Film Score Friday 3/30/01
...is finally up. Sorry about the delay.
See the pages on our new CDs:
Untamed
by Franz Waxman
The Towering
Inferno by John Williams
Sound clips have been loaded for each -- quite a pair of powerful main
titles!
News
Jerry Goldsmith is scoring Rod Lurie's next film, The Castle.
Tan Dun won the Best Original Score Oscar at the 73rd Academy Awards
last week for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, beating Hans Zimmer
in what was a surprise for most people (including Zimmer, judging by his
good-natured reaction at the ceremony). Bob Dylan won the Best Original
Song for "Things Have Changed" from Wonder Boys.
Shafted
I wrote a CD
review column for last Wednesday -- my first in some time. I shoulda
known better!
From: Mike Copping <copping@cableinet.co.uk>
I am rarely moved to respond to an opinion, but the comment
included below annoyed me so much it surprised me. Therefore; I am responding!
Speaking of Shaft in Africa:
"The elements of funk and drama blend well, as do the references
to the urban and African settings; in contrast the score to Shaft's Big
Score was by Gordon Parks (the director) with a dozen arrangers and is
a hopeless attempt at "faking it," even including a shameless rip-off by
O.C. Smith of Hayes' "Who's the man who's a private dick...?" routine."
- Lukas Kendall
I could not believe that you had written this, about one of my all
time favourite scores, and albums. For a start, this "hopeless attempt
at faking it," is a seamless blend of the kind of music (70's soul) being
written at the time, and the more traditional big band orchestral music
you might have expected Jerry Fielding to have written. Admittedly it's
a departure from the first film, but I think it works, after all we are
talking about the Big Apple here, in terms of local colour, and as an urban
setting.
If you pay attention during the first film, there are a couple of
scenes that are scored differently from the rest of the movie. These scenes
contain purely functional suspense music, as opposed to the over-all "cool
soul" approach by Isaac Hayes. These are the work of the director.
The music for Shaft's Big Score was written AND recorded during
a two week period, which is a punishing schedule for any composer, to say
the least. The "arrangers" were in fact orchestrators (Dick Hazzard, Tom
McIntosh, Jimmy Jones, and Dale Oehler; I didn't know four constituted
a dozen), there is a difference. Given the time frame this is not unusual
anyway.
Director Gordon Parks has created a score that not only works dramatically
(e.g.: the Main Titles, the Love Theme, The Water Ballet), but manages
to feature some very fine jazz solos by musical giants including FreddieHubbard
on trumpet, Joe Pass on guitar, and Marshal Royal on Alto Sax. Their presence
and talent lends the music a richness and class missing from many contemporary
scores. Alex North writes a ballet for the round-up sequence in The Misfits,
and is (quite rightly) praised to the skies. Parks wrote a kind of big
band jazz ballet for the final chase sequences in the film, but this is
dismissed as "faking it"?!!! It has energy, power, and drives the movie
along while punctuating the drama during the climactic moments. How is
that faking it?
As for the comments about O.C. Smith's song, it is stylistically
different from Hayes wonderful original, and is an integral part of the
new musical philosophy/identity created by Parks (who also wrote all the
lyrics for his songs) for the movie. Incidentally I noticed you conveniently
forgot to mention the wonderful love theme Don't Misunderstand, also performed
by Smith, which seems to me to sum up not just how Shaft sees women, but
how his white counterpart (James Bond) does too.
The other song written by Parks for the movie is the wonderfully
percussive and over the top Move On In, which effectively gives the listener
an impression of what it must be like to be under the kind of pressure
that John Shaft is under in this movie. The whole score is (in keeping
with the tone of the film) magnificently overblown. After all, we are kind
of mirroring the Bond series here, and this sequel was supposed to be bigger
and better than the original. For the record, the first movie is unquestionably
the best of the three, but Shaft's Big Score is no turkey, as a film, or
as a score.
Within the confines of the times, the style of the film, and the
schedule, Shaft's Big Score is an amazing achievement, and sounds far more
cohesive as a whole, than the over-rated and overblown Gladiator. That
this score has never been issued on CD is a tragedy, not only for film
music fans, but for jazz fans as well. Ryko, if you're listening?
Mike is obviously more acquainted with and affectionate towards
this score...all I can say is that I got heavily into blaxploitation soundtracks
around 3-4 years ago and listened to well over a dozen of them. Of all
of them, I found Shaft's Big Score lacking the "soul" of soul and
more mechanical and traditional than the other soundtracks, my favorites
being Superfly, the original Shaft, Black Caesar, The Mack, Foxy
Brown and Across 110th Street.
Electronics
See the recent
column on electronics in film scores and then the follow-up
mail bag:
From: "Richard Street" <Streetrw@btinternet.com>
There is a brief demonstration of these on the "Making
Of Alien Resurrection" documentary, a rare example of a "Making Of..."
programme that features the score to any degree. In addition to John Frizzell
describing these, and the sound produced by rubbing a "Superball" (some
kind of lolly / candy / sweet) on a gong, there are brief appearances by
Jerry Goldsmith and Elliot Goldenthal, describing their scores to Alien
and Alien 3.
From: "Randy Derchan" <rderchan@visualdatainc.com>
"And how could any discussion leave out Jerry Goldsmiths
own "Runaway"? A MIDI masterpiece."
It's great to see someone else appreciate Goldsmith's work
on "Runaway". A score often dissed and yet actually has some very complicated
writing in it. I would like to add one correction though, with due respect
to the comment a "MIDI masterpiece", I don't believe it was done via midi
or at least sequenced by midi. I spoke to Jonathan Goldsmith about the
recording of that score and he told me it was all recorded to tape by overdubs.
Midi sequencing was too premature at the time. That even makes the score
more organic for me, I feel.
I think you are correct in that Runaway was pre-MIDI and
performed live. I like Runaway and find it does have a organic feel
and a "symphonic" orchestrational approach despite consisting entirely
of electronics.
Rozsa Review
From: "Dana Wilcox" <dwilcox9@netzero.net>
Thanks for the review
of Chapter III's release of El Cid. One of the things a prospective buyer
is interested in hearing about is of course the sound quality, which was
addressed in the review. My only "quibble" with Mr. Gizelt's rapid fire
dash through the tracks was his failure to mention "Fight for Calahorra"
-- a highlight of the score and a peculiar omission. In any event, El Cid
is a wonderful score with great range and hardly a false note, either compositionally
or performance-wise, and ranks close to Ben-Hur among Rozsa's best.
Links
Marc Escauriaza at the John Towner Williams Homepage has loaded photographs
from Elmer Bernstein's film music concerts last week in Barcelona. Go to
the home page (http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/studio/7728)
and click on the concert section.
Also re: Bernstein:
From: "Tsiantis, Lee " <Lee.Tsiantis@turner.com>
NPR's "Morning Edition" had a piece on Elmer Bernstein
and Christopher Parkening re: EB's "Guitar Concerto." You can hear it via
RealAudio at www.npr.org <http://www.npr.org>
. Find "Morning Edition" in "latest show" (Friday's, 3/23), & scroll
down to the following segment description:
Composer Bernstein (14.4 <http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20010323.me.06.ram
> | 28.8 <http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20010323.me.06.rmm>
) -- Pat Dowell reports on Elmer Bernstein who, after composing scores
for more than 200 movies, is moving to writing concert music. Bernstein
regrets the state of film music today -- which he says lacks emotion, and
is included primarily to create an atmosphere, rather than impart a grand
musical theme. (8:47)
From: carl.sackis@abnamro.com
You really have to check out this soundtrack-associational
item description. It's really quite funny.
The link is: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1419521829.
I checked it out, and it really is bizarre....
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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