Johnny Williams (drummer) - The Raymond Scott Quintette

The Raymond Scott Quintette

Williams played drums in the New York-based CBS Radio orchestra in the early 1930s, and achieved stardom as drummer for the Raymond Scott Quintette from 1936 to 1939. Despite the name, the band was a sextet. Formed by Scott from the ranks of the CBS orchestra, the Quintette was an overnight sensation at the end of 1936, thanks to Scott's eccentric approach to jazz and idiosyncratic titles (e.g., "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals" and "War Dance for Wooden Indians," both of which showcase the drummer's virtuosity). Williams contributed a very animated style of percussion, which provided a rhythmic foundation for the comic design of Scott's compositions. In addition to the standard jazz drum and cymbal setup, Williams used a lot of cowbell, wood block, and tuned percussion. He had a flawless sense of timing, and was able to execute faithfully the abrupt tempo shifts of Scott's dynamic arrangements. Existing film clips of the Quintette show Williams displaying a high degree of showmanship, including stick twirls, tom-tom rides, and popgun rim-shots. His theatrical, effects-heavy approach predated and no doubt influenced the hyperactive style of musician-comedian Spike Jones.

Scott was a notorious perfectionist, demanding retake after retake in the rehearsal studio. About this process, Williams told historian Michèle Wood, "All he ever had was machines, only we had names." Williams, explaining Scott's (commercially successful) penchant for recording rehearsals and using the reference discs to develop and finalize his compositions, said, "He didn't write anything, but he edited everything. We would work these things up and we would never change them, ever. We had to do them note for note. It was highly unsatisfactory, and it sold like hell."

Scott painted "portraits in jazz," or "descriptive jazz"—what he felt were musical vignettes of colorful evocations, such as "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner" and "Celebration on the Planet Mars." Williams considered it undignified, but admittedly lucrative. "We really didn't want to do any of it," he told Wood. "We thought was descriptive, all right, but not jazz, because jazz is right now, not memorized note for note. And after all this compulsive rehearsal, suddenly it all caught on and we were making more money than anybody else in town, all thanks to him. We were doing records, public appearances, making movies, everything." Williams also acknowledged a performance dividend. "All that discipline helped," he told Wood. "It had to. I developed a technique way beyond what I'd had."

The Quintette recorded for the Master, Brunswick, and Columbia labels.

When Scott went to Hollywood in late 1937 to work in motion pictures, Williams accompanied the bandleader and appeared on camera with the Quintette in the films Happy Landing (starring Sonja Henie, Ethel Merman, and Don Ameche), Sally, Irene and Mary (starring Alice Faye, Tony Martin, and Fred Allen), and Ali Baba Goes to Town (starring Eddie Cantor). Although he does not appear on camera, his drumming is heard with the Quintette in the films Nothing Sacred, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Just Around the Corner.

Scott and his band returned to New York in 1938, allegedly due to the leader's disgust at Hollywood culture ("They think everything is 'wonderful'," he told an interviewer). After dissolving his Quintette in 1939, Scott formed a swing-fashioned big band. Williams remained with the bandleader for at least one incarnation of Scott's newly constituted orchestra. (Scott re-formed the Raymond Scott Quintet in 1948, but Williams was not involved.)