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http://collections.new.oscars.org/Details/Archive/71302975
Thanks to the Academy's new written score archive on their website (which lists the physical holdings in their library), we can confirm that Jerry apparently included his complete score for this film on his original album recording. I guess it's possible he may have shortened or lengthened cues, or subtly changed orchestrations here and there before producing the new album recording, but we can confirm that every cue from the film is there, assuming "Spanish Coast" corresponds to "Jerry's Farewell" here (it would make sense that he would re-title that for album). Everything else matches up perfectly.
Yavar
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THE LAST RUN/WILD ROVERS - Chapter Three
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Now available for trade or sale on my Trading Post!
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Posted: |
Jul 3, 2020 - 10:37 AM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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Just as I did with FSM's release of THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE/ TWILIGHT OF HONOR, I am making the first "useful" contribution to this thread, in order to talk about the music. I know in this case the CD came out thirteen years ago, but I didn't get around to ordering it until a few weeks back. And so here are my first thoughts -
I "have" the LP of THE LAST RUN in my mother's living room upstairs, but it's been thirty years since I ventured up there, so it's almost like not having the vinyl at all. Although I remember it note for note. On recent re-listen I was glad to confirm that it's as good as I'd remembered it, even better with the improved sound quality.
One or two things about THE LAST RUN - I'm fascinated by the background to this, as touched on in LK's introductory notes. Goldsmith was going through hell during this period (which includes CROSSCURRENT but obviously extends both further into the past and further into the future than the exact schedules for those two movies). He'd just got divorced, he then did a fair bit of drinking and "carrying on" (LK's words) in Hollywood's Chateau Marmount hotel, his movie career inexplicably dried up after PATTON, he tried England, where he recorded WILD ROVERS and scored and recorded THE LAST RUN, he got engaged to a young Danish girl, then went back to Los Angeles, broke off the engagement with the young Dane, got married to Carol and had to move into TV Movies and series. Now, this all sounds very turbulent to me, but - and I know it's a cliché - it does make me wonder exactly how all this affected his writing. LK mentions both THE MEPHISTO WALTZ and "Music For Orchestra" as being among his most aggressive works, but draws no conclusions (logically) about a possible link between the turmoil in his personal life and his writing at the time. It may be irrelevant soap opera material for some, but I would love to get a further insight into how (if) Goldsmith's crazy life at the time was reflected in his scores. Perhaps it's for another thread, but I'll just finish by saying that for me it was the very peak of a long fertile period.
More on THE LAST RUN - I won't describe the music because you all know it. So some "semi-technical" questions. The song for the album was produced by Don Costa apparently. The album "proper" is a re-recording. Does it differ much from the film tracks? Now, I could have sworn that Yavar posted something about how the score sheets match almost exactly the re-recording but I can't locate that post right now. What about the End Title? Alexander Kaplan's liner notes state that the music for Garme's (George C. Scott) death does not appear in the film and does not appear in Goldsmith's sketch of the cue, and thus was most likely composed for the album. It's quite a great "non-easy listening" preface to the End Credits. Conclusion? I don't know. Then there's the source cue "Yo Te Amo". Right, I never liked this, even the first time I heard it on LP. It doesn't much sound like a Goldsmith composition, and it certainly doesn't feature a "typical" Goldsmithian-Arthur Mortonian orchestration. Was this arranged buy someone else too? Don Costa? I'm kind of reminded of Jimmie Haskell's (I think) arrangement for LOGAN'S RUN.
THE LAST RUN is pretty great music.
And CROSSCURRENT is even greater! I know it was dressed up shortly afterwards for ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, but this is the gritty bare bones of that mod sound. It's savage. Right now I'm thinking that the 12-minute assembly made for this disc by the FSM team is the most riveting sustained 12 minutes of music in the composer's canon, and could easily be programmed as a concert piece. It would be preceded by the equally amazing - and completely different - "The Artist Who Did Not Want To Paint", just for another 12-minute balance in my concert.
Dave Grusin! THE SCORPIO LETTERS. I'm enjoying this a lot. I don't know any of his THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E scores to which it is likened in the notes, but it's very listenable. It strikes me as being less generic sounding than some of his later TV scores, such as ASSIGNMENT: VIENNA for example, good though that is. So THE SCORPIO LETTERS might not be the height of Art (that's CROSSCURRENT!) but it plays very nicely, and the most important thing is that I'm getting a LOT of enjoyment out of it. Oh wait - there are actually two tracks near the end which go way beyond what the rest of the score does. Tracks 32 ("Flight") and 33 ("Last Chase"/"Scorpio Finis") are so great that they remind me of some of the work that Oliver Nelson did on "The Six Million Dollar Man" - Really intense militaristic percussion with a jazz leaning, and some spectacularly effective piano rumblings. Artie Kane played on both this and the Nelson scores, although he seems to also have played on half of the CDs released by FSM alone.
So, whatcha all think thirteen years down the line?
Next week, another of my latest purchases - SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL (Hefti)/ THE CHAPMAN REPORT (Rosenman) - released by FSM in 2007 too.
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Thanks for your nice words. I really like this album!
Lukas
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I suspect that we all have favorites--albums that we intellectually know aren't among that artist's best, but that we just love. The Last Run album is like that for me. It's not The Blue Max or Patton or Planet of the Apes or A Patch of Blue or any of the other Goldsmith classic scores that and the preceding era, but I just love it. The theme really sticks with you and I don't mind the endless variations. The action music is dazzling and the source cues are lovely. This album, along with Sebastian and Justine, are among my Goldsmith favorites.
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More on THE LAST RUN - I won't describe the music because you all know it. So some "semi-technical" questions. The song for the album was produced by Don Costa apparently. The album "proper" is a re-recording. Does it differ much from the film tracks? Now, I could have sworn that Yavar posted something about how the score sheets match almost exactly the re-recording but I can't locate that post right now.
Hey Dumbo, Yavar's comments are on this very thread. October last year. Schmuck.
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Thanks for your nice words. I really like this album!
Lukas
Terrific release along with FSM The Carey Treatment / Coma / Westworld. Many thanks.
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Posted: |
Jul 4, 2020 - 11:34 AM
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By: |
Hurdy Gurdy
(Member)
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Very good point raised, Graham, regarding the mental state of a composer in relation to the music they write during that time.
Some fascinating debate could be discussed about this.
Of course, unless documented, it's difficult to know where a composer is at, mentally, during most compositions.
As a big fan of Mark Oliver Everett (of Eels fame) I also found it fascinating about the basis of their second album and why it sounded the way it did*
Obviously Goldsmith must have been going through the mental wringer during the early 70s, but the music he wrote around this period is off the chart at times. Not just the ones you mention, but also things like Travelling Executioner (bonkers) Ace Eli (bit bonkers) etc.
The story behind the music can be just as interesting as the music itself sometimes.
Fascinating, Captain.
*FYI, after their more upbeat debut album, the second was a plunge into the depths of despair, as Everett's mother died of cancer and his only sibling (sister) committed suicide around the same time, all this following his father's death earlier, to which young Everett came home from school to find his dead body. To say the second album is raw is an understatement. Some of the songs are obvious workouts to the trauma he had endured.
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villa - I know what you mean. THE LAST RUN isn't talked about in the same breath as the more acclaimed scores you mentioned, but I'll probably end up listening to it more than I do PATTON, for example. And with CROSSCURRENT and the Grusin on board too it's irresistible.
stravinsky - Greetings from Spain. I generally like Grusin but it was still a "bit" of a gamble. I mean, I'd had the LP of THE LAST RUN so I knew what to expect. I heard THE SCORPIO LETTERS again this morning, and it's getting better and better. It really is lovely, as you say.
Kev - I didn't know about Everett's background tragedies. It is an interesting topic. We might expand on it elsewhere. It seem to me that in some cases personal turmoils actually stimulate creativity, although others would say that it stifles it. Must depend on many factors.
Tom - My thirteen-years-in-the-making "review" (blether) of the Hefti/ Rosenman combo will be up in a few days. I have to listen to it ten more times first. Don't wait up.
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