I'm testing my cutter and paster, so don't do anything yet.
Right, I can't get my cutter and paster to work AT ALL today, so I need your help. Perhaps Ken McGoon, who has been most helpful in the past with my techno ineptitude. Mind you, he's FURIOUS with me today, because HE thought he would win ALWAYS. Ken, you can't ALWAYS win.
But the nitty-gritty - I found an absolutely splendid rendition of Gil Mellé's COLUMBO theme on YouTube. It's labelled as "Death Lends a Hand" but is actually the theme used in several other episodes too. Dave Foley, arranged by Jim Hann. I've never heard of these people. but they seem to capture the spirit and essence of what made Gil Mellé great, and this theme in particular.
I'm testing my cutter and paster, so don't do anything yet.
Right, I can't get my cutter and paster to work AT ALL today, so I need your help. Perhaps Ken McGoon, who has been most helpful in the past with my techno ineptitude. Mind you, he's FURIOUS with me today, because HE thought he would win ALWAYS. Ken, you can't ALWAYS win.
But the nitty-gritty - I found an absolutely splendid rendition of Gil Mellé's COLUMBO theme on YouTube. It's labelled as "Death Lends a Hand" but is actually the theme used in several other episodes too. Dave Foley, arranged by Jim Hann. I've never heard of these people. but they seem to capture the spirit and essence of what made Gil Mellé great, and this theme in particular.
Thanks for your help!
For the diehard, straight no-no aficionados, find a Gil Mellé gem:
Gil Mellé: CRIME CLUB THE LAST KEY short score suite (1975)
One of the many things I love about this is the how the new "bridge" seems to have come straight out of a piece from Mellé's days at Blue Note or Prestige. It may well have done so, which is why it sounds so familiar and yet was not part of the original Columbo theme. It's completely in keeping with what the composer himself might have done.
Ha, Member! We posted at the same time. My latest comment was about COLUMBO, but I am familiar with CRIME CLUB, it being one of hundreds of things I had on cassette decades ago.
While you're here (Member), what do you think of that COLUMBO rendition?
Ha, Member! We posted at the same time. My latest comment was about COLUMBO, but I am familiar with CRIME CLUB, it being one of hundreds of things I had on cassette decades ago.
While you're here (Member), what do you think of that COLUMBO rendition?
It's slow moving and lazy and lack of warmth, melancholy and tenderness and there are missing instruments (violin that Mellé handled so well, harpsichord). Who can play tenor sax like Mellé? Who? As James Phillips used to say about comparing Gil Mellé to John Carpenter : it's like comparing a fine wine with a grape juice. I'm listening to the original right now and there are actually three variations (three cues) in the telefilm: Columbo driving his car and stopped by a traffic cop, the conclusion at the end of the last Act, the end credits.
Ha, Member! We posted at the same time. My latest comment was about COLUMBO, but I am familiar with CRIME CLUB, it being one of hundreds of things I had on cassette decades ago.
While you're here (Member), what do you think of that COLUMBO rendition?
It's slow moving and lazy and lack of warmth, melancholy and tenderness and there are missing instruments (violin that Mellé handled so well, harpsichord). Who can play tenor sax like Mellé? Who? As James Phillips used to say about comparing Gil Mellé to John Carpenter : it's like comparing a fine wine with a grape juice. I'm listening to the original right now and there are actually three variations (three cues) in the telefilm: Columbo driving his car and stopped by a traffic cop, the conclusion at the end of the last Act, the end credits.
Ouch! I don't think it was supposed to recreate the exact sound. As it is, I find it a very nice homage. We need more people keeping the music of Gil Mellé (and many others) alive through new interpretations.
Ouch! I don't think it was supposed to recreate the exact sound. As it is, I find it a very nice homage. We need more people keeping the music of Gil Mellé (and many others) alive through new interpretations.
You put that so much more nicely than I was going to.
What I enjoyed about this video was the musicianship, the interpretation and honoring the feel, not its fidelity to the soundtrack. Lazy it ain't.
The one sad thing about the last hundred years of recorded music, is people get so wrapped up in a particular recording of a work that it can be hard to appreciate other versions and interpretations. Not just round these parts, but everywhere.
Before recorded music, every performance was a new version.
Music isn't a painting, or it wasn't for most of human history. It's a living art the performer must bring something to for it to live on.
I just had a quick look at what the musicians on this piece have been doing. I'm a novice in so many things, but some of you may know of the people involved. I don't, or at least I didn't. Dave Foley, who plays on the clip and who uploaded the video to YouTube, has a couple of other things up, including some splendid (to me) versions of Little River Band's "Reminiscing". He also apparently invented what he calls "the Foleyphone", a wind synthesizer prototype (doesn't that remind anyone of what Gil Mellé did?) which you can hear him playing on Pat Metheny's "Bright Size Life".
Another of the musicians involved is Dave Hanzel, from Boom Alley Drums. I hadn't heard of him, but I've just watched an interview and he's a consumate musician. And no spring chicken either. The impression I get - and this will sound hysterically grandfatheranian to hipper folks - is that he does "rock gigs". Got that, kids?
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I applaud their efforts wholeheartedly. I'm just trying to think how I'd react if I went to see a jazz trio or quartet in concert, and they played Gil Mellé's theme from Columbo. I'd be going bananas with joy, and I certainly wouldn't be queuing up at the end to bemoan them for their failure to incorporate the string section which Mellé used in the original.
