Thanks to David, I watched the whole series with Earle Hagen. The man has an amazing memory. You also get that he is very professional and very sure of his abilities and is not afraid to tell it like it is. I learned a great deal from Jon Burlingame's interview here and recommend it highly if you have the time to watch it all.
Now if we could only get a release of music from The Mod Squad that would be great. It would be a nice companion piece to I Spy.
Earle Hagen's book 'Memoirs of a Famous Composer Nobody Ever Heard Of' is well worth a read too.
I SPY is one of my favourite CDs from FSM. The music sounded great and - like the series itself - was full of invention and colour. As well as melody. The fusing of ethnic elements (eg the Chinese 'Sho') with jazz put the scores in a class all of their own.
It's a source of constant regret to me that FSM were not able to do further volumes. It would be nice if another label picked up the baton.
Don't care for the show, but the music is fantastic. FSM's excellent release was a tantalizing tip of the iceberg and a series of further I SPY releases would be welcome.
This might well be my favourite of all my FSM CDs (I think I've posted in most I SPY-related threads over the years since this first came out...)
Anyone filling in gaps in their FSM collection could do worse than pick this one up. Sure, it's tv music but it's inventive tv music. And it sounds great.
Don't forget Volume 2 (the LPs) as well.
I always thought it was a shame that Lukas was never able to tackle a second volume of the original scores. It would be great if another label could perhaps take up the challenge one day....
I always thought it was a shame that Lukas was never able to tackle a second volume of the original scores. It would be great if another label could perhaps take up the challenge one day....
Just playing again the wonderful FSM Vol. 1 CD and I thought I would bump this. It would be really great if more original I SPY music would come out!
Just playing again the wonderful FSM Vol. 1 CD and I thought I would bump this. It would be really great if more original I SPY music would come out!
I absolutely agree. One of my favourite FSM CDs.
I wish another label would take up the baton on this. I loved the way Hagen used the big band sound and then seamlessly integrated indigenous sounds into his music. His score for Home to Judgement was unusual enough to stand apart from much of the standard tv scoring of the time.
I liked the LPs too - but, on reflection now, they were clearly aimed at the record buying public and to me were slightly atypical of the series. More use of strings than was in the series perhaps, and an overabundance of bongos in the main titles. But still good for all that.
