I couldn't find a thread devoted to this Utah based film composer. Down the years, he's composed music mainly for Mormon themed adventure dramas and some IMAX features, but the quality of the writing and performance deserves mention around here. If you like traditional Americana/Copland music, written in the style of Bruce Broughton or Lee Holdridge, you will probably dig this guys music. A good sampler CD to see if he floats your boat is ENCORE, which gathers together 4-5 minute suites from various films he did over the years, including the recently released CD transfer of the WINDWALKER LP. I started checking out his music a few years back, with the LEGACY score CD, which is a sweeping Americana score featuring gorgeous lyrical tracks and religious hymnal choral passages that you just don't hear any more. This led to PIONEER PORTRAIT, another grand Americana score, performed by the London National Philharmonic Orchestra. More Copland/Max Steiner-style sweep to be found here. The beauty of his work, in the main, is the clear, uncluttered (but always interesting) orchestrations and the great performance of the orchestras. I know bobbengan is a fan, from his participation in the few mentions Jenson has received in vaguely related threads, but I was curious if any other FSMers had cottoned onto the fine film music of Merrill Jenson.
I went through a Jenson phase years ago, but I have to say I find his music somewhat bland. I think my favorite work of his is the score to TRAIL OF HOPE, a collaboration with the much finer composer Sam Cardon.
In addition to WINDWALKER, which was my intro to Jenson's music and still my favorite of his (simply one of the most evocative 'western' themes ever penned), I have to sing immense praise for a more recent score of his, EMMA SMITH: MY STORY, from 2008. If you like Young's utterly transportive choral/string writing in MURDER IN THE FIRST, you'll love this score. It's simply amazing and one of the absolute best to come out of the US in the past decade.
I'm also dying to hear more of his earlier works, before he began exclusively scoring Mormon films.
Great. I have that EMMA SMITH score CD on it's way to me from an eBay order last week. Aside from the 3 scores I mentioned above, I also have a Christmas music CD by him which has some lovely tracks on it and some New Testament disc which has music by him. It cost me buttons on ebay and I need to give it another listen. WINDWALKER will be a future purchase of mine.
Kev, you're gonna love EMMA SMITH and WINDWALKER. Fantastic (and very different) styles of music, written almost thirty years apart. There's a cue in Emma Smith, I think called "Falling in Love" if I recall correctly, that I used to listen to obsessively when I first got that CD. Of his "religious" scores, it's by far his absolute best.
Happy to say you were right about EMMA SMITH, bobb. Such a gorgeous Americana score. Sure, it's as traditional and 'missionary position' as they come, but it's none the poorer for it. And it really gets better with repeated listens, as the themes work their magic on your memory. I especially love the gentle and sparing use of religious-like choir, in some key moments, that really adds a kick to the proceedings. Yes, track 7 (Why Can't I See The Plates?) is an obvious nod to JNH's The Village (which itself was taken from RVW) but it's still great and the segue into his own main theme is glorious. I think after a few more plays, this could well be the best I've heard by him yet.
Happy to say you were right about EMMA SMITH, bobb. Such a gorgeous Americana score. Sure, it's as traditional and 'missionary position' as they come, but it's none the poorer for it. And it really gets better with repeated listens, as the themes work their magic on your memory.
Ha, I meant to forewarn you about that VILLAGE temp lift - pretty blatant eh? That aside, really glad you dig it Kev, I do think along with WINDWALKER (still my favorite) that it is Jenson's best score - at least that I've heard. Extremely rich, passionate music - and much more symphonically-adept and harmonically variable than Mark Mckenzie's overly-simplistic music in this sub-sub-sub-genre.
"Falling in Love" (I believe that's the tile of the cue?) is a gorgeous favorite; I love how we begin with a folksy recorder/fiddle/dulcimer rendition of the main theme that then segues into a surging rendition of the main theme with full orchestra. At times this one almost reminds me of Elfman's glorious SOMMERSBY.
I've perused Youtube for some of Jenson's other faith-based stuff and by God (ha), all of it sounds like this: Thematic, sweeping, orchestral - almost always performed by the National Philharmonic. This one's got an especially ambitious Jenson score, with a main title that almost sounds like his vie at a Superhero film (around 3:30 onward):
To say nothing of surprisingly lavish cinematography as well... How much money was thrown at this thing?!
It's so bizarre to me that a small-ish faith centered almost entirely in Utah has afforded, time and again, to bestow their forty-odd minute propaganda films with big orchestral scores recorded by some of the finest players in Europe at the same time that our favorites like Goldsmith, Williams et al were probably drawing from the same pool of musicians (hopefully not offending any LDS folks who might be reading this, mean it all in good fun).
