Raymond Scott
Manhattan Research, Inc.

From the "Jazz Manual" (Barry Ulanov, 1957, pg.255), I take the following brief entry on the artist: "Raymond Scott, Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1910 (the date is incorrect, he was born in 1908, editor's note). A carefree composer, important in jazz mainly for his patronage of radio shows at the end of the 1930s and early 1940s, first with swing and then with ultra-modern jazz bands." - I would add: important in jazz for the hits "Twilight in Turkey", "Powerhouse", and "War Dance for Wooden Indians". Also important for being the first, during his radio broadcasts in the '40s, to mix jazz with electronic sounds, a good thirty years before free-jazz musicians (Paul Bley, Sun Ra, Bob James, etc.) - Quite a bizarre character this Caucasian, an excellent composer desired by various radio and film studios, director of small, medium, and large jazz orchestras, delicate and sensitive pianist, experimenter in sound and electronic music, but it should be noted that he had nothing to do with the greats of American avant-garde: Cage, Tudor, Subotnick, Ashley, Mumma, Oliveros, Behrman, for no stylistic or intellectual reason should he be associated with these or other experimenters. Following the commercial decline of jazz music from the '50s, he became interested only and exclusively in the production of electronic music, first with devices of his own invention, ending in the '80s with works of computer music, he would die in 1994.

The Dutch Basta Records reissued in the '90s the three albums originally released in 1964 by Epic, "Soothing Sounds for Baby" Vol.1, Vol.2, and Vol.3, all focused on electronic minimalism with extensive use of electromechanical sequencers. In 2000, the same European label published this very interesting collection (This music is completely electronic, and has been created and produced on equipment designed and manufactured by MANHATTAN RESEARCH INC. est. 1946) accompanied by two CDs and a rich 140-page booklet with interviews, photographs, electrical diagrams, and dozens of essential information to understand what you hear in the two included media. It consists of about seventy tracks all recorded between 1953 and 1969.

A challenging task to describe the contents of Manhattan Research which are often stylistically contrasting; the collection includes numerous jingles and music created for the advertising market reserved for gas companies, airline companies, perfumes, razor blades, household cleaning products, carbonated drinks, coffee and fruit juice brands, fashion industries, toys, futurama, cough syrups, engine spark plugs and car batteries, hot dog buns, office products, for IBM, short films, cartoons, and artistic films. For the voice of singer Dorothy Collins, one of Scott's wives, he wrote the songs "Lightworks", "Melonball Bounce" (1963 Sprite advertisement), and "Vicks" (1960 ad for the famous balsamic), all solely orchestrated with electronic instrumentation, various effects, looped magnetic tapes, electronic drums, and sequencers. There are also sound tests of strange technological devices designed by Raymond Scott: "The Bass-Line Generator" for 10 synthetic bass tones, "Auto-Lite: Sta-Ful" for circular sequencer, "Domino" for one of the first electronic drums in history, the "Bandito The Bongo Artist" also home-built by creative Raymond, "The Rhythm Modulator" for mechanical sequencer, "In the Hall of the Mountain Queen" or "Take Me to your Violin Teacher" for his keyboardless synthesizer "Electronium", "Cindy Electronium" for Electronium synthesizer and valve keyboard Clavivox. The pieces so to speak "self-contained" are the melodic "Portofino", electronic versions of old personal jazz hits: "Twilight in Turkey" from 1937 and "The Toy Trumpet" from 1936 or "Night & Day" by Cole Porter, the cacophonous "Backwards Overload", "The Wild Piece" futuristic version of Stravinsky's String Concerto, the ambient "Cyclic Bit", the rustic "Ripples", the cosmic "Space Mystery", "The Pygmy Taxy Corporation" which is a long series of practical and sound demonstrations of his Electronium, and "When Will It End?" probably the only piece made by Scott with the Moog synthesizer.

Raymond Scott, at least in the second part of his career, has been for years a central yet over time forgotten figure in the development of sound and electronic equipment, so much so that Robert Moog stated several times that his concept of modular sequencer was inspired more by Scott's inventions than the technological novelty of the competitor Don Buchla. The box set in question is recommended to all electronic sound archaeologists in music, lovers of Jean Jacques Perrey, Jershon Kingsley, Walter Carlos, the Kraftwerk of "Ralf Und Florian" or the pre-Oxygene Jean Michel Jarre "Deserted Palace", "Les Granges Brulees".