ahhh, now that’s soothing
* raymond scott: lullaby | sleepy time
from soothing sounds for babies : vol 1 : 1 to 6 months
raymond scott is best known for his work with the raymond scott quintte. his works were used by warner bros in so many cartoon classics, that his work has been etched into our very being. but don’t you dare pigenhole him into that role. he was equally as influential in the world of electronic and ambient music. it was in 1963 that he first released the soothing sounds for babies series. he was a true pioneer, as these releases predate the ambient music scene by more than a decade.
Brian Eno’s 1975 album Discreet Music is often cited as the first deliberate attempt at “ambient music” (though Eno cited No Pussyfooting, a 1973 collaboration with guitarist Robert Fripp, as a forerunner). In his book A Year With Swollen Appendices, Eno stated, “Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. [It] must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” His subsequent albums On Land, Music for Airports, Thinking Music, and Thursday Afternoon, along with Fripp’s solo Frippertronics and Soundscapes, defined a genre of music that could justifiably be termed Easy Listening for the avant-garde. (For a complete history of sonic sedatives, read Joseph Lanza’s Elevator Music, published by Quartet Books, UK.) This music, intended to pacify and mesmerize, later mixed with dance beats into such styles as ambient house, trance, techno, and trip-hop. Echoes can be heard in the recordings of Aphex Twin, The Orb, and Stereolab, among countless others.
(from the liner notes)
one interesting thing to note is that one of the main reasons raymond scott pursued electronic music is because he was such a control freak. he didn’t trust anyone and demanded total cooperation from everyone. in an effort to find the perfect musician then, he turned to machines.
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the cap'n said,
November 20, 2004 @ 9:46 am
Just over five years ago,a friend of mine was just about to have a baby and I tried to get hold of these albums as a present…unfortunately,try as I might,I couldn’t track down a copy of Volume One!What’s just struck me is that the baby on the cover doesn’t look particularly soothed at all…more like he’s going to crawl around causing chaos all over the place!
cb said,
November 20, 2004 @ 5:35 pm
yeah, the baby isn’t soothed at the moment. but maybe after all those soundwave finish passing through his ears (doesn’t it look like the sound is going into one ear and out the other? significantly changed?) the baby will be sufficiently soothed and will settle down?!?!?
-cb
the of mirror eye » Microphone Madness said,
September 13, 2006 @ 6:18 pm
[...] In addition to writing cartoon music and minimalist masterpieces for children (look here), Raymond Scott composed and recorded some amazing jazz music. Despite being a six-piece jazz group (seven, if you count the microphone), the Raymond Scott Quintette powered their way through some furiously paced jazz. An argument could be made that the six-man “Quintette” was in fact the Raymond Scott Septet - if you count what Scott considered one of the most important “member” of the band: the microphone. In viewing photographs of Scott and his late-’30’s ensembles, it’s curious how many tableaus include the mic. Granted, most of these images were snapped in radio and recording studios, where mics are ubiquitous. But the prominences accorded to microphones in these pictures seems to indicate that Generalissimo Scott - who, just as he drilled his musical troops, doubtless barked orders during phot shoots - wanted to emphasize the mic as a “silent” partner in the band. [...]