A few days after Claudio Abbado's passing, it's another sad day for Italian music (and for music lovers in general).
Riz Ortolani passed away today. He was 87. He wrote scores for more than 100 films, including some great classics like Dino Risi's Il sorpasso and Franco Zeffirelli's Fratello sole, sorella luna. In 1964 he won the Grammy Award for the song "More", written for the film Mondo cane. The song was also nominated for an Academy Award the same year.
Of course about five hours after this was posted on the death of the great Riz Ortolani, dan the man just HAD to start his own thread on Ortolani. Anyone surprised?
And then, a couple of minutes after I posted the above, dan started a THIRD discussion on Riz Ortolani! Enough already!!! He's obviously trying to break his own record for the most posting on a single subject!
Way back in the vinyl days, United Artists, my favorite record label, misspelled Ortolani's first name on their first pressing of Mondo Cane as Ritz, and to this day I always think "Ritz".
I must admit, I only had a few of his LPs back in the day (YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE, 7th DAWN, MONDO CANE), but I really liked them. I'll have to delve a little further into his music, based on the samples others have posted here.
Anyone know if the 7th DAWN tracks exist. I know FSM reissued the LP, but I'd love to get the complete score. (I was always puzzled by the odd decision on the LP to replace the final, triumphant chord of the end credits with a discordant blast from elsewhere in the score.)
