Love the upifting movie and its soundtrack. Even though I have the vinyl I would instantly buy a CD release. Such memorable music. One wonders why this has never been released on CD yet. It should have been one of the first soundtracks to be released on CD... among some others from that era I can think of.
Add me to the love fest! When I got my first CD burner, Cactus Flower was the first LP I transferred. I would have thought by now someone would have released this classic. Someone? Please?
Jones' arrangements are both timeless and a perfect document of the period. Add to that one of the best movie theme songs of all time and you have an album that gets played over and over.
When Universal France released their 6-disc Quincy Jones set last year, they licensed two LPs from Sony to add to the ones in their own library. But they went with IN COLD BLOOD and WALK, DON'T RUN rather than CACTUS FLOWER. That was probably a wise decision, given that, outside of the main theme (which appears in four different iterations on the LP) and "The Spell You Spin" track done with Dave Grusin, Jones had his hand in only one other track on the LP. The Universal set included the "Cactus Flower Theme" and "The Spell You Spin" on a bonus disc of odds and ends, so there really wasn't much of Jones' CACTUS FLOWER left on the table.
The song "The Time for Love Is Any Time (Cactus Flower Theme)" by Quincy Jones (music) and Cynthia Weil (lyrics) received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Sarah Vaughan sung the song.
Oh, don't get me started on Bell. Dammit, I'm started. Okay, two Quincy lps never on cd: Cactus Flower and Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice. While not examples of Q's creative dramatic scoring, they are both delightful albums (no pun intended--Q's middle name: Delight) and combined would make a great cd.
Then there is Richard Rodney Bennett's Nicholas and Alexandra. A major hole in Bennett soundtracks not on cd.
Also, Michel Legrand's re-record compilation Brian's Song (released in Japan, I think) and Howard Blake's An Elephant Called Slowly.