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Probably never, thanks to the idiots at Universal.
They used to play some full and complete unreleased score tracks back in Universal Studios Miami Vice Live Show, you can hear them here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fp8l-aOeKg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNS4frBBndI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_moWO3gJLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_moWO3gJLg
So obviously, these tracks that Jan Hammer did for the show each week, they are all in a vault somewhere in Universal's possesion.
Universal are so tight fisted,I believe they actually made Jan Hammer have to re-record his own music for the second CD of the Complete Collection, instead of just releasing the originals.
Granted, the re-recordings were longer, but some of them were too different, either parts missing or replaced, and maybe partly it was his own decision to do it, but i'm pretty sure Universal forced his hand.
There are 5 full seasons worth of score tracks, which could easily fill around 3 or 4 full CD's.
Its not rocket science for this to be released. Universal are obviously being tight asses over it.
Tim Truman even tried to get his own music from Vice released and that ended up dead. Luckilly, he trickled out some of his best tracks back when Myspace wasn't a dead place.
Frankly its disgraceful that these score tracks have never been released. Some of them are equivalent to the best of movie score tracks, and practically are, given the show was filmed in 35mm and was more cinematic than most movies made today.
You would think these companies would allow fans to enjoy the music.
Even Harold Faltermeyer's best work remains unreleased, damn 30 years since Beverly Hills Cop and that still hasn't been released, while many garbage modern scores full of drones and pointless rubbish are released monthly.
Utterly disgraceful.
My advice to some of these composers is to just leak their own complete scores on the net for free and just be done with it. It would save everyone the hassle and pointless time wasting.
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"Vote of Confidence" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Opening percussion piece. The breif dark bathtub cue. Dark piece with percussion as Frazier talks to Crockett over the phone. Evne the two or three second stab is nice and dark.
And an interesting and somewhat different dramatic piece with percussion, plucked strings, and what I think is a small anvil. I really liked it. That's pretty much it, as there wasn't much score.
Overall, the cues are stand-alones and not a cohesive whole, but even then it's one of the better scores for the series. I guess I might place it as a strong second tier effort.
Turns out Rolling Stone did an interview early last month with Hammer where, amongst other things, they talked about his work on the show:
http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/songs-of-fire-and-vice-jan-hammer-on-the-music-of-miami-vice-20141008
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I can't iamgine a Blu-ray would help. I've watched a number of side-by-side comparisons of remasters, with the old on the left and the new on the right (Sar Trek, Batman '66, ST: TNG, others) and the one thing that constantly bothers me: the Blu-ray remaster is always darker, and some of the vibrance of colors is lost (especially annoying with Batman '66).
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"Baseballs of Death" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Not too much score. Maybe a couple cues would be enjoyable apart from the episode, but nothing stood out.
A year later "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" used the montage song from this episod,e for the opening credits. I wonder if this episode inspired it. I certainly can break away, from a song now associated with a seriocomedy film.
I hope to catch up on episodes in the following days because of Thanksgiving, so more mini reviews coming.
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"Indian Wars" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
There's a few enjoyable percussion pieces, trying to create what I guess is a light air, though faux feel, of tribal percussion pieces. Particularly the opening cue, the cues following the cheif's kidnapping, and the closing cue with a dark synth cline underneath.
I'm almost tempted to say it's a contender for second tier score effort.
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I can't iamgine a Blu-ray would help. I've watched a number of side-by-side comparisons of remasters, with the old on the left and the new on the right (Sar Trek, Batman '66, ST: TNG, others) and the one thing that constantly bothers me: the Blu-ray remaster is always darker, and some of the vibrance of colors is lost (especially annoying with Batman '66).
That's an interesting point. I've noticed that with a few movies I've bought recently. "All the President's Men" looks much darker to me. I just wish a few Vice episodes looked better than they do.
There are several scenes that suffer from excessive graininess.
This is most likely due to lazy mastering. In other words they didn't take the time to due a scene by scene transfer.
Blu-ray wouldn't fix that shortcoming
bruce
ps BUFFY also suffers from lots of grainy scenes
IT's the mastering stupid!
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"Honor Among Thieves?" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
No cue stood out, for me. But the episode is enjoyable in a wird way with it's creepy Pee Wee Herman-like villain.
"Hell Hath No Fury" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Nothing really stood out until the last half of the score with the marcato strings and ominous synth tones, and even some percussion. It doesn't really sound much like previous Hammer work on the show, so I suspect Petersen had more to do with it.
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"Honor Among Thieves?" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
No cue stood out, for me. But the episode is enjoyable in a wird way with it's creepy Pee Wee Herman-like villain.
"Hell Hath No Fury" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Nothing really stood out until the last half of the score with the marcato strings and ominous synth tones, and even some percussion. It doesn't really sound much like previous Hammer work on the show, so I suspect Petersen had more to do with it.
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"Badge of Dishonor" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Stand out cues: the montage music scene where Trudy describes the young men. The piece, in two parts, where Crockett and Tubbs are driving; features a stealpan. The brief piece as the officer is lead threw prison. The short tense piece as Tubbs goes undercover, that has what sounds like a synth xylophone with reduced attack and muted sound.
I don't know, just something I like about the cues that makes me consider it a contender for second tier effort.
"Blood and Roses" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Stand out cues: the opening party cue with the '80's sounds; the house-searching percussion piece with what sounds like could be an electric guitar being played for various effect sounds (as of late is sounds like Hammer is including more percussion sounds to his scoring palette). And mention to the nice, albeit short, semi love theme-like piece as Crockett pays Gina a visit at her apartment to apologize.
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"A Bullet for Crockett" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
It's hard to tell how much is original material, since there are a number of flashback scenes and sometimes the score begins as the episode transitions into the flashback.
There are two cues with Crockett's Theme (one may be from another episode, in a flashback scene), including one short rendition in the now "old" MV style with synthy panpipes sound, that I of course enjoyed. There's also another nice '80's sounding version of Crockett's Theme at the end, broken into two parts, but I think the first part is tracked from another episode.
There also a good short piece as Castillo looks on at the surgery.
OMG, Crockett got shot. PFT, wimp -- you know how many times Marshal Dillon was shot? Over a dozen times. Except for one time I recall, he walked them all off.
"Deliver Us from Evil" (the Hammer)
Minus John Petersen. Petersen also didn't do the next episode, the season finale. I wonder why he couldn't make it two more episodes to finish out the season.
There were a couple dark cues that might be okay apart from the episode, but otherwise nothing stood out. A shame for such an important episode.
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"Mirror Image" (Out: the Hammer)
The season four finale.
A lot of the score was low key, but two tracks stood out for me: one where Tubbs goes to the fancy art gallery-like place looking for Crockett, and the cue that closes out the episode
"Hostile Takeover" (Enter: Tim Truman)
It's a little odd to not have the same composer score what is the continuation of where the cliff hanger left off, but so it was.
A few months earlier a failed pilot Don Johnson helped produced, "Life on the Flipside", aired. It was scored by Truman. I'm guessing this is how he got the job on MV; Johnson remembered him, talked to him, and there you go. Oh, and guess who directed the season premiere?
There was some low key stuff for most of the episode, keeping with the sound Hammer had established, then in the last quarter of the episode we suddenly get slapped upside the ear with a hard percussion piece with wailing electric guitar over it. It fit the scene remarkably well. I didn't care for the wailing electric guitar, but it surely did the job. Johnson made a convincing badass who's moved up in the world.
Following that there's a good moody percussion piece that's nice. Again, very much like Hammer.
And the epsiode ends with some airy synths and bass chimes played over.
I've heard some other cues on Youtube by the composer, so I know he did good on the show. It was a smart move to hire him, and most importantly it was a smart move to continue the unique scoring sound Hammer had created. There's a number of TV shows with good scoring spanning the decades, but few had a sound unique to them and hte last thing you do is suddenly shift away from what worked like an epic charm for four years.
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"Vote of Confidence" (the Hammer & John Petersen)
Opening percussion piece. The breif dark bathtub cue. Dark piece with percussion as Frazier talks to Crockett over the phone. Evne the two or three second stab is nice and dark.
And an interesting and somewhat different dramatic piece with percussion, plucked strings, and what I think is a small anvil. I really liked it. That's pretty much it, as there wasn't much score.
Overall, the cues are stand-alones and not a cohesive whole, but even then it's one of the better scores for the series. I guess I might place it as a strong second tier effort.
Turns out Rolling Stone did an interview early last month with Hammer where, amongst other things, they talked about his work on the show:
http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/songs-of-fire-and-vice-jan-hammer-on-the-music-of-miami-vice-20141008
So then we finally got to know that they never asked Hammer to score the feature.
A shame, really.
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"Deliver Us from Evil" (the Hammer)
Minus John Petersen. Petersen also didn't do the next episode, the season finale. I wonder why he couldn't make it two more episodes to finish out the season.
According to Petersen himself, the producers wanted Hammer back for the last couple of episodes.
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