| I n t r o d u c t i o n . . . |
by
Elvis Costello |
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ABOVE: Mr. Costello fraternizes with The Beau Hunks Sextette, June 29th, 1996 at the Theatre Carre in Amsterdam, Holland. From left to right: Mr. Costello, Mr. Blom, Mr. Veen, Mr. Heijtmajer, Mr. Debij, Mr.Brackmann, and Mr. Daams. (photo: ANTON DIJKGRAAF, GKf.) |
- - - I FIRST SAW THE BEAU HUNKS SEXTETTE in 1995 at the London South Bank Centre's Meltdown Festival, of which I was Artistic Director. I had very much wanted to present some of Raymond Scott's music during the season and had been told that a group out of Amsterdam (then trading under the banner "The Wooden Indians") were my only men.
- - - In two late night concerts, they thrilled, scared and enchanted an audience that was certainly curious but in some cases unfamiliar with this wonderful music. This is surely the beauty of the group: to faithfully bring music from hidden corners and make it part of our lives. No dusty scholarship! Hear how they swing!
- - - One of my fondest memories of that busy and involving week was watching Raymond's widow, Mitzi Scott, as she laughed and then dabbed her eyes in the semi-darkness while the Beau Hunks Sextette brought her husband's music to life on stage. I hope it is a joy to know that the world is richer for having both her husband's original recordings and the Beau Hunks Sextette on disc - and coming soon to a stage somewhere near you!!!
-Elvis Costello
Dinner Music for a Pack of
Hungry Connoisseurs- - - The Raymond Scott Quintette's music is fun to listen to - but a challenge to play. Scott had a penchant for cramming a lot of notes into small musical spaces. His tunes are a demolition derby of hairpin turns, abrupt tempo shifts, and crazy scales. It didn't make life easier for the original Quints that their boss refused to allow charts - on the bandstand or in rehearsal. Each part was transposed from the composer's brain to the sideman's fingers via the piano keyboard (e.g., "Pete, give me staccato notes like this"). You played it the way Scott liked it - and the same way everafter.
- - - Although Scott was a gentleman who would never get into a physical scuffle, he was a bully with a baton. He loved rehearsing the band - all day, all night, more than some thought necessary. Legendary reed virtuoso Al Gallodoro, who played with Paul Whiteman and briefly with Scott, witnessed the human wreckage. "That S.O.B.," he recalled in 1996. "He was always so fussy. I saw musicians leaving his sessions in tears." Charlie Shavers concurred: "It was a good band. [But] we'd rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. We didn't need that much rehearsal. I think he just liked to hear the band."
- - - For most sidemen, however, the ordeal paid artistic dividends. Scott's bands conferred prestige, and his frequent radio dates provided wide exposure for young, talented sidemen. Scott's quirky compositions also posed a challenge to jazz machismo. Being a restless musical soul, he was always looking for a fresh approach, and he rarely looked back. One of the few times he did, wrote George Simon, in a 1948 article in Metronome magazine, "his [then-new] group was running through one of his compositions called 'Siberian Sleighride.' Suddenly one of the men exclaimed, 'Hey, that's taken right out of Dizzy [Gillespie]!' 'Could be,' answered Ray, 'only I wrote this thing fourteen years ago.'"
- - - Scott's excesses as a taskmaster must be overlooked in appreciating his recorded legacy. There's undeniable magic in the pressings. And thanks to Scott's engineering compulsions, this music - much of it never written down or commercially released - still exists.
- - - The Beau Hunks Sextette worried about displeasing the ghost of the maestro, so they lived with this music a long time before entering the studio. It should also be confessed that the BH6 cheated a bit: they used charts - although they had to make their own transcriptions from the original RSQ records, since six-part arrangements did not exist. Cheating, perhaps, but we think the spirit of Scott - and you - will be pleased with the results.
- - - The Holland-based Beau Hunks were ceremoniously organized in 1991 by bassist/producer Gert-Jan Blom. At their first public appearance - a one-shot on January 18, 1992 at the Oliver Hardy Centennial in Amsterdam - they resurrected the music of a forgotten American composer named Leroy Shield. Shield may have been overlooked, but his music certainly hadn't, as the Beau Hunks proved. Shield's claim to fame was having composed hundreds of familiar themes for the Hal Roach comedies of the 1930s, most notably those of Laurel & Hardy and the Little Rascals. Audience reaction in Amsterdam was so favorable that the BH found themselves ushered into a recording studio. The 50-track The Beau Hunks Play the Original Laurel & Hardy Music (Movies Select Audio 99003) was released in Holland in 1992. In addition to note-perfect renditions of Shield, the album contained equally well-known themes by another Roach composer, T. Marvin Hatley.
- - - As well-known as this music was, it had never been commercially available. Furthermore, charts could not be located, and complete versions of the original Shield recordings from the films did not exist. They had to be painstakingly reconstructed from audio transfers of the films, and then transcribed note-for-note into playable parts. The reconstructions were undertaken by Dutch music historian Piet Schreuders in 1985 - years before the BH re-recordings were even conceived - and parts were transcribed by various band members. As Schreuders delved deeper into the legacy of Shields, he eventually discovered charts - and a LOT more tunes. This led to a second collection, The Beau Hunks Play the Original Laurel & Hardy Music Vol. 2 (Movies Select Audio 99025), released in 1993. From these two albums, the work of Shield alone was culled for a 1994 US release, The Beau Hunks Play the Original Little Rascals Music (Koch 3-8702). A follow-up, On to the Show (Koch 3-8705), featuring 50 more Shield favorites, was released in 1995.
- - - Meanwhile, six members of the BH, led by Blom, began exploring the music of another forgotten American composer whose music had been immortalized in film. Raymond Scott's novelty-jazz of the late 1930s had been sprinkled throughout 115 classic Warner Bros. cartoons. People of all ages knew "Powerhouse" and "The Toy Trumpet" - they just didn't know the titles or the composer. Celebration on the Planet Mars (VPRO EW9410), by the Wooden Indians, introduced 19 of Scott's Bugs Bunny-bent musical mosaics to a new generation of fans. (The group was renamed the Beau Hunks Sextette for the US release [Koch 7909]).
- - - In 1995, at the invitation of Artistic Director Elvis Costello, the Wooden Indians performed a Scott program for two nights at London's spectacular Meltdown Festival.
- - - To solidify their association with the band from which they emerged, the ensemble is now officially known as the Beau Hunks Sextette. Manhattan Minuet is their second album of Scott Quintette tunes. An album of Scott's big-band music, featuring the entire BH orchestra, is planned in the near future. The BH String Quartet, with woodwinds, have recorded Edward MacDowell's Woodland Sketches, Opus 51 (composed in 1896). The full BH also plan to record the 1920s symphonic jazz suites of Ferde Grofé, and an album of American cartoon music by such composers as Carl Stalling, Sammy Timberg, Scott Bradley, and others.
- - - The point of all this musical archaeology? Landmark preservation!
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TRACK NOTES From MANHATTAN MINUET: The Beau Hunks Sextette Perform The Musical Works of Raymond Scott [Basta Records 90362] |
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6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 © Music Sales Corp./ASCAP 1, 2, 4, 5 © Gateway Music/ASCAP 3, 8, 10, 13 © Advanced Music Corp./ASCAP |
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The Beau Hunks Sextette: with: |
CD CREDITS: Produced by Gert-Jan Blom Recorded at Dureco Studios, Weesp, Holland, April 29-May 1, 1996 Engineer: Sytze Gardenier Mastering: Sander van der Heide, Wisseloord Mastering Suite Executive Producer: Theo van der Schaaf Puppetmaster: Irwin Chusid Art Direction: Piet Schreuders Artwork and Design: Chris Ware Photos: Mitzi Scott, Pearl Winters Thanks to: Mitzi Scott; Chuck Haddix/Marr Sound Archives; Elvis Costello; Barrie Edwards and everyone at Music Sales Corp.; Willem Breuker; Peppie Wiersma; David Garland; Byron Werner; Josh Grier, Esq. Basta Audio/Visuals [30-90362] Distributed by Sony Music |
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