Film Score Friday 9/28/01

Fox Home Video has released a great box set of DVDs of The French Connection and French Connection II, with beautiful packaging and great extras, including documentaries, deleted scenes, director commentaries and more.

We released a CD of Don Ellis' scores -- never before available -- earlier this year, and if you listen to the menu music on the new DVDs, you can hear our new mixes of several cues. We were able to provide these to Fox Home Video specifically for this use. It's a great example of Fox's foresight in having their music elements restored, and the benefits to the consumer of various departments working together.

One of the selling points we offer to studios in licensing their music masters is that we will restore their property so that they can have it readily available in the future. DVD menu music is a perfect example, but we've also had our CDs used for temp tracks, trailer music, and more.

Hooray for restoring film music!

Saw this on rec.music.movies about an upcoming event in the U.K. -- how cool!

LALO SCHIFRIN MUSICAL CELEBRATION
featuring The Incredibly Strange Film Band
Guests Al Christie and Andy Munro from London band Cool Hand
(performing Schifrin's theme to 'Cool Hand Luke)
& Soundtrack DJ The Man from blaxploitation.com

Monday 8th October @ The Jazz Cafe
5 Parkway, Camden Town, NW1
Camden Town tube: Northern Line
infoline: 020 7916 6060
Doors 7pm; 10 pounds in advance; 12 pounds on door
24hour credit card hotline:
020 7344 0044(subject to booking fee)
or book online at http://WWW.JAZZCAFE.CO.UK

A unique and totally one-off event, The Incredibly Strange Film Band have teamed up with the Jazz Cafe to present an evening dedicated to Argentinian Jazz Pianist and Composer Lalo Schifrin. Working from music in all his classic movie and TV theme scores the ISFB have arranged a programme of his music to please all those Schifrin fans from the fanatical to the just plain curious.

Large as life themes, rare cues and incidental music, most of which has never been performed live on stage before anywhere in the world will be presented along with visuals from the movies themselves. Things like the full and original version of the 'Bullitt' title theme, his classic 'Mission Impossible', the NWA sampled 'Scorpio's Theme', the jazzy and strange 'Mannix' and many more.

All this along with our DJ The Man from blaxploitation.com spinning all his rare Schifrin Vinyl - think 'Ape Shuffle', 'Murderer's Row', 'Offside 7' and 'Battle Creek Brawl' - guitarists from LoFi London band Cool Hand performing the gentle acoustic title theme from Cool Hand Luke and widescreen video visuals from Scottish projectionist Punchy Herd.

Programme includes:
Scorpio's Theme/Mission Impossible/Enter The Dragon/Bullitt/Ice Pick Mike/Changing Gears/Hotel Daniels/On the Way to San Mateo/Jaws/Mannix/Medical Center/Kelly's Heroes/Magnum Force/Dirty Harry's Creed/Han's Island/Cool Hand Luke and more tbc

NB: The ISFB will be their own support act on Oct 8th playing a short introductory set of material by composers such as: Isaac Hayes/Johnny Pate/Quincy Jones/Henry Mancini/Laurie Johnson/John Barry/etc

Roberto Zamori's Hexacord label in Italy has some great stuff coming up. They just released an expanded edition of Morricone's dynamic western score The Big Gundown, and more is on the way. Here's what Roberto sent me:

October : "COSI' DOLCE... COSI' PERVERSA" (Riz ortolani), sexy-erotic-thriller late sixties, including line notes by director Umberto Lenzi!

October : "TROPICO DI NOTTE" (Armando Sciascia), first issue in the new Hexacord series "Hexacord... by night!", featuring terrific lounge and cocktail music of the sixties...

October : Hexacord (in collaboration with Cinedelic) "KEOMA / IL CACCIATORE DI SQUALI" (Guido & Maurizio De Angelis) new re-mastered printing, just on album 33 rpm audiophile pressing, 500 copies only.

October : Hexacord (in collaboration with Cinedelic) "COSI' DOLCE... COSI' PERVERSA" (Riz Ortolani) album 33 rpm audiophile pressing version of the cd, 500 copies only

All the titles above have been produced at Film Music Art Studio, providing them a new sound (digitally re-mastered and restored) with top sound programs!

Coming soon :

in Hexacord series "Hexacord... by night!" LA DONNA DI NOTTE" (Franco Tamponi) which will enclose the main theme in the rare version of Armando Sciascia orchestra... an amazing voyage through the world by night of the sixties!

A new album by Edda Dell'orso fantastic voice : "AL CINEMA CON EDDA DELL' ORSO", featuring rare tracks, inedits, etc.., all from original soundtrack recordings!

See www.hexacord.com for more information.

Here's the latest on this Belgian film festival, which always includes a great deal of film music events:

Programme 28th Flanders International Film Festival-Ghent online!

The 28th edition of the Flanders International Film Festival-Ghent is scheduled 8-18 October 2001. This year the festival presents five world premieres, three international premieres and 14 European premieres. Next to the films in Official Selection (competing & non-competing) and the World Cinema section, the festival will pay tribute to Richard D. & Lili Fini Zanuck, Bertrand Tavernier and Roger Corman. The festival will also celebrate the 100th birthday of Walt Disney.

The complete programme is available at: www.filmfestival.be.
 

Got this from G.D. Hamann, a local historian who scours old newspapers for film music related items, and has contributed a few FSD's of such material. Here's a small notice he found from 71 years ago.

12/11/1930 EH Screenographs

By Harrison Carroll

Dimitri Tiomkin, the composer, won a novel bet on the recent U.S.C.-Notre Dame fracas. Freddie Fralick, the agent, agreed to take Tiomkin on as a client if the Irish won. Freddie makes it a rule only to handle eight people. Now he has nine.

Regarding our current poll:

From: Steve Kilfoy <steve@bloodpage.com>

Don't get me wrong, I like the new poll - What country (outside the U.S.) has produced the best film music? - but I think you may have erred in not including Russia on the list. Shostakovich and Prokofiev surely entitle that country to a place in the poll, especially when I am hard-pressed to come up with the name of a single film composer from The Netherlands! (I know they exist, but who among them has produced anything of the quality of ALEXANDER NEVSKY?)

And just so you won't think I'm picking on you, let me say that I'm getting lots of happy mileage out of THE BEST OF EVERYTHING. Love that schmaltzy/lounge-y Johnny Mathis title track. Alfred Newman, what a genius! Keep up the good work.

From: Kirk Henderson <kirksworks@home.com>

There are so many great scores by people who are not Americans. Considering world events, it seems like a good time to think globally. Rather than list one particular composer, because there are so many great ones, here is a list of no more than two scores each of foreign composers whose music has added immeasurably to the richness of my life, in alphabetical order by composer:

Richard Addinsell - Waltz of the Toreadors
William Alwyn - Odd Man Out
Edwin Astley - The Phantom of the Opera (Hammer)
Malcolm Arnold - Whistle Down the Wind, 1984
John Barry - The Ipcress File, The Whisperers
James Bernard - Horror of Dracula, She
Arthur Bliss - Things To Come
Roy Budd - Get Carter, The Black Windmill
Shawn Davey - Waking Ned Devine
Georges Delerue - Jules and Jim, Shoot the Piano Player
Patrick Doyle - Henry V
Ron Goodwin - Music from the Miss Marple series
Fumio Hayasaka - Rashomon, Seven Samurai
Joe Hisaishi - Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro
Akira Ifukube - Godzilla, Chushingura
Krzysztof Komeda - Fearless Vampire Killers
Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Othello, Gorgo
Raymond Leppard - Lord of the Flies (63)
Zdenek Liska - Fabulous World of Jules Verne
Ennio Morricone - Frantic, Once Upon a Time in the West
Mario Nascimbene - Barabbas, The Vikings
Piero Piccioni - The 10th Victim, Senilita
Sergei Prokovief - Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible
Nino Rota - La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Wuthering Heights
Philippe Sarde - Tess, The Tenant
Masaru Satoh - Yojimbo
John Scott - A Study in Terror, Antony and Cleopatra
Mischa Spoliansky - The Man Who Could World Miracles, Saint Joan
Mikis Theodorakis - Zorba the Greek
William Walton - Hamlet, Battle of Britain (Battle in the Air)

From: "Darren MacDonald" <mayor_mccheese55@hotmail.com>

I was tempted to vote Germany, what with Steiner, Waxman, Korngold, Salter etc., but they all did their most famous film work in America. So I vote UK, Walton, Barry and Bliss are all great and there are others whose names I am too lazy to look up right now.

I was surprised to see England take such a commanding lead. I would think Italy, which currently is second with around 25% of the vote, would place first almost on the strength of Ennio Morricone alone. As I wrote before, sorry about not including more countries (yes, a case could certainly be made for the former Soviet Union) but I did not want to add so many selections as to confuse voters.

See you in October!

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