LP REVIEW: SHAFT'S BIG SCORE!

In the midst of the Silver Age of film music there was the short-lived Funky Age. The most famous example of this distinctive sound is Isaac Hayes' Shaft, especially its classic, Oscar winning theme song (the aptly if unimaginatively titled "Theme From 'Shaft'"), but not only was this style common in the 'blaxploitation' scores of the era -- Superfly, Slaughter's Big Rip Off, Trouble Man, Coffy, Cleopatra Jones -- but elements showed up in scores of the Silver Age's most acclaimed (and much more mainstream) composers, like Elmer Bernstein's music for the John Wayne cop movie McQ (and when you think John Wayne, you naturally think "funky"). There was even a blaxploitation James Bond film, Live and Let Die, with George Martin providing a properly groovy accompaniment that is still the most purely enjoyable of the non-Barry Bond scores.

Unlike most of the era's blaxploitation soundtracks (including a few which were never even released on LP), Shaft's Big Score! has yet to receive a CD release, which is a great pity since it's probably the most enjoyable album of the Shaft trilogy, at least for score collectors (for those L.A. residents who wondered what happened to that sealed LP that Amoeba had on display for $40 -- reader, I bought it). Listeners may have been put off by the absence of Isaac Hayes from this sequel score (he performs one song in the film but it's not included on the LP), as the Score score was actually composed by the film's director, the acclaimed photographer Gordon Parks, who directed the original Shaft and whose son Gordon Parks Jr. directed Superfly. In his liner notes, Parks writes of the score's extremely brief gestation period ("conceived, written and recorded in a little over two weeks"), and he gives proper credit to his collaborators -- conductor-orchestrator Dick Hazard; orchestrators Jimmy Jones, Dale Oehler and Tom McIntosh; and musicians Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Joe Pass (guitar) and Marshal Royal (alto sax) -- which suggest that the score was probably more improvised than composed in the traditional sense, but it makes for terrific listening all the same.

The original Shaft films (available on DVD from Warner Home Video and reasonably priced) are all recommended, and are far superior to more recent attempts to revive the blaxploitation genre like Action Jackson and the Samuel L. Jackson Shaft, in which the new Shaft (actually the nephew of the original Shaft -- Richard Roundtree returned to play his signature role) inexplicably is a cop instead of a "private dick." The 70s New York location photography in the original films is a treat, and all three movies have much more personality than their modern counterparts, with long scenes in Score devoted to the villain sitting around his apartment playing the clarinet for his minions. Shaft in Africa even features the great Frank Finlay (Iago from Olivier's Othello, Porthos from Lester's Musketeer films) as the villain, who has his nymphomaniac mistress audiotape her sex with Shaft for his own enjoyment, and later mourns her with the line "She was the only one who could get it up for me."

Side One of Shaft's Big Score! begins with the main title song Blowin' Your Mind (3:27), and just as John Barry composed his own Bond theme (007) when he became the principal composer for that series, Parks provides his own brand new "Theme From 'Shaft, '" but following closely in the footsteps of its classic predecessor (at first hearing, you might think you were listening to an alternate take of the Hayes song) and even writing the lyrics himself (as he did for Score's other two new songs, all three with vocals by O.C. Smith). Blowin's lyrics presents a litany of Shaft's traits and habits, including the utterly mystifying "He's a cool dude who shovels his food," and Parks' song, like the Hayes classic, also features interjections from female vocalists, though at times the lyrics sound like comments you'd hear on a daytime talk show, such as my favorite "The man's trouble! He's been to my house!" The melody and especially the arrangement are nearly as catchy as the Hayes song, and while listening to it it's hard not to get up and start dancing (atrociously, in my case). In the film, the song ends abruptly as the black mobster Asby is blown up in his office, right after the lyric "He's blowin' your mind," but on the album the song continues a little longer but includes the explosion sound effect.

The Other Side (1:47) is a cool suspense cue with a ticking rhythm and a Schifrin-esque sound, depicting the white mobster Mascola (the film has two villains, Mascola and the black mobster Kelly) riding a helicopter to the roof of his high-rise apartment building. The cue is briefly reprised later in the film when Shaft and his associate Willy spy on Mascola and his topless mistress from a window washer platform. (Willy is played by Drew Bundini Brown, who was himself portrayed by Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann's film Ali). Smart Money (2:10) is a jaunty cue for Asby's funeral, and the widescreen cinematography of the snow-covered cemetery helps make the minor scene one of the film's most scenic (Shaft's cinematographer Urs Furrer returned for Score, his impressive work aided by a bigger budget).

First Meeting (1:55) depicts Shaft's introduction to Kelly's mistress and features an instrumental version of the melody heard shortly after in Don't Misunderstand. Asby-Kelly Man (1:44) is a jaunty, Quincy Jones-ish tune (with a little of Soul Bossa Nova's energy) which sounds like a source cue but it's actually score for a montage of a numbers runner on his rounds -- in the film, the piece is abruptly cut off when the runner is ambushed by Shaft.

The song Don't Misunderstand (1:47) accompanies the scene of Shaft seducing Kelly's mistress, beginning with a shot of a bare-assed Richard Roundtree reflected in the rippled glass of an apartment ceiling ("Richard Roundtree" is perhaps an even more phallic name than "John Shaft"), complete with Gordon Parks lyrics performed by O.C. Smith. The song is not exactly a love song -- "You are no concern of mine" is a typical line -- which is fitting since it's just another of Shaft's James Bond-ish one night stands, but unlike Bond Shaft has a steady girlfriend he returns to. (Which reminds me of the terrific Saturday Night Live sketch in which Chris Parnell played James Bond, learning he's caught over a hundred STDs and calling all his former partners -- "Hello, is Batman there? Oh, hi, Robin. No, this concerns you too.")

The final cue on Side One, Move On In (3:07), is yet another song, this time accompanying a visually striking scene of gaudily painted female dancers cavorting at a strip club, intercut with Shaft getting beaten up in the alley in slow motion (actually an early use of step printing, which has unfortunately become the current standard style of slow motion, especially in trailers and the work of hack directors). Though Shaft is being beaten up by mobsters, the Parks lyrics give an interesting political slant to the sequence -- "Whatcha gonna do when the sirens sound, whatcha gonna do when the fuzz come round."

For score collectors, the LP's highlight is bound to be the album's final cue. Shaft's Big Score! concludes with a lengthy and elaborate chase involving cars, motorcycles, motorboats and a helicopter (the James Bond-ish poster/cover art depicts the sequence), and Side Two of the album consists entirely of one 13:11 cue featuring the unwieldy title Symphony For SHAFTED SOULS (The Big Chase): Take Off/Dance of the Cars/Water Ballet (Part I)/Water Ballet (Part II)/Call and Response/The Last Amen. This piece presents the film's entire climactic action music with no cue breaks, though in the film the music stops twice for a minute or so each time. This final cue is an energetic treat, and only reinforces what a shame it is that the album still has no CD release.

-- Scott Bettencourt

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