See It Loud

See It Loud

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Aug 2 / 5:26am

See It Loud #10: Searching for Raymond Scott

by MusicFilmWeb

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You might not know the name Raymond Scott, but chances are pretty good you've heard his music. The leader of one of the most popular swing bands of the late 1930s, Scott trafficked in whirling, tightly arranged rrhythmic exercises like "Powerhouse" that became ubiqitious in classic Warner Bros. cartoons (and more recently served as the Cartoon Network's theme music). As CBS Radio's music director in the 1940s he integrated the network's orchestra, and he became an unlikely TV star in the '50s as the bandleader on Your Hit Parade. But the work to which he was most dedicated, and for which he was long least known, came in electronics and engineering: an inveterate tinkerer and inventor, Scott, who died in 1994 at age 85, was a pioneering electronic musician whose work helped pave the way for synthesizers and sequencing.

Scott's son, Stan Warnow, covers this eclectic territory in delightful detail in his documentary Deconstructing Dad: The Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott, which has spent several months on the festival circuit and screens August 5 at LA's Don't Knock the Rock. Part musical bio, part family history, Deconstructing Dad sees Warnow - a longtime film editor with credits like Woodstock, The Honeymoon Killers, and Hair - working out his ambivalent feelings about his father, a obsessive worker and distant dad who left his wife and kids in the 1950s for a singing protege he'd met when she was in her teens. It's a frank but affectionate portrayal of an iconoclastic artist.

In this edition of See It Loud, Stan Warnow talks with Andy Markowitz and Dave Watson about his father's life, his music, and the experience of deconstructing your dad on-screen. This show features snippets of Scott tunes and occasional ambient noise courtesy of Dave's parents.

(download)

Movies in this one:

Deconstructing Dad

Woodstock

The Song Remains the Same

Monterey Pop

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