The Towering Inferno and Other Disaster Classics

VARIOUS ***1/2

Varese Sarabande VSD-5807

12 tracks - 69:35

This is the first in a new batch of highly anticipated re-recordings produced by Varese's Robert Townson. The project apparently began under the baton of the departed Joel McNeely (who conducts The Towering Inferno, Twister, Independence Day and The Swarm) and finished under John Debney (who tackles Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure and Titanic), although the remaining cues (from Dante's Peak, Volcano and Outbreak) are the original film recordings released by Varese.

The Towering Inferno (1974) was probably the first theatrical film to showcase the beginnings of John Williams's blockbuster style, and he wrote a bustling, high-energy main title that remains one of the most rousing and enjoyable works in the composer's oeuvre. Townson serendipitously recorded the only three tracks I ever used to listen to on the old Warner Bros. LP: "Main Title," "Planting the Charges and Finale" and the glitzily romantic end title, "An Architect's Dream." "Planting the Charges" is a great, slowly pulsing and lengthy suspense cue which takes the brooding low brass textures and modernistic effects of Williams's underscore to The Poseidon Adventure and adds a compelling rhythmic structure. As in all the Varese re-recordings, the sound is rich and spectacular, but there are occasional, jarring missteps in the performance and at least a couple of what appear to be mis-transcribed notes.

Following the generous 19:42 of Inferno, everything on the CD is available elsewhere: Mark Mancina's opening to Twister bursts with rapid-fire energy as it attempts to convince us (along with director Jan DeBont's sweeping helicopter shots of the Kansas countryside) that we should be very excited about competing groups of tornado chasers. John Williams had a double dose of disaster in 1974, also supplying music for Mark Robson's Earthquake, a film that made The Towering Inferno look like a work of artistic genius. Williams must have about had it with the genre by then, because his Earthquake main title theme is a virtual replay of the melody from his Towering Inferno end titleÑwith some pop backbeats that aren't well handled by the RSNO.

Jerry Goldsmith had the dubious honor of scoring the film that broke Irwin Allen's box-office winning streak, The Swarm (1978). Joel McNeely's take on Goldsmith's exultant, rhythmic end title music is excellent, largely matching Goldsmith's original album performance. John Debney's recording of Williams's title music to The Poseidon Adventure gets off to a great start, but lacks the power of Williams's original version. The next three original cues from Dante's Peak, Volcano and Outbreak effectively capture the high points of those scores (I like Alan Silvestri's growling horn effects from Volcano), and Joel McNeely's recording of the "The Day We Fight Back" cue from David Arnold's Independence Day appears to have at least a few seconds of introductory music not heard on the original album. Finally, for anyone who hasn't had enough of Titanic yet, there's a lengthy suite of material from that film conducted by Debney.

Williams fans will have to have this CD for his three disaster movie scores, particularly for the otherwise unavailable-on-CD music from The Towering Inferno.

ÑJeff Bond

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