Raymond Scott

Raymond Scott (1908–1994) was an American musician, bandleader, and inventor whose career ranged from commercial jazz to advanced electronic instrument design. His Quintette recordings of the late 1930s — including Powerhouse, later a byword for industrious activity in Warner Bros. cartoons — showed unusual rhythmic complexity. His parallel life as an inventor produced the Electronium, an algorithmic machine built through the 1950s and 60s that generated music automatically, years before "generative music" had a name. Motown's Berry Gordy was intrigued enough to hire Scott in the early 1970s to develop it, though its potential went unrealised commercially.

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