I am working on a major project right now and came across something on the tapes that blew me away...totally unsuspected and unfrigginbelievable! 2:20 of film music history that, if I am correct, was most likely only heard by 5 or 6 people EVER! Fingers crossed that the powers that be let us include this found track on this uber cool release!
which was followed up with:
Piano demo and pretty damn cool. Maybe it was heard by the director, producer, composer (of course) orchestrator and James Nelson who transferred the stuff for me. lol
Isn't there some anecdotal story about how Robert Wise / Gene Roddenberry were original displeased with Jerry's TMP score because of its lack of a strong theme? I seem to recall the story going that Jerry came up with the now famous fanfare and played it on a piano for one of those two men and got a response along the lines of "why didn't you come up with that all along"?
What if this was a recording of said piano session? I make this guess strictly in the hopes that someone is working on TMP...
What "major project" film composers play piano themselves? John Williams, James Horner...?
Korngold was rather handy with his piano. But with today's labels, I doubt they'd describe working on his masterpieces as a "major project". More likely an early demo tape of the Halloween theme being tapped out with one finger by the composer.
Isn't there some anecdotal story about how Robert Wise / Gene Roddenberry were original displeased with Jerry's TMP score because of its lack of a strong theme?
This did indeed occur, but it wasn't after a few piano demos. Wise was reacting to the original version of "The Enterprise" that Goldsmith was recording on the stage. He recorded a few cues during that session that he later revised.
Isn't there some anecdotal story about how Robert Wise / Gene Roddenberry were original displeased with Jerry's TMP score because of its lack of a strong theme?
This did indeed occur, but it wasn't after a few piano demos. Wise was reacting to the original version of "The Enterprise" that Goldsmith was recording on the stage. He recorded a few cues during that session that he later revised.
Yes, I knew that the rejection was based on the fully scored cues (as briefly played on the TMP DVD), but I think Goldsmith first tried out the revised TNG theme that we all know and love in a piano session. Maybe I'm wrong on that though.
If they're on the way from Gotham City to Neverland, perhaps this is a song demo from HOOK? Hook was originally a musical, so I was hoping for more than just one demo?
Even though I am a fan of the score for hook, i would hardly qualify any demos related to it as being "film music history". This term should be applied to something really iconic only, so i hope MV is aware of the hopes he is rising by using it the way he did.
I wonder if it's Williams playing the 5 note melody from Close Encounters on piano for the first time. Or the first recording of the Jaws theme on piano or something.
Those seem to combine something being "film music history" with a project La-La Land could conceivably be working on.
I think something from Star Trek The Motion Picture is a good bet too
Williams *was* working on a Peter Pan musical with Leslie Bricusse but it was unrelated to Hook, which was originally going to be a Nick Castle film before Spielberg took it over.
-Demo performance of the Jaws Shark theme played for Spielberg -Demo performance of the CE3K 5-note theme -Demo suite of Peter Pan musical themes to get Spielberg to approve using them for Hook
Goldsmith ideas: -Demo performance of the Star Trek main title march
Kamen ideas: -Demo performance of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves main theme
It's Williams or Goldsmith. MV knows his audience and what the words "film history" conjure up.
Williams and Spielberg running through 5 note options for Close Encounters would be my first guess, except I don't know if the world is waiting for a reissue of that.
Williams *was* working on a Peter Pan musical with Leslie Bricusse but it was unrelated to Hook, which was originally going to be a Nick Castle film before Spielberg took it over.
Here's some details on Spielberg's idea to make Hook as a musical (from JWFAN)...
NSB: Did the Peter Pan television special you mentioned have any connection to Bricusse’s later collaboration with Williams on Spielberg’s aborted Peter Pan musical, which eventually became the 1991 movie Hook?
MM: Only indirectly. The Bricusse/Williams Peter Pan musical was not as developed as some people seem to think. Spielberg wanted to film a live actionPeter Pan in the mid-80s, and of course John was going to score it. Spielberg had also always wanted to make a musical film of some kind, and this seemed like an opportunity, so Williams wrote a few melodies and Leslie wrote the lyrics. Paramount went so far as to announce the project in a 1987 promotional film, but then Spielberg changed his mind. I don’t think this has actually ever come out, but the turning point for Spielberg was making Empire of the Sun. Christian Bale actually told me that when shooting started on that film, Steven told him he wanted him to play Peter. (It would have been the first time that an English boy actually played the part! And contrary to myth, Spielberg never intended to have Michael Jackson play it.) But the experience of making Empire of the Sun so changed Spielberg’s psyche that by the time the film was released he had decided to not make Peter Pan at all. When the Hook screenplay began making the rounds in 1989, someone at Tristar got Steven to look at it, and he became interested because the twist of that story reflected the very reasons why he didn’t want to make a straightforward Pan film. Williams then brought Bricusse onto Hook, and then suddenly Spielberg got this grandiose idea for turning it into a musical, but with only a few weeks before shooting he had to be told that it was impractical. So they ended up using “When You’re Alone” and “We Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” and Williams used the melody for “Childhood” as a theme in his score, but that was it. There’s no full Williams Peter Pan score floating around. Now, however, Bricusse is trying to mount a new Pan stage production that uses some of the Newley songs as well as the ones he developed with Williams, which Spielberg has okayed. Incidentally, one other interesting connection in all this is that John McCarthy, director of the Ambrosian Singers in England, directed the boy singers for Empire of the Sun… eighteen years after serving the same function on Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
What "major project" film composers play piano themselves? John Williams, James Horner...?
Poledouris did.
In addition to Basil Poledouris, some other present/former film TV composers who are/were accomplished pianists (either solo performance or accompanist level)
Bruce Broughton Dave Grusin John Williams Marvin Hamlisch Bill Conti James Newton Howard Artie Kane Andre Previn Lalo Schifrin Laurence Rosenthal David Shire Billy Goldenberg John Morris Richard Rodney Bennett Joel Rosenbaum Dick DeBenedictis Michel Legrand
Those who have since left us:
Elmer Bernstein Leonard Rosenman Jerry Goldsmith Alex North Alfred Newman Fred Steiner (on cello, too) Barry Gray Richard Shores Harry Sukman Walter Scharf Irwin Kostal Sol Kaplan Irving Szathmary Shirley Walker George Greely Fredrick Hollander John Green Bronislau Kaper Franz Waxman
non-legit (popular) style:
Randy Newman Lyn Murray Henry Mancini Dennis McCarthy Vic Mizzy Christophe Beck
I would wager both John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams possess considerable keyboard skills.
