Film Score Friday 10/13/00

by Lukas Kendall

It may be Friday the 13th but it's a lucky day for soundtrack collectors. Look what is coming up December 5 from Varese Sarabande!

TOTAL RECALL: The Deluxe Edition

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Music Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH

Arnold Schwarzenegger explodes out of the year 2084 with gut crunching, white-knuckle, non-stop action, as he smashes his way through a horrifying real fantasy world, complete with a gorgeous but deadly wife (Sharon Stone) and into the mind-bending, nightmarish reality of a Martian mining colony ruled over by a terrorizing dictator. The red planet erupts with rebellious mutants, the fire of an alluring and mysterious woman and a vicious and savage enemy. In this film directed by Paul Verhoeven (Hollow Man, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers), it's total war, total action, total Schwarzenegger -- TOTAL RECALL!

TOTAL RECALL was a blockbuster film and best selling soundtrack when it was released in 1990 and Jerry Goldsmith's adrenaline-stoked score was hailed as one of the greatest of his landmark career. This score has influenced almost ever action score composed since. Now, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this film music masterpiece, we have prepared the ultimate special edition. Prepared by Robert Townson and Jerry Goldsmith, adding over 30 minutes to the original running time, TOTAL RECALL - THE DELUXE EDITION is over 70 minutes long and features almost every note Goldsmith composed for this film. Featuring new, extensive liner notes and deluxe packaging, TOTAL RECALL is a very special Christmas present for science fiction fans and film music collectors alike -- it's the ultimate edition of one of the most sought after and acclaimed scores of the last decade.

Chapter III Records is releasing the soundtrack to The Legend of Bagger Vance (Will Smith, Matt Damon, dir. Robert Redford) on November 7, featuring score by Rachel Portman and songs by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Muggsy Spanier. Sounds clips are available already at http://www.cannery.com/thelegendofbaggervance/soundtrk.

James Bernard of Hammer Dracula fame has composed the score to a new ITV/Discovery Channel documentary about bloodsucking animals -- part of made in the style of a Hammer horror film. The score was recorded in Prague. According to James Fitzpatrick of Silva Screen -- who posted this info to FILMUS-L -- the show is airing on Discovery at 9PM EST on October 29th in the U.S. as "Bloodsuckers," and on October 30th in the U.K. as "The Vampire Hunter." No word on an album release...

Carter Burwell's score to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is due October 24 from Milan.

Prometheus is releasing Africa (Alex North) and Amanda (Basil Poledouris) in late November. Africa is a five-hour 1967 documentary about the continent; North's music includes some material also found North's unused score to 2001. The CD will include the contents of the MGM LP plus two previously unreleased pieces. Amanda is a 1995 family film which never saw theatrical release featuring a tender Poledouris score. Also coming soon from Prometheus is Police Story (Jerry Goldsmith, 1973 TV movie).

RCA will be releasing a CD of George S. Clinton's scores to Austin Powers 1 and 2 in November. Complete info and a track list are available at the composer's official website, http://www.georgesclinton.com.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 21 at 3PM when the Virgin Megastore in Burbank is hosting an afternoon of "music, monsters and an informal presentation about horror film music restoration and recording." Special guests are the Marco Polo reconstruction/recording team of William Stromberg and John Morgan; archivist/author Scott McQueen; and author Jon Burlingame, who will be signing copies of his new Sound and Vision book about the history of film scores. Autographs will also be available for the Marco Polo CDs of King Kong, House of Frankenstein, The Cat People and more. The event is being sponsored by Marco Polo, Billboard Publications and the Alex Film Society. The store is located at 851 N San Fernando Rd, Burbank CA 91502; ph: 818-295-6905.

American Boychoir on West Coast Tour: The American Boychoir will be touring the west coast (and the Los Angeles area in particular) from October 25th through November 12th. The members of the choir attend the American Boychoir School in Princeton, NJ, the country's only non-sectarian choir boarding school. They have appeared with many major orchestras in the US and abroad, including the Boston Pops Orchestra under John Williams, both on "Evening at Pops" programs, and on the "Spielberg/Williams Collaboration" release, where they participated in the recordings of the "Close Encounters" and "Empire of the Sun" selections. They have also sung in the scores for "Interview with the Vampire" and M. Night Shyamalan's "Wide Awake," as well as many commercial soundtracks. Our frequent collaborator, Mike Matessino, is a long-time associate of the school, and is presenting a concert on Saturday, November 11th at 7:00 p.m. in Glendale, CA. For information, check out www.saintmarksglendale.com. For a complete tour schedule and other information about this group, see their website at www.americanboychoir.org.

The following are copied from press releases, so for the record, this isn't my own personal prose. But they seem like cool events!

The Boston Symphony Orchestra will kick off a year-long celebration of the centennial of Symphony Hall with a series of events October 12-15. A rededication of the hall on Friday, October 13, will officially recognize the building's status as a National Historic Landmark. Seiji Ozawa, Keith Lockhart, and John Williams will share the podium for a gala concert of the BSO and the Boston Pops on Saturday, October 14. The concert will be taped for airing at a future date on PBS. An open house on Sunday, October 15 will include behind-the-scenes tours and a free performance of the BSO and Boston Pops that will be simulcast on giant video screens outside the hall. For more information call (617) 638-9422 or see The Boston Symphony Orchestra homepage: http://www.bso.org/newdesign/fsbso.htm

Dallas Symphony To Premiere "The Thing" And "High Anxiety": The Dallas Symphony Orchestra, led by Principal Pops Conductor Richard Kaufman, will present a "spooktacularly" exciting program of film music and the classical macabre in its Halloween concert series October 27-29, 2000. Guest thereminist Robert Froehner will join the orchestra for two world concert premieres: D. Tiomkin's THE THING, and J. Morris's HIGH ANXIETY (arr. Randol Bass). Additional selections include BATMAN Suite (Elfman), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND Suite (Williams), POLTERGEIST (Goldsmith), MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Bennett), OVERTURE to SLEUTH (Addison), "Night on Bald Mountain" (Moussorgsky), "Hansel and Gretel" (Humperdink), "Masquerade Suite: Galop" (Khachaturian), "The Syncopated Clock" (Anderson), and Overture to "Die Fledermaus" (J. Strauss). All performances are in the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas, Texas. For ticket information phone the DSO Ticket Office at 214-692-0203, or visit the Dallas Symphony website at www.dalsym.com.

The Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium, presented a Hans Zimmer concert "Hans Zimmer Live!" on Tuesday night, October 10th. Here's a reaction we got from a reader was who there:

From: Lars Blondeel, "Sleep & Dream" <andre.sleep@pandora.be>

First let me tell you that I'm not the greatest fan of Zimmer's work, although I like some of it. But his music lends itself very well for concert. Since this was the first time he ever gave a concert, I must say I was eager to see it.

And I wasn't dissapointed. The evening was hosted by Morgan Freeman who was also there because this concert was the opening of the Filmfestival of Ghent. The concert was recorded for a future CD-release on Decca, maybe because of that, Hans brought everyone he could find.

Lisa Gerrard, John Powell, Pete Haycock, Heitor Pereira and many more shared the stage with him, and these people in collaboration with the Flemish Radio Orchestra and a Choir made for a great ensemble.

Music was played from Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man, Crimson Tide, The Thin Red Line and also this year's Gladiator and M:I-2 and more.

Not counting the intermission, they played for 2 hours 30 minutes. Having already seen Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and others in concert, this one was very good as well.

It was a great night and I'm glad to have witnessed the first ever Hans Zimmer concert. More to come?

I don't know... but for a different, very negative opinion, point your browsers to: http://www.fod-online.com/articles_hanszimmerlive.html for a review by Yesse America (a real name) with photographs by Xander Storms (ditto). (If someone wrote a buddy-comedy script and the guys were named Yesse America and Xander Storms, would people believe it?)

See Monday's report.

From: Dirk Sartoris, dirksartoris@hotmail.com

Well, at last the great underrated Lalo Schifrin has been honored this early October in a more than deserved way.

His contribution to the jazz colored film scoring is oustanding but his adventure/action film music is even more exciting. Think about his westerns: THE WRATH OF GOD, JOE KIDD; his thrillers: TELEFON, LOVE AND BULLETS, THE MEAN SEASON, THE VENITIAN AFFAIR, PRIME CUT; his adventure movies: GOLDEN NEEDLES, SKY RIDERS, AIRPORT'80, and you will see that Lalo Schifrin has a genre movie filmography nearly as long as Jerry Goldsmith himself! He shares with Mr. Goldsmith a very strong sense of the locations, incorporating ethnic material in the best way.

After a more jazz influenced A-movie score period in the sixties, Lalo Schifrin became the ultimate entertaining and excellent B-series composer, especially for the Charles Bronson films.

It's odd by the way that the main Bronson 70ies movies not scored by Schifrin...were scored by Jerry Goldsmith himself: BREAKOUT, BREAKHEART PASS, and later CABOBLANCO. Perhaps each composer involved was a director's choice, or a studio executive one, and it's obvious that Goldsmith was linked with Tom Gries while Schifrin had connection with Don Siegel. And both composers have been attached to Jack Lee Thompson over the years.

And no need to speak about the Clint Eastwood 70ies stuff. Cult material at every level. At least we have the Dirty Harry compilation on CD now. But how about a complete MAGNUM FORCE?

Anyway, it's time now in year 2000 to give the deserved rendition to Lalo Schifrin's film music.

So here is the question, or preferably, the suggestion: does Mr.Schifrin intends to release that mostly forgotten material himself, on his Aleph label, or will he focus only on the A-movie material like BULLITT, THE FOX, etc?

I was the first to buy his unexpected THE EAGLE HAS LANDED expanded score but no more such score appeared on CD in the meantime. And I really would like to have more of that trend, "genre movie" music I mean. They are at least 15 such scores to release A.S.A.P.! Maybe this task is too big for one single label, even a own composer label.

So you guys at FSM frequently request for suggestions. Okay then, here they are: provided financial and legal montage are possible, could you help by sharing this task with Aleph records?

I feel it's time for FSM to give their rendition to Lalo Schifrin if Mr.Schifrin and the studios allow them to do so.

We got the Goldsmith and the Bernstein...Now go for the Schifrin, it's" musically urgent"!

We don't have any Schifrin titles in the works as we don't want to step on Aleph's toes... I don't know of all of their plans, but I'm sure they will work to get out some of Lalo's classic and lesser-known scores as you describe above.

We "stop press" -- or the electronic equivalent -- for this notice faxed from our beloved correspondent John Bender. Our condolences to Mr. Burton's friends and family:

This September 13th saw the sad passing of my friend Geoff Burton. Most likely many American readers have never heard of Geoff; however, among the European community of film score aficionados he was a near legendary figure. Geoff, born in England on the 12th of May, 1919, began collecting soundtrack vinyl while some of us were still playing with our plastic army men and toy cars. Assisted by the nature of his career, which involved much travel, Geoff was able to amass a staggering international archive of recorded film music. I will never forget my initial exposure to his record library. I went numb -- EVERYTHING was there, everything I had dreamed about, albums I had assumed I would never live to see with my own eyes. That day I learned the meaning of the word "overwhelming." Most importantly Geoff was a great guy, a friendly collector who was always willing to negotiate a trade. Toward the endof his life Geoff had returned, aesthetically, to his roots. He confided in me that what he had come to love most were the giants of the Hollywood golden age, Max Steiner in particular. We here at FSM, as lovers of film music, acknowledge that we have lost one of the first, and best, of our own. Hey Geoff, tell Max that we love him too!

--John Bender

Sony Classical has a page up advertising their upcoming "Ultimate Edition" complete 2CD set of Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace, due November 14th: http://www.sonyclassical.com/music/89460/pod1.html

John Williams' new theme for "Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection" is now available in streaming form at the Masterpiece Theatre site. The theme will accompany the series' open and closing credits for the nine films included in the American Collection series, premiering on PBS on Wednesday, October 25: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/series/music.html.

Finally, fans of album producer Bruce Kimmel -- formerly of Varese Sarabande and before that Bay Cities -- and fans of show music should visit Bruce's new website: http://www.fynsworthalley.com, which is like the Film Score Monthly of shows with tons of Bruce's show recordings available. Lots o' CDs...

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com