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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZSCOTT, Raymond(b Harry Warnow, 10 September 1909, NYC; d 8 February 1994, Van Nuys CA) Pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader. He studied at Juilliard, played piano in his brother Mark's band, joined the staff at CBS radio, and also appeared in and wrote music for films '35-8. He formed his Quintette (six pieces) and made many records, clever novelty arrangements requiring good playing; one of the best-known was 'In An Eighteenth-Century Drawing Room', cribbed from Mozart. The band's theme was 'The Toy Trumpet'; other titles included 'Twilight In Turkey', 'Dinner Music For A Pack Of Hungry Cannibals'. Records on Master were reissued on Brunswick; as music director at CBS radio he recorded for Columbia, then Decca with a big band including Cozy Cole, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Morton, Charlie Shavers, other top jazzmen, though Scott himself was never a jazz musician. Sides included 'When Cootie Left The Duke' (when Cootie Williams left Ellington to join Benny Goodman). Scott discovered Dorothy Collins in Chicago (b Marjorie Chandler in Canada; d 21 July 1994 aged 67) and hired her to sing with his band; meanwhile Your Hit Parade had started on radio in 1935: Scott took over as conductor when his brother Mark died in 1949, took it to TV in 1950 and stayed until it died with the advent of rock'n'roll. Collins sang the theme for the cigarette sponsor ('Be Happy! Go Lucky!') and soon became a regular on the show, along with (Roy) Snooky Lanson (b Memphis TN, d 3 June 1990, Nashville TN aged 76; sang with Francis Craig, Ray Noble). Scott and Collins married in 1953, divorced later. He also scored the Broadway musical Lute Song '46 ('Mountain High, Valley Low'), later manufactured electronic musical instruments on Long Island. Racalmuto, a sextet based in Madrid, Spain, plays Scott's music extrremely well, adding the music of the John Kirby Sextet and compositions of its own, syncing the music to projected old cartoons and films, recreating the popular culture of the 1930s. |