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Doug Payne:
Thank you for your discography, it has been of enormous help to me in my research. I've been collecting Nelson for some years now, and am wading into the Flying Dutchman material now, that is so difficult to get at this point, I don't know were I'd be without your prior work. A singular resource.
As many of you know, The Six Million Dollar Man has nearly 2 and a half years worth of Nelson material and more derived from that. The Bionic Woman tracked from SMDM extensively in its first year, and Nelson's "Sweet Jaime" made it into Fielding's score for TBW:"The Deadly Missiles." The SMDM theme is woven into the finale of Harnell's "The Return of Bigfoot, Part II," available on CD.
But most of this material is locked away. I've done what has been described upthread, capping the music from the DVD's, and while it often is "in the clear" I can tell you that this gets old. The mono mix is muddy at times, and energy builds only to be ruined by some dialog. A music release makes sense from every perspective, except it seems the in-house one.
As a consultant on the DVDs, I spoke up for getting some movement on the music, even if just a music or M&E track; no go. So I can only declare that I want this music *bad* and would pay; if I were independently wealthy I would front the money for it, but I'm not. Maybe the fact that I would front the money for a project like this is an indication of why I'm not wealthy ;-)
Seconded on Greenhouse Jungle; my current ringtone!
Slightly OT: the Nelson albums Black, Brown and Beautiful (1969- NOT the same-named compilation), The Mayor and the People, and Berlin Dialogue for Orchestra all need to be released on CD (they are vinyl LP-only FTTB), and each contains some inspiration for SMDM.
Also, rare on CD is Count Basie's Afrique, conducted, arranged and mostly composed by Nelson. The title track is a clear precursor to SMDM: "Little Orphan Airplane," while Kilimanjaro is startlingly Six-ish in its construction. Hunt it down!
Nelson's work for Ironside, Night Gallery, Longstreet, Columbo and more obscure stuff like The Name of the Game, all continues to decay and will ultimately be lost along with The Six Million Dollar Man (assuming the Uni material survived the '08 fire). A sea change is necessary if this part of our cultural heritage is to be saved.
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Good to see some folks interested in the great Oliver Nelson! Let me mention something once more which doesn't seem to get the coverage it deserves - the score for LAST TANGO IN PARIS. Although credited to Gato Barbieri, the orchestrations by Nelson are so unmistakable that some parts of it sound like it could accompany THE SIX BUCK MAN or COLUMBO. I believe that Barbieri may have sketched out some melodic lines, and then Nelson came in and did the bulk of the scoring itself. I'm not putting down Gato Barbieri here, whose work as a jazz giant needs no defending, but in this case we ofetn overlook what Nelson did for the Bertolucci film. In fact, when Barbieri takes back seat and lets the rest of the orchestra carry the score, it's pure Oliver Nelson. The energetic rhythm section, the throbbing bass and ZIGZAG percussion, the dreamy strings... all fans of Nelson should have the Varese CD which includes almost half an hour of actual score as heard in the film, as well as the old LP programme.
Would love to see other overlooked Nelson gems out on CD... Apart from the much-requested 6 MILLION DOLLAR MAN, COLUMBO and NIGHT GALLERY, I wish we could get to hear SKULLDUGGERY (propulsive), DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER (sweet and wonderfully melodic) and any number of forgotten TV Movies on CD.
As it is, I'm going to put on FSM's ZIGZAG again. That's brilliant, and the presentation is superb - LP programme and actual film score. Both complement each other wonderfully, and both versions are indispensable for folks like us.
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