Editing Raymond Scott (section)

==Early life and career==
Scott was born in Brooklyn, New York to [[Russian Jewish]] immigrants, Joseph and Sarah Warnow.<ref name="timeline">{{cite web |last1=Chusid |first1=Irwin |last2=Winner |first2=Jeff E. |title=Raymond Scott Timeline |url=http://www.raymondscott.net/timeline/ |website=Raymondscott.net|access-date=December 17, 2018}}</ref> His older brother, [[Mark Warnow]], was a conductor, violinist, and musical director for the CBS radio program ''[[Your Hit Parade]]'' and encouraged his musical career.

A 1931 graduate of the [[Juilliard School of Music]], where he studied piano, theory and composition, Scott, under his birth name, began his professional career as a pianist for the [[CBS Radio]] house band. His brother, Mark, older by eight years, conducted the orchestra. He adopted the pseudonym "Raymond Scott" to spare his brother charges of nepotism when the orchestra began performing the pianist's idiosyncratic compositions. In 1935, he married Pearl Zimney.

In late 1936, Scott assembled a band from among his CBS colleagues, calling it the Raymond Scott Quintette. It was a six-piece group, but he thought "Quintette" (his spelling) sounded "crisper"; he also told a reporter that he feared "calling it a 'sextet' might get your mind off music." His sidemen were Pete Pumiglio (clarinet); [[Bunny Berigan]] (trumpet, replaced by Dave Wade); Louis Shoobe (double bass); Dave Harris (tenor saxophone); and [[Johnny Williams (drummer)|Johnny Williams]] (drums). They made their first recordings in New York on February 20, 1937, for Master Records, owned by [[Music publisher (popular music)|music publisher]]/impresario [[Irving Mills]] ([[Duke Ellington]]'s manager).

The Quintette represented Scott's attempt to revitalize [[Swing (genre)|swing]] music through tight, busy arrangements that reduced reliance on [[improvisation]]. He called this style "descriptive jazz" and gave his works unusual titles like "New Year's Eve in a Haunted House", "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals" (recorded by the [[Kronos Quartet]] in 1993), and "Bumpy Weather Over Newark". Although his songs were popular with the public, jazz critics disdained them as novelty music. Besides being a prominent figure in recording studios and on radio and concert stages, Scott wrote and was interviewed in ''[[DownBeat]]'', ''[[Metronome (magazine)|Metronome]]'', and ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]''.

Scott believed in composing and playing by ear. He composed not on paper but "on his band"—by humming phrases to his sidemen or by demonstrating riffs and rhythms on the keyboard and instructing players to interpret his cues. It was all done by ear with no written scores, a process known as [[arrangement|head arrangements]]. Scott, who was also a savvy sound engineer, recorded the band's rehearsals on discs and used the recordings as references to develop his compositions. He reworked, re-sequenced, and deleted passages, and added themes from other discs to construct finished works. During the developmental process, he let his players improvise, but once complete, he regarded a piece as relatively fixed and permitted little further improvisation. Scott controlled the band's repertoire and style, but he rarely took piano solos, preferring to direct the band from the keyboard and leave solos and leads to his sidemen. He also had a penchant for adapting classical motifs in his compositions.

The Quintette existed from 1937 to 1939 and recorded bestselling discs such as "Twilight in Turkey", "Minuet in Jazz", "War Dance for Wooden Indians", "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner", "[[Powerhouse (instrumental)|Powerhouse]]", and "The Penguin". One of Scott's popular compositions is "The Toy Trumpet", a cheerful pop confection that is instantly recognizable to many people who cannot name the title or composer. In the 1938 film ''[[Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938 film)|Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm]]'', [[Shirley Temple]] sings a version of the song. Trumpeter [[Al Hirt]]'s 1964 rendition with [[Arthur Fiedler]] and [[Boston Pops Orchestra|the Boston Pops]] performed a version. "In an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Room" is a pop adaptation of the opening theme from Mozart's [[Piano Sonata, K. 545 (Mozart)|Piano Sonata in C, K. 545]].

[[File:ToyTrumpetFinale.PNG|center]]
{{center|<small>Opening bars of melody line of "The Toy Trumpet"</small>}}

In 1939, Scott turned his Quintette into a [[big band]]. When he was named music director by CBS radio three years later, he organized the first racially integrated radio band. Over the next two years, he hired saxophonist [[Ben Webster]], trumpeter [[Charlie Shavers]], bassist [[Billy Taylor (jazz bassist)|Billy Taylor]], trumpeter [[Emmett Berry]], trombonist [[Benny Morton]], and drummer [[Cozy Cole]]. In 1942, Scott relinquished his keyboard duties so he could concentrate on hiring, composing, arranging, and conducting. He returned to the keyboard with some of his bands.

In 1941, he led a 13-piece orchestra to produce what he termed "silent music" in New York, making a great show of performing with very little sound. This was one of the earliest performances of the [[List of silent musical compositions|silent or near-silent music canon]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160323-the-mysterious-appeal-of-silent-music|title=The mysterious appeal of 'silent music' |last=Robson |first=David |date=March 24, 2016 |access-date=2016-08-19}}</ref>