Raymond Scott's Lab

[Ugh!]

A thread devoted to discussing Raymond Scott's works, from early non-impro bop to mad professor electronic machines....



For one, I find his jazz-compositions interesting. The jazz musicians, used to improvisational parts, complained that Scott treated them as machines, only with names. He did later invent machines based on artificial intelligence, stating that what he would like to do was to sit down in front of a machine and press buttons so that it would compose for him, entering into a symbiotic relationship with the machine as a composer.

That aside, I also think that his early proto bop, stringent jazz compositions were more akin to classical compositions in the sense that the performers are left with little creative freedom. Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto is brought to mind...