Just one more of my weird selections of music, I found a composer named Raymond Scott while trying to figure out if the music from the Looney Tunes was original or pulled from somewhere else. Turns out Mr. Scott was a very prolific and rather important figure in the music industry.

Ray Scott is often referred to as “The guy who made the Looney Tunes swing”, and on “The Music of Raymond Scott, Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights” , a retrospective of his early jazz, you will hear most of the music that spiced up the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies. Muted trumpet and sax over clarinet, much like Glen Miller, sums up the sounds here. At the time this style was all the rage as Glen Miller’s influence could be felt across the whole instrumental industry. But unlike Glen Miller, Ray Scott brings a more playful feel to his pieces, making them memorable and catchy. More than one song from this CD has ear wormed me, not bad for music seventy years old. Aside from the whimsy of the tunes, this is a tight recording, every note placed just so. Great care and artistry is apparent on every track.

From the opening track (Powerhouse), which if you have watched any cartoons at all you will recognize, to the last track (Peter Tambourine), you will hearken back to the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Ren and Stimpy, The Simpsons and even Animaniacs. As a jazz album it is pretty good too if you like your jazz very tight, a great contrast to the blues of the time.

Maybe just as fun as the music are the titles of some of the pieces. “Dinner for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals”, “The Girl as the Typewriter”, “At an Arabian House Party” and “War Dance for Wooden Indians” (with a conga feel) are a few examples. In most of these Mr. Scott is trying to recall a specific flavor or atmosphere, and in many cases it works. I can’t help to wonder how well this “visual” music would have worked seventy years ago. I say this because the people of seventy years ago had different references than we do today. I can see them relating to many of these pieces much more readily than I can because popular entertainment of the time would have shaded their interpretation of the music and made it that much more enjoyable. For example, “In an 18th Century Drawing Room” brings back the idea of mild civility and the relaxed pace of an upper class in days past. We still relate to this piece because we know it from the cartoons we watched growing up, but you have the sense that it was even better to people seventy years ago, waking stronger and more elaborate images than we experience today. Ray Scott knew how to wake memes within us and these were especially potent for the time.

So, if you are glancing through the Jazz (or Big Band, or possibly Novelty) section of you local music store, take a look. It is also available through Amazon, and at $9.98 it was a no brainer add-on. Take a listen, it’s cool.