Scott, Raymond

Born into a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. At the age of 2, he began to play the piano, showing great ability to music. After school, Harry planned to study as an engineer, but his older brother Mark still persuaded him to enter the Academy of Musical Art in New York ), bribing the expensive Steinway Grand and paying for the training. Harry's engineering talent was destined to be realized much later.

After completing his studies, Scott (he chose his pseudonym at random in the Manhattan phone book) got a job as a full-time pianist in the CBS radio network house band ensemble, led by his brother. Finding the group’s repertoire very boring and monotonous, Raymond began to offer his works to his colleagues and soon his eccentric compositions such as “Confusion Among a Fleet of Taxicabs Upon Meeting with a Fare” began to gradually leak into the air.

Scott played in the ensemble until 1936, by which time he persuaded the producer of CBS ( Herb Rosenthal ) to let him try to create his own band - Raymond Scott Quintette (Raymond didn’t count himself. He liked how the word “quintet” sounds clearly). The first line-up included the then CBS veterans, Lou Shoobe - bass, Dave Harris - saxophone, Pete Pumiglio - clarinet, Johnny Williams - drums, Bunny Berigan - trumpet. The debut took place on December 26, 1936 at the Saturday Night Swing Session , where the quintet played its first hit, The Toy Trumpet, which presented the group with a contract with Master Records (owned by Irving Mills , manager of Duke Ellington himself ).

Raymond called his style “descriptive jazz” , giving the compositions various kinds of unusual names, for example, “New Year's Eve in a Haunted House”, “Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals”, or “Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner”. Extreme perfectionism and a rather unusual approach to writing and performing music turned the work of musicians into a real torture. Scott did not record his compositions and did everything by ear, he demanded the same from his colleagues. At the same time, he forbade any improvisation, which undoubtedly surprised and annoyed the musicians, many of them simply could not work with Scott and left.

Raymond did not stop it, he continued to grow, by the end of the 30s the quintet turned into a big-band and signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox . Then no one could know that Powerhouse would be the hallmark of the Bunny rabbit cartoon and Daffy duckling cartoons. Surprisingly, Raymond himself never considered his music “cartoony” and did not watch the cartoons themselves.

In 1942, such famous performers as Cozy Cole , Benny Morton , Coleman Hawkins , Ben Webster , Emmett Berry and Charlie Shavers already played in his orchestra. It was the top. Despite a successful musical career, Scott remained a dreaming inventor, his interest in electronics and mechanics only increased.

In 1946, he founded Manhattan Research, Inc. It was more a laboratory than a studio. It was there that in 1948, Scott began working on the first ever “sound effects generator” (later called Karloff), which could imitate various sounds: coughing, rattling pots, hissing fried steak, drum beats. In 1952, Raymond began creating the Clavivox , the world's first one-voice keyboard synthesizer designed to replace the theremin dominant at that time. A full-fledged Clavivox synthesizer cannot be called, but this idea was successfully used by Robert Moog , who worked at that time for Scott.

Many inventions remained unclaimed, they appeared too early and the world was not ready to accept them, both technologically and ideologically. A striking example of this is the electromechanical musical sequencer (“The Wall of Sound” as Raymond called it), it is Scott who owns the idea of ​​automatically sequentially reproducing pre-recorded sounds. The ultimate goal was to create a “universal machine for composition and performance”, in the late 50s a new miracle appeared - the Electronium (not the Hohner Electronium!) From the wreckage of the Wall and Karloff. “The system is based on the principle of artistic interaction between Man and Machine,” Scott said. In the manual, he wrote - “Composer 'asks' Electronuim 'to propose' an idea, theme or motive. To repeat it a tone higher, you need to press the corresponding key. All the composer needs is: faster, slower, different rhythm, pause, variation {...} Electronium continues the composer's thoughts, the relationship is established between them. ” At its core, this device was the prototype of a modern MIDI studio with a drum and groove machine, a set of various presets and a simple sampler .

Raymond devotes less and less time to his musical career; deteriorating health does not allow working at full strength. In 1963, he released a series of albums entitled “Soothing Sounds for Baby” - a collection of soothing lullabies for children (in his imagination it was just that).

They, after a decade, will inspire the founders of the electronic genre: Brian Eno , Tangerine Dream , the German school of Klaus Schulz , Kraftwerk , JJ Perrey and many others.

In 1971, Berry Gordy Jr. , the head of Motown Records , invites Scott to lead the engineering research field, where he will work until 1977. Poor health no longer allows Raymond to keep up with the hurricane of technology. In the memory of his colleagues, he forever remained an eccentric genius, an idealist who did not have time to realize his dream.

After retiring, Scott continued to write music using Electronium and his other devices. His last composition “Beautiful Little Butterfly” was written in 1986. In 1987, a stroke confined Raymond to bed, forcing him to completely abandon his job.

• “Perhaps over the next hundred years, science will be able to develop a way to convey the composer's thought directly to the listener. The composer will go on stage alone, it will be enough for him only to present an idealized concept of his creation. Instead of recording and transmitting the sound itself, the recording will transmit the composer's brain waves directly to the listener's mind. ”

• Raymond Scott Official Website