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Tonto's Expanding Head Band
Tonto's Expanding Head Band was a British-American electronic music duo consisting of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. Despite releasing only two albums in the early 1970s, the duo were influential in the development of electronic music and helped bring the synthesizer to the mainstream through session and production work for other musicians (most notably Stevie Wonder) and extensive commercial advertising work.
TONTO is an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra", the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, designed and constructed over several years by Malcolm Cecil. TONTO started as a Moog modular synthesizer Series III owned by record producer Robert Margouleff. Later a second Moog III was added, then four Oberheim SEMs, two ARP 2600s, modules from Serge with Moog-like panels, EMS, Roland, Yamaha, etc. plus several custom modules designed by Serge Tcherepnin and Cecil himself - who has an electrical engineering background. Later, digital sound-generation circuitry and a collection of sequencers were added, along with MIDI control. All of these are housed in a semi-circle of curving wooden cabinets, 20 feet (6.1 m) in diameter and 6 feet (1.8 m) tall.
TONTO was featured (as the "electronic room") in the 1974 Brian de Palma film Phantom of the Paradise. It was also used in the album 1980 by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson and was pictured on both the front and back covers of this album.
TONTO was owned by Malcolm Cecil since he acquired Robert Margouleff's share in 1975. In the mid-1990s TONTO was moved to Mutato Muzika studios, the headquarters of Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo, leading to widespread rumors that Mothersbaugh had purchased TONTO but this was not true. TONTO eventually made its way back to Cecil's home in Saugerties, New York. In late 2013 TONTO was purchased by the National Music Centre in Calgary, Alberta.
The NMC had long desired to acquire TONTO and upon moving it to Calgary, placed it on exhibit. In late 2017, John Leimseider completed a multi-year restoration on TONTO, replacing worn out jacks and repairing broken connections. TONTO is now playable, and is a part of the living collection of the National Music Centre. Synth artists can once again record with TONTO in NMC's recording studios.
Tonto's Expanding Head Band's first album, Zero Time, was released in 1971 on the U.S. Embryo label (distributed by Atlantic Records) and attracted much attention. Stevie Wonder in particular was impressed enough to subsequently feature TONTO in his albums starting with Music of My Mind and continuing through Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Jungle Fever; all projects which listed Margouleff and Cecil as associate producers, engineers and programmers (and winning them an engineering Grammy for Innervisions). Wonder said[citation needed]:
Writing in Keyboard Magazine in 1984, John Diliberto asserted that:
The remainder of the 1970s and 1980s saw TONTO featured on albums from Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, the Isley Brothers, Steve Hillage, Billy Preston, and Weather Report, as well as releases from Stephen Stills, the Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat, Joan Baez, and others. TONTO was also used in Brian De Palma's 1974 movie Phantom of the Paradise as well as appearing on-screen. A second TONTO album, It's About Time, was released in 1974.
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Tonto's Expanding Head Band
Tonto's Expanding Head Band was a British-American electronic music duo consisting of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. Despite releasing only two albums in the early 1970s, the duo were influential in the development of electronic music and helped bring the synthesizer to the mainstream through session and production work for other musicians (most notably Stevie Wonder) and extensive commercial advertising work.
TONTO is an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra", the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, designed and constructed over several years by Malcolm Cecil. TONTO started as a Moog modular synthesizer Series III owned by record producer Robert Margouleff. Later a second Moog III was added, then four Oberheim SEMs, two ARP 2600s, modules from Serge with Moog-like panels, EMS, Roland, Yamaha, etc. plus several custom modules designed by Serge Tcherepnin and Cecil himself - who has an electrical engineering background. Later, digital sound-generation circuitry and a collection of sequencers were added, along with MIDI control. All of these are housed in a semi-circle of curving wooden cabinets, 20 feet (6.1 m) in diameter and 6 feet (1.8 m) tall.
TONTO was featured (as the "electronic room") in the 1974 Brian de Palma film Phantom of the Paradise. It was also used in the album 1980 by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson and was pictured on both the front and back covers of this album.
TONTO was owned by Malcolm Cecil since he acquired Robert Margouleff's share in 1975. In the mid-1990s TONTO was moved to Mutato Muzika studios, the headquarters of Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo, leading to widespread rumors that Mothersbaugh had purchased TONTO but this was not true. TONTO eventually made its way back to Cecil's home in Saugerties, New York. In late 2013 TONTO was purchased by the National Music Centre in Calgary, Alberta.
The NMC had long desired to acquire TONTO and upon moving it to Calgary, placed it on exhibit. In late 2017, John Leimseider completed a multi-year restoration on TONTO, replacing worn out jacks and repairing broken connections. TONTO is now playable, and is a part of the living collection of the National Music Centre. Synth artists can once again record with TONTO in NMC's recording studios.
Tonto's Expanding Head Band's first album, Zero Time, was released in 1971 on the U.S. Embryo label (distributed by Atlantic Records) and attracted much attention. Stevie Wonder in particular was impressed enough to subsequently feature TONTO in his albums starting with Music of My Mind and continuing through Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Jungle Fever; all projects which listed Margouleff and Cecil as associate producers, engineers and programmers (and winning them an engineering Grammy for Innervisions). Wonder said[citation needed]:
Writing in Keyboard Magazine in 1984, John Diliberto asserted that:
The remainder of the 1970s and 1980s saw TONTO featured on albums from Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, the Isley Brothers, Steve Hillage, Billy Preston, and Weather Report, as well as releases from Stephen Stills, the Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat, Joan Baez, and others. TONTO was also used in Brian De Palma's 1974 movie Phantom of the Paradise as well as appearing on-screen. A second TONTO album, It's About Time, was released in 1974.