into this definition.

A close listening to these two discs will also serve to reinforce Will Friedwald’s assertion to wit:

“We Yanks are long accustomed to the irony that it often requires Europeans to tell us what's best about our own culture.”

Here are the insert notes to The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette BASTA CD [30-9089-2] as written by Robert Veen, one of the group’s members [pictured second from the left, above] as well as graphics taken from the insert booklet. Following these will be the notes and illustrations to Contrasts, the Soctette’s sequel BASTA CD [30-9128-2]. [C] Copyright protect ed. All rights reserved.Another Musical Crusade for THE BEAU HUNKS SAXOPHONE SOCTETTE

THE BEAU HUNKS are a project band or “documentary orchestra." They began their crusade to preserve the works of forgotten pioneers of American music in 1992. The first project was devoted to the music of Leroy Shield and Marvin Harley, who composed music for the films of Laurel & Hardy, The Little Rascals and many other comedies from the Hal Roach Studios. Because no original sheet-music or recordings of this music were available, our arrangers had to make note-for-note transcriptions from tapes provided by Piet Schreuders, who had somehow managed to reconstruct Shield's compositions on tape from the soundtracks of countless Hal Roach talkies.

Between 1992 and 1995, this resulted in 4 CDs:

The Beau Hunks play the Original Laurel and Hardy Music, Vols. 1 & 2 [Basta 99003, 990251]

The Beau Hunks play the Original Little Rascals Music, Vols. 1& 2 [Koch Screen 8702, 89021].


In 1994, we directed our attention to the works of composer Raymond Scott [1908-1994] with the Beau Hunks Sextette. Scott's compositions for his Quintette from the 1930’s were, again, transcribed from archive recordings by our staff of arrangers and recorded on 2 CD's: Celebration on the Planet Mars [Basta 30-9056-21]


and Manhattan Minuet [Basta 30-9036-2].

The most ambitious project to date materialized in 1997 when the band was expanded to a 35-piece outfit for the purpose of performing Ferde Grofe’s symphonic Suites as composed for the Paul Whiteman band in the 1920s. This was the first project where we could actually use the composer's original scores and parts which were retrieved in the collections of Williams College and the Library of Congress by the Hunks' leader, Gert-Jan Blom. The results of this project are available as The Modern American Music of Ferde Grofe [Basta 30-9083-21].

The present album introduces the Beau Hunks in yet another setting. For this project the brass, strings and piano were omitted, while the woodwind and saxophone sections were dramatically expanded. The aim of this project was to pay tribute to the various saxophone bands from the first four decades of this century, when the saxophone was still a 'new' instrument.

The idea for this CD originated when we discovered the original arrangements for the Paul Whiteman Sax Soc-tette and Woodwind Ensemble in the Paul Whiteman Collection at Williams College, Massachusetts.

During the 1938/39 season, the Whiteman band had a weekly job on The Chesterfield Program, a very popular radio show sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes. In these shows Whiteman presented the various sections of his large orchestra as independent groups. He had special arrangements made for "The Bouncing Brass," "The Singing Strings," "The Swing Wing," "The Woodwind Ensemble" and the "Sax Soc-tette."

The extremely virtuoso arrangements for this Soc-tette were made by Nathan Van Cleave for a lineup of nine saxes doubling on clarinets, accompanied by two guitars, bass and drums. Four of these Soc-tette recordings were released on 78rpm discs: "Blue Skies"/"What'll I Do?" [Decca 2698] and "I Kiss Your Hand, Madame"/"After You've Gone" [Decca 2467, both recorded 4/7/39]. Van Cleave also arranged Irving Berlin's "Tell Me, Little Gypsy" and "Crinoline Days" [Decca 2694] for the Woodwind Ensemble with a lineup of clarinets, bass clarinets, flutes, oboe, bassoon and rhythm section.

While rehearsing the original charts we noticed that various cuts had been made, due to either the limited duration of a 78rpm disc or the available airtime on the Chesterfield Program. On this CD you'll hear the complete, uncut versions as originally intended by Nathan Van Cleave.

Nathan Lang Van Cleave was born in 1910 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Together with Lynn Murray and George Gershwin, he studied composition with Joseph Shillinger. He started out as a trumpet player with Charlie Burnet, but concentrated mainly on writing and arranging. He was a staff arranger for Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, for Andre Kostelanetz, and for CBS New York. In 1945 he went to Hollywood to become head arranger at Paramount.

His numerous film scores include:
· Conquest of Space [1955]
· The Colossus of New York [1958]
· The Space Children [1958]

He also composed music scores for the TV series The Twilight Zone, Gomer Pyle USMC, Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, Perry Mason, Hogan's Heroes, I Dream of Jeannie, and Rawhide. He died in 1970.

During our research at Williams College we came across a woodwind arrangement of Raymond Scott's most popular tune, "The Toy Trumpet," by Irving Szathmary, another arranger from the Whiteman organization. This was never recorded commercially by Whiteman but used for radio broadcast only.

There are several interesting connections between Scott and Whiteman. Scott's Quintette and Whiteman' Orchestra were both regulars on the Chesterfield Program. (During 1938/'39 Whiteman had 17 arrangements made of Scott compositions for his band. These arrangements are now safely in our library and were recorded for CD release in January of 1999 by the Metropole Orchestra featuring the Beau Hunks Sextette.)

When Whiteman guitarist Artie Reyerson left the Whiteman band in 1940 he joined Raymond Scott's Orchestra and worked with him for many years. When Raymond Scott became A&R manager for Everest Records in 1957, he employed Van Cleave as the label's staff arranger. In this capacity, Van Cleave led an orchestra backing Scott's then wife Dorothy Collins on her 1958 album Won't You Spend Christmas With Me?

On the original Soc-tette recordings one can hear some outstanding soloists. We dedicate this CD to all of them - but especially to the Soc-tette's first alto and clarinet virtuoso, Alfred Gallodoro.

Over the past three years, Al Gallodoro has become a dear friend, Our saxophone players had worshipped Al's impressive recordings for many years and were surprised to find out that he was still alive. At the initiative of Robert Veen, Al Gallodoro, performed with the Beau Hunks at the 1996 Breda Jazz Festival before a flabbergasted audience. Mr. Gallodoro - who had to obtain a passport for his first trip ever outside the U.S. - moved several audience members to tears with his playing and impressed the musicians with his incredibly accurate memory and wonderful stories about his career and the people he had worked with, including Whiteman, Scott, Grofe, Shield, Toscanini and many others. Al is a living encyclopedia of American music history.

The following year, by public demand, Al returned to Holland for a series of concerts, TV & radio appearances and several Master-classes at music colleges. A funny thing occurred when Beau Hunks' sax players Ronald Jansen Heijtmajer and Robert Veen drove Al to the Hilversum Conservatory where he was to give a Master-class. Robert played the new Beau Hunks recording of the original Nathan Van Cleave arrangement of "Blue Skies" over the car stereo. Hearing the introduction and the first chorus, and believing he was listening to the Whiteman original, Gallodoro remarked, "Yeah, we were great in those days..." As the music continued, he "recognized" Artie Reyerson [guitar], Sal Franzella [clarinet], Art Drelfinger [tenor sax], and even his own virtuoso cadenza in the coda! Having played a couple of our recordings, Robert stopped the car and told Al that what they were hearing was not the original Soc-tette but the Beau Hunks' renditions of the same arrangements. Al couldn’t believe it and was raving about it for the remainder of the trip, thus giving us the best compliment we could have dreamed of.

Along with Nathan Van Cleave’s Soc-tette and Woodwind arrangements from the late ‘30’s you’ll find some pre-thirties material to illustrate the history and evolution of saxophone bands.

As a special tribute to John Philip Sousa, Ronald Jansen Heijtmajer wrote an arrangement of Anchors Aweigh for seven saxes, based on a transcription of an original solo by Rudy Wiedoeft who started the saxophone craze in the 1910s.

Clyde Doerr led a saxophone ensemble for more than 10 years. We included its greatest hit “Down Home Rag” from 1923, performed by nine saxophones and a banjo.

Ruben Bloom was a pianist/composer who worked with several jazz greats of the 1920s [Beiderbecke, Lang, Venuti, Dorsey, Trumbauer and other]. Ronald Jansen Heijtmajer arranged Bloom’s enchanting composition “Soliloquy” for seven saxophones.

Legendary cornetist Leon Bix Beiderbecke composed a Modern Suite for the Piano in Four parts: “In a Mist,” “In the Dark,” “Flashes,” and “Candlelights.” Since Bix recorded “In a Mist” as a piano solo in 1927, it has been recorded by a great variety of artists: Jess Stacey, Bunny Berigan & His Men, Ralph Sutton, The Swingle Singers, Ry Cooder, Lew Davies and Michel Legrand to name just a few. To our knowledge, this is the first arrangement of “In a Mist” for nine saxophones.

Mr. Jansen Heijtmajer scored “In a Mist” and “Candlelights” for the whole range of saxes, from the bass sax all the way up to the little soprano.["In the Dark" and "Flashes" are included on the sequel CD - Contrasts]

Tenor saxophonist Merle Johnston, well known teacher and performer on the instrument, led a saxophone quartet in the 1920s & 30s and had a column in the prestigious Metronome Magazine in the 1930s where he wrote articles and answered questions about saxophone playing. Only four sides were ever recorded by his magnificent group; listening to those recordings today it seems hard to imagine that they were recorded back in 1929. Robert Veen transcribed three of those four sides so they could be included on this album [Baby, Oh Where Can You Be?; Always in All Ways; Do Something].

In a way, this CD is the companion of Fingerbustin’ by Ronald Jansen Heijtmajer and the Beau Hunks [Basta 30-9058-2] from 1995, an exploration of the development and history of saxophone music before 1940 with repertoire taken largely from Mr. Jansen Heijtmajer’s extensive collection of novelty pieces for alto saxophone and piano.

We hope that these recordings will contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of the pioneers of saxophone playing and arranging.-Robert Veen, September, 1998

As one would imagine, in the interests of authenticity, special provisions were made in the making of these retrospective recordings and they are described in the insert notes as follows:

“About the recording … This album was recorded with pioneering back-to-basics technology, employing vintage microphones. Equipped with the low noise Telefunken triode AC 701k, the NEUMANN M49 condenser microphone works as a node amplifier feeding a transformer which is astatically wound to avoid hum pickup. The capsule consists of two sections, each with a vacuum gold-plated plastic diaphragm. Each half of the capsule works as a pressure gradient transducer with a cardioid characteristic. They can be switched to omni-directional, cardioid, or figure-of-8 on the power supply unit. The microphone capsule is rubber mounted on a Perspex cover. Underneath this cover is the microphone amplifier which, in turn, is mounted on a rubber plate. Due to this construction, the microphone is insensitive to low frequency disturbances such as floor vibrations due to walking.”

Perhaps the above falls under the heading of too-much-information, but it is interesting nonetheless as a classic definition of “labor of love.”

In 2003, Contrasts was issued by the Beau Hunks on BASTA CD [30-9128-2] and this sequel carried the following introductory explanation.

The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette was formed in 1997 after we discovered Nathan Van Cleave’s original “Soc-tette” arrangements in the collection of the Paul Whiteman Archives. Written half a century after the invention of the saxophone, the recordings of the Paul Whiteman Sax Soc-tette from 1938-’39 stand out as a landmark achievement in the development of saxophone music.

During roughly four decades, the saxophone evolved from a rather cumbersome marching band instrument into a hugely popular and versatile Jack of all Trades. In its early years, vaudeville groups, circus bands, novelty acts and early dance bands incorporated the relatively new instrument into their programs. Some of these ensembles, like The Six Brown Brothers, were offered recording contracts, which helped spread the growing popularity of the instrument even further.

In the 1920’s, Rudy Wiedoeft [1893-1940], a professional clarinetist who had deliberately made the switch to the saxophone several years earlier, crafted the first specialized compositions and arrangements for the instrument.

In collaboration with the Frank Holton Co. from Elkhart, Indiana, he modified the saxophone to facilitate higher action and smoother projection of the lower notes in order to accommodate his virtuoso style. Thanks to the pioneering contributions of Wiedoeft, the saxophone finally gained the respect of professional musicians as its voice became more mature. By the late 1920s a veritable “saxophone craze” was underway and there was an increasing demand for saxophones of all shapes and sizes, which were eagerly supplied by a rapidly growing industry.

Our previous album [BASTA 30-9089-2] includes all of Van Cleave’s original arrangements for the Paul Whiteman Sax Soc-tette and Woodwind Ensemble. This new album is a further exploration of the history and development of saxophone music in a wide variety of musical dialects and formats. You’ll hear the entire range of the saxophone family, from bass sax to sopranino, including the extremely rare Swanee-sax!”

In closing this Jazz repertory retrospective of early saxophone music by the Beau Hunks, Jeff Sultanof offers these further thoughts about the relevance and importance of such efforts [paragraphing modified].“Jazz repertory represents and important direction and challenge for the future: to acknowledge the creative gifts of the men and women who created ensemble music for listening and dancing, and to prepare usable performance materials so that ensembles can easily play and study it.

Just imagine if materials from the baroque and classical eras of music had been allowed to collect dust in attics and languish in special collections and colleges and archives without editing and publication; by this time, they would have probably ceased to exist.

We are only now accepting that the music of the big band era is unique and warrants saving, not just in terms of American cultural history but of world music as well. It is imperative that this work continue for the sake of indigenous American music. Perhaps wide interest in this music is still several years away; yet the time to save it is now.” [p. 521] 

Part 1 of Jazz Repertory: Raymond Scott's Music, The Chesterfield Arrangements for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and Their Revival by The Metropole Orchestra

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

THE METROPOLE ORCHESTRA
conducted by Jan Stulen and
featuring THE BEAU HUNKS SAXTETTE

“We Yanks are long accustomed to the irony that it often requires Europeans to tell us what's best about our own culture.” – Will Friedwald

The Raymond Scott Chesterfield arrangements commissioned and performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in 1937-38 and recorded by the Metropole Orchestra with The Beau Hunks Saxtette is stunning music both in conception and execution. As beautifully reproduced on this BASTA CD, it deserves to be heard and appreciated by the widest possible audience.

In searching for a context in which to highlight this music, the editors at Jazzprofiles came across the phrase “Jazz Repertory” as used by Jeffrey Sultanof in his essay of the same name that appears in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 512-521].

According to Mr. Sultanof: “The phrase ‘jazz repertory’ has many definitions and dimensions. Perhaps the most basic is: the study, preservation and performance of the many diverse musical styles in jazz. In recent years, the phrase most often applies to big bands and jazz ensembles performing classic and new music written for reeds, brass, and rhythm section in various sizes and combinations.” [p.512]

The Dutch Metropole Orchestra and Beau Hunks Saxtette performance of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s Raymond Scott Chesterfield arrangements would seem to fit precisely into this definition and, as such, become the initial Jazz Repertory feature on JazzProfiles. Other jazz repertory performances by both groups will be offered on future JazzProfiles.

What follows are the insert notes to the BASTA [30-9097-2] CD as written by the erudite, Will Friedwald. [C] protected. All rights reserved. Graphics added.

“The Raymond Scott boomlet of the ‘90s has already outlasted the “lounge music” fad (which resulted in acres of randomly-programmed reissues driven almost exclusively by their gaudy packaging) and will hopefully also survive the so-called “retro swing” movement (which continues to produce naught but warmed over rock and roll laced with ill-trained horn players paying misguided homage to Louises Jordan and Prima). It’s true that there are far fewer CDs available of Scott’s own performances than there ought to be, but Scott’s music dominates the mass media more at the millennium than at any other time since his initial 15 minutes of fame in the late 1930’s. You can’t watch any kind of programming on TV, from commercials to contemporary animation(not to mention much of the vintage contents of The Cartoon Network) without hearing “Powerhouse.” At venues all over (in New York at least), all manner of bands from The Knitting Factory to the Bottom Line and the Jewish Museum feature his work. Much of this has been due to the tenacity of Irwin Chusid, who’s served as the late composer’s posthumous rabbi for over a decade already, but Irwin would be the first to tell you that Scott’s music doesn’t need much pushing; you just lay down a few bars on the cats and recognition and delight will instantly set in. The stuff has a life of its own.

And yet Scott’s Quintette music of the ‘30s was hardly listened to or played by anybody (especially the composer himself) from the ‘40s to the ‘90s, only to be rediscovered around the time of Scott’s death in 1994. One obvious answer would have to be because of Carl Stalling: people know “Powerhouse” and “The Toy Trumpet” mainly from growing up with these melodies on television as accompanying arias for the wacky antics of wabbits and ducks. In the early 1960s, Scott composed three LPs worth of electronic music with the intent of quieting toddlers entitled Soothing Sounds For Baby (reissued on BASTA 90642, 90652, 90662), yet his Quintette music had already supplied the soundtrack for several generations of our collective childhood.

Yet the cartoon connection isn't the only reason. Quan­titatively speaking, Stalling made use of many more tunes, for instance, by Harry Warren, Warner Brothers own in-­house giant of the movie musical. Many Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies even took their titles from Warren's tunes. (Other slices of cartoon music rate the same recognition factor: the premiere episode of South Park quoted Harold Arlen's "I Love To Singa.") Thus the motivation behind the Scott resurgence can't be attributed entirely to the fami­liarity of the themes themselves.

What makes Scott so relevant to our times, ultimately, is the rhythmic accessibility of his work. Scott supporters lament that the composer is invariably given scant notice in histories of jazz (the inevitable reference to his Duke Elling­ton‑Cootie Williams homage "When Cootie Left the Duke"), but in truth, it would be difficult to consider the ‘30s Quintette music jazz in any except the broadest defini­tion of the term. Scott's groups may have used essentially the same instrumentation as Fats Waller and his Rhythm, but that was about as far as he went. The Quintette didn't utilize improvisation, it had no connection to the blues (not a necessary element of jazz, but it doesn't hurt to use blues harmonies if you want your music to be considered jazz), and it didn't swing. That is to say, it doesn't adhere to the rhythmic patterns codified for jazz by Louis Armstrong, then expanded upon by Benny Goodman, Count Basie and others for what became known as the "Swing Era." The Quintette music has a rhythmic drive of its own, and it "swings" in the same way that Bach or Hank Williams or Marvin Gaye can be said to swing, but Scott never tried to make it swing the way a swing band swings.

Jazz purists of the '30s decried that Scott's music wasn't strictly jazz even then. (While working on the original Raymond Scott Project in 1990, Irwin and I sent some tapes of Raymond's CBS acetates to an authority on Bunny Berigan, hoping to identify which tracks might contain that great trumpeter. Said authority was very helpful, but returned the tapes denouncing The Scott Quintette as nothing more than “junk music.") Today, however, the fashion in which Scott used rhythm, and in general avoided a jazz conception of time, ultimately works in his favor. Those wonderfully tricky, rinky‑dinky, mechanical sounding pieces fall very easily on the ears of contemporary listeners who've grown up with a rock and roll sense of time.

You'll note that I'm specifying "Quintette" music as opposed to “Raymond Scott Music." That's because Scott himself only made music that sounded like the '30s Quintette for a few brief Years. When he put together his own big band, starting in 1939, he only infrequently played his classic Quintette compositions and in general avoided making the Raymond Scott Orchestra sound like an augmented edition of The Raymond Scott Quintette. In the early ‘40s, Scott went in for mainstream swing in a big way, and his CBS studio orchestra was a legendary jazz organization that, to Scott's credit, was said to be the first to regularly employ jazzmen of all races side by side in a studio situation. There's even a tape somewhere of Ben Webster soloing with Raymond's orchestra and making “Powerhouse” swing like Duke Ellington.

However. If Scott wasn't playing the Quintette compositions with his own big band, plenty of others were. The tunes were especially popular in England, where "experimental” or “novelty” composers, such as Scott's unduly neglected colleague Reginald Foresythe, had long found favor. Popular dance orchestras like Ambrose ("Powerhouse”) and Harry Roy ("Dinner Music For A Pack of Hungry Cannibals”) crafted their own big band interpretations of classic Scott small group pieces. In Ameri­ca, even as dedicated a trio of proselytes for the cause of swing as Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey found “Twilight In Turkey" worthy of their admiration. The father of swing himself, Pops Louis Arm­strong, later recorded "Christmas Night In Harlem," right before that song became terminally un‑PC.

Yet bassist, researcher and producer Gert‑Jan Blom of the Beau Hunks has recently established that the biggest supporter of Scott's music from the musical mainstream, both figuratively and physically, was The King of Jazz him­self, Paul Whiteman.

In 1937, Whiteman was nearing the end of his second decade as the most celebrated bandleader in the nation. The former violinist began his career by hiring composer and arranger Ferde Grofe’ to all but invent the popular dance orchestra, and throughout the '20s, Whiteman's band, his physical girth and his ambitious vision for Ameri­can music matched each other for sheer size. He brought jazz‑influenced dance music to recordings, to the new medium of radio and, very early on, the concert hall. Along the way, Whiteman nurtured careers as varied as George Gershwin, Bix Beiderbecke and Bing Crosby.

Whiteman stayed on top‑continuing to score high ratings on radio deep into the swing era‑because he was always able to find something new. An early supporter of the long form, he commissioned Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue and continued to play extended works by everyone from Victor Herbert and Ferde Grofe’ to Duke Ellington and even a symphonic narrative by Rodgers and Hart. With Bing Crosby and Mildred Bailey, Whiteman defined the concept of the dance band vocalist. His was the first orchestra to create its own audio identity in the era of elec­tronic media, even including motion pictures. Whiteman played everything from the loftiest classical adaptations (even a "fantasia" medley of Wagner‑definitely not your basic foxtrot) to the hottest treatment of "Tiger Rag" that money could buy; from Hoagy Carmichael's gully low "Washboard Blues" to waltzes (like "Coquette") to silly novelties like "C‑0‑N‑S‑T‑A‑N‑T‑1‑N‑0‑P‑L‑E."

When Whiteman switched to Columbia Records in 1927, the company rewarded him by putting his potato­-headed caricature in full color on the labels of his discs. That drawing confirmed Whiteman's iconic status as the single best known figure in all of popular music, and he was only beginning to tumble from that pinnacle in 1937. The swing band boom, ignited by many of "Pops'” own alumni (most notably Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey) was beginning to steal some of Whiteman's formidable thunder. At first, Whiteman assumed that swing was just anot­her trend that he could assimilate into his presentations. In truth, he did launch a "swing wing" within his larger orchestra, a group that could dispense the same kind of hotter dance music that the newer bands were offering, and also premiered a number of jazz combinations from within his ranks, such as the Bouncing Brass, Swinging Strings and Sax Soctette. It took a while for it to dawn on Whiteman that such groups were beside the point ‑ that his whole concert presentation was irrelevant in a world that now wanted to forget its troubles by dancing to the hottest, fas­test and loudest music it could find.

But in 1937, Whiteman was still on top, and his new Chesterfield series for CBS was one of the most popular on the airwaves ‑ former employee Bing Crosby was one of the few who matched Pops in ratings. For Whiteman, Raymond Scott offered a whole new realm of possibilities. His tunes were now being heard everywhere (although not yet cartoons for a few more years), both in perform­ances by the Quintette and other bands. But Whiteman did everything in first class fashion: where other leaders could merely offer Scott's tunes, Whiteman's Chesterfield show brought listeners Scott himself (it helped that Scott spent most of his career under contract to CBS, under whose aegis the Quintette had been developed). The pianist and his six man fivesome became semi regulars on the series.

In total, Whiteman commissioned 18 different arrange­ments of Scott's most popular pieces (among them two very different treatments of "Powerhouse") from his orchestrating staff, which included Roy Bargy, Irving Szathmary, Nathan Van Cleave, Joe Glover, Russ Case, and Fred van Eps. All 18 charts were heard on the series between December 1937 and December 1938, but although Whiteman was recording prolifically for Decca at the time, he recorded almost none of these works. (The only discs that have come to our attention are "The Toy Trumpet" and "Minuet In jazz," released by "Paul White­man's Swinging Strings." "Christmas Night in Harlem" is an exception on several levels, it's a song with lyrics and not a Quintette instrumental.
The Quintette never recorded it, but Whiteman did in 1934. Thanks to Whiteman, "Christmas Night in Harlem" became a much‑reprised duet feature for Johnny Mercer and Jack Teagarden as well as landing Scott his major success as a songwriter from then up to the time of his Broadway show, Lute Song.)

It's likely that some or even all of the original CBS bro­adcasts were transcribed (several LPs worth of material spotlighting Jack Teagarden has, thankfully, been availa­ble) but no aircheck of the Whiteman‑Scott works has come to light. Therefore, when the Metropole Orchestra (one of the finest large jazz ensembles in all of Europe) combined forces with The Beau Hunks Sextette (who've already recorded two definitive discs of Raymond's Quintette arrangements, Celebration on the Planet Mars, Koch KOC 3 7907-2, and Manhattan Minuet, BASTA 90362) it meant the chance to document these orchestrations both for the first time and in the best possible way. What you'll hear in this disc is a revelation in both careers.

A few pages ago, we went to great pains to discuss how the Quintette music was essentially not jazz and shouldn't be expected to swing like, say, Fletcher Henderson (or even John Kirby, Scott's darker "brother"). Apparently no one told the Whiteman arrangers. While keeping more or less true to Raymond's original rhythmic conception, the time feel has been pushed ever so gently more towards that of a conventional big band, and the result is a middle ground that will satisfy both ends.

The only listeners who might be disappointed are those died‑in‑the‑wool Raymondites who want a big band treat­ment of "Twilight In Turkey" to sound like an exact elabo­ration of the way the Quintette played it. Of all 18 tracks here, only one of the two versions of "Powerhouse" make the listener think he's hearing four Dave Wades playing trumpet in unison or a whole reed section doing what Pete Pumiglio and Dave Harris did in the original. Most of the time, the arrangers took considerable leeway with Scott's compositions. Knowing how fussy the composer was regarding his music (particularly in this, his pre‑jazz chase), it's doubtful that Scott himself enjoyed these treat­ments much, but nonetheless they are exciting, creative interpretations of tunes that do much to make the Quintette music work in a genuine swing band setting.

The Scott‑Whiteman collaboration, in essence, repre­sents a meeting of two traditions: Scott comes out of the era's trend of novelty or experimental jazz‑pop composers (the terms were essentially interchangeable at that point) such as Foresythe and Red Norvo; Whiteman was the grandfather of radio "program" music, a genre associated by that time with Andre Kostelanetz. Although Kostelanetz (like Percy Faith) became a muzak maven later on, his presentations in the '30s were considerably more challenging, a fact which can be verified by the presence of Claude Thornhill on his arranging staff. The traditions had met before; Whiteman had recorded Foresythe's "Serenade to a Wealthy Widow” and Kostelanetz had done an elaborate treatment of Don Redman’s “Chant of the Weed.” (The only Maestro to continue making this kind of music into the television decade, and not take it straight into the realm of elevator arias, was probably Leroy Anderson).

Therefore, in addition to making the Scott tunes swing a’ la Benny Goodman, the Whiteman arrangers also succeed in making the charts work as “program” music. Scott’s penchant for exotica was especially useful in this regard. Over the decades, a sort of aural folklore had clustered around the concept of sounds from other than white, western sources; by the ‘30s, Hollywood score composers were relying on even-then-old notions, clichés even, of what Native American and middle eastern music was supposed to sound like.

Scott embraced these hand‑me‑down ideas and made them a solid part of his repertoire: when he wasn't depic­ting the mechanical rhythm of a factory or the no‑less mechanical walk of a penguin, chances are he was depic­ting some far away place with a strange‑sounding name. Indeed, probably one of the reasons Scott was tapped to write Lute Song was because of his fondness for "world music" style themes. Although none of the Quintette pieces was overtly oriental, Lute Song at last gave him plenty of opportunity to compose such chinoiserie.

Even Raymond himself would have had to admit that the Whiteman Orchestra was, in some instances, better equipped to carry out his artistic vision than the Quintette. Where the six‑piece group can simulate only a handful of wooden Indians, the full band puts you in mind of an entire tribe. The same is true of the other geographically‑driven works‑the Whitemanites expand "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," "Twilight In Turkey," and "Egyptian Barn Dance" to Cecil B. DeMille‑like propor­tions, with hundreds of extras up to their “buttskis” in red Jell-O. "Siberian Sleighride" opens with near‑silence, and gradually the sleigh bells theme gets louder, as if the sleigh itself were barely visible on the mountain slope and slowly coming into view. The orchestra's expanded potential for dynamics renders one of Scott's more cinematic devices a lot more effective.

"Tia Juana" may be Scott's most unusual travelogue; he wrote it some years before the Quintette, and it has the least to do with the Quintette music of all the pieces here. Scott draws a connection between those two pentatonic cousins, Spanish music and middle eastern music. While the Quintette never recorded it, Desi Arnaz and his Babalu band actually did. Without so much as a suggestion of the Quintette's trademark herky‑jerky beat, this piece comes most closely to sounding like an authentically ethnic piece, offering Scott's approximation of a bolero.

The Whiteman orchestrations also call attention to the concept of interpretation. One Scott piece not done by Whiteman, "In an 18th Century Drawing Room," offers Scott's treatment of a melody written by Mozart for one of his piano sonatas; likewise, "The Happy Farmer" was in­spired by Robert Schumann (it's a theme that you'll hear, in another re‑interpreted form, in the background to the opening scene of The Wizard Of Oz). "Tia Juana," like­wise, is Scott's version of a bolero, while "Mexican Jump­ing Bean" (another oddity, Scott didn't record this piece until October 1939, on his first session with "His New Orchestra") has Scott suggesting a typical south‑of the-­border theme. The Whiteman arrangers then re‑interpret Scott's own interpretations of these familiar motives and concepts, and elaborate upon Scott's own elaborations.

Lastly, Scott's music is loaded with conflict: often he sets it up as kind of a culture clash‑"A (presumably American) Boy Scout In Switzerland"‑what would he be doing there? "Christmas Night in Harlem"‑un‑PC as it was for Raymond to suggest it back in 1935, that was not the locale where the holiday was normally depicted in pop culture, then or now. "Minuet In Jazz"‑that about says it all right there. On "Twilight In Turkey," Scott choreo­graphs the contrast between an original theme of his own devising and another "received" melody, an archaic motif associated with the faux‑middle east in carnivals and vaudeville going back at least to the 19th century, a piece sometimes known as "Snake Charmer" and often encum­bered with a lyric concerning the absence of pants in the sunny side of France.

Such contrast, it's almost needless to say, is grist for the mill for a larger jazz ensemble, and as a result the battle between the two warring themes of "Turkey" has never sounded more exciting. Likewise, the dichotomy between the two ideas described in the title of "Minuet in Jazz," with the Whiteman crew (or, rather, the Metropolites) illustrating the difference between the symphony and the swing band. "Egyptian Barn Dance" essentially pivots around a series of exchanges between the full ensemble and the drummer; "Suicide Cliff," which may be the sleeper sensa­tion of the current collection, is a dark, noirish theme that Scott never recorded. Although "Egyptian" exists in a Quintette version, after hearing the BH6‑Metropole per­formance you'll agree that both times properly belong to Scott’s orchestra oeuvre. As "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner" and other pieces show, the Whiteman arrangers make a much greater use of background themes and countermelodies than was possible in the six‑piece group. Victor Herbert's "March of the Wooden Soldiers" can be heard in the background to Scott's fairyland foray, "The Toy Trumpet." The growling trumpet also gets considerably bluesier than Dave Wade by himself could ever hope to be on the blues theme of "Toy Trumpet."

What's also remarkable is that all this unique music was written, performed once or twice on the air and then forgotten, all within a one year period, By 1940, both Scott and Whiteman were no longer making noises that sounded anything like this ‑ both had given in to the swing thing and were individually leading two of the best bands in the contemporrary style (coincidentally, the often excellent recordings that both leaders made in that period are equally unduly neglected). Scott's 1940 big band, included future salon music auteur Hugo Winterhalter on clarinet and tenor, as well as, future band­leader and driver of the Woody Herman rhythm section, Chubby Jackson. The Quintette had already employed CBS house musician Johnny "Drummer Man" Williams (who had recorded with them under his own name, play­ing more straight-ahead stuff), and the drummer's son, pianist and composer‑John Williams, would grow up to win Oscars for his movie music and to succeed Arthur Fiedler as the conductor of The Boston Pops Orchestra. It would complete a nice full circle if The Pops would mount a pro­gram of the Whiteman‑Scott orchestrations, hopefully in conjunction with the Beau Hunks, as the Metropole does here.

We Yanks are long accustomed to the irony that it often requires Europeans to tell us what's best about our own culture. In documenting the remarkable collaboration of Raymond Scott and Paul Whiteman, these Dutchmen have rendered a major service to American music.”

‑ WILL FRIEDWALD
New York City, June, 1999

“Jazz repertory represents an important direction and challenge for the future: to acknowledge the creative gifts of the men and women who created ensemble music for listening and dancing, and to prepare usable performance materials so that ensembles can easily play and study it. Just imagine if materials from the baroque and classical eras of music had been allowed to collect dust in attics or to languish in special collections in colleges and archives without editing and publication; by this time, they would probably have ceased to exist. We are only now accepting that the music of the big band era is unique and warrants saving, not just in terms of American cultural history but of world music as well. It is imperative that this work continue for the sake of indigenous American music. Perhaps wide interest in this music is still several years away; yet the time to save it is now." Sultanof, p. 521.