by MARK SLUTSKY

If you grew up watching Warner Bros. cartoons, you’ve heard the music of Raymond Scott a million times, though you might never know it. One of the great unrecognized American composers of the 20th century, Scott’s name was only rescued from obscurity in the mid-’90s when a series of re-issues finally brought recognition to this unknown genius who had created the concept of cartoon music as we know it today, as well as being an early pioneer of electronic music.

In 1943, Warner Bros. music director Carl Stalling acquired the rights to Scott’s songs. He must have found them especially compatible with the frenetic Looney Tunes aesthetic, adapting them as soundtracks for the doings of Bugs Bunny and Co. So Scott never wrote music specifically for cartoons - in fact, he claimed to have never even watched them, which is especially amazing considering the titles of his songs, like "New Year’s Eve in a Haunted House" and "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner."

Scott’s resurgence in popularity is largely due to the efforts of Irwin Chusid, perhaps best known for Songs in the Key of Z, his book on outsider music. Says Chusid, "In the late ’80s a friend had given me a cassette of Scott 78s, and he said, ‘You may recognize these from Warner Bros. cartoons,’ and indeed I did. You have to understand at the time, no one knew who Raymond Scott was - no one knew if he was dead or alive!"

Chusid eventually tracked a stroke-ridden Scott down and offered to represent him (he would also manage the career of one Juan Garcia Esquivel towards the end of the late maestro’s life). Scott passed away in 1994, and two years later Chusid arranged for a tribute night at New York’s Bottom Line nightclub. This led to the formation of the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, a seven-piece ensemble dedicated to performing Scott’s work. With Chusid’s only instruction being "Do not replicate what Scott did," the Orchestrette re-arranged his songs, augmenting the instrumentation with accordions and electric zithers.

Chusid, who manages the band, isn’t interested in museum pieces. "Anyone who’s contacted me about performing Scott’s music - who’s wanted sheet music, whatever - I go and tell them ‘take it and run with it.’ Make this your own. Create some new sounds. And I think that honours Raymond’s legacy more than duplicating what he did."

Scott was obsessed with technology, and according to Chusid, "He once said that the reason he formed a big band, in 1939, was that he was looking through an electronics supply catalogue and decided that he needed $200,000 to buy everything in it, and the only way he could get that much money was to form a big band."

"Little Miss Echo" was originally composed by Scott in the ’60s as an electronic piece, part of his Soothing Sounds for Baby series of records. In a sort of creative devolution, Orchestrette member Brian Dewan re-arranged the piece for acoustic instruments, creating a strangely textured and appealing piece of repetitive music.

But would Scott approve of all this? "I’d like to think he’d be pleased in some way," says Chusid. "I don’t know if he’d quite appreciate all of their nuances, but we’re in charge now. He’s gone to a bigger studio in the sky, and I think he’d really appreciate that people are performing and hearing and buying his music."

At the FIJM’s General Motors outdoor stage, Jeanne-Mance at Ste-Catherine, on Saturday and Sunday, June 28–29, 9pm, free

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