Kristopher Spencer, author of Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979, and JazzWrap contributor, will discuss crime jazz soundtracks with Scott Greenberg, host of WGWG radio's "Debts No Honest Man Can Pay". They'll play selections by Alex North, Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones and more.
Bruno Nicolai was clearly on a roll with the genre and delivered another fascinating score for La Dame Rossa Uccide Sette Volte (Red Queen Kills Seven Times or The Corpse Which Didn’t Want to Die, ’72). Starting with a little girl’s solo voice, the theme unfolds like a nursery rhyme or folk melody played on harpsichord and guitar with pop orchestra supplying a lift. It is yet another paradoxical example of a lovely, feminine melody for a brutally bloody film where violence against scantily clad women is a part of its entertainment value. Another winsome track is “In Automobile,” a bossa nova that expresses sunny seaside drives. The suspenseful material also is top flight. Nicolai uses strings to create a veneer of tension as lone instruments (harp, harpsichord, etc.) sound out figurative “bumps in the night.” During the second half, a rock sensibility creeps into the rhythm section with frantic cymbals accompanying insistent drums, forceful bass and the metallic texture of a jaggedly strummed electric guitar as fast arpeggios race across this uneasy surface. This approach serves several tracks as the plot clearly reaches its climax. This is Nicolai at his most frantic, but even when he slows the orchestra and stops the rhythm section he never loses sight of the suspense.
Ennio Morricone’s Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura (Cold Eyes of Fear, ’71) features Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, an improvisation ensemble founded in ’64 and made up entirely of composers. It also explores dissonant sounds but displays a more aggressive avant-garde jazz style. On “Seguita,” busy drums and walking bass provide an anchor for wah guitar and electronically enhanced trumpet interplay worthy of Bitches’ Brew-era Miles Davis. Morricone may be the trumpeter. Elsewhere, one can hear such bizarre sounds as ashtrays in pianos, bowed cymbals, scraping metal alongside the more typical but still jarring jittery horns and string drones. Although Cold Eyes’ cacophonous and abstract sounds discourage casual listening, its strong jazz and psychedelic aspects will engage listeners who are more attuned to experimental, exploratory music genres. No self-respecting avant-garde music or Morricone fan should be without a copy.
For the 1974 live-action Planet of the Apes TV show Lalo Schifrin clearly made an effort to deliver music consistent with the big screen series. The Argentinean composer provided a jarringly primitive, atonal, electronically accented theme and scored several episodes including the first. Taking a stylistic cue from Jerry Goldsmith and Leonard Rosenman, Schifrin created a percussion-heavy, action-packed sound. He uses orchestral dissonance to capture the alienation felt by astronauts lost in a dystopian and primitive future where apes rule over men. Shuddering strings, nervous woodwinds, strident brass and atmospheric keyboards create a persistent and nightmarish tension and sense of urgency. The closest Schifrin had previously come to such a sound was on his Dirty Harry scores. Schifrin also recorded two funkified tracks — “Ape Shuffle” and “Escape from Tomorrow” — for a promotional 45 at the time.
The film of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man (’69) was considered an interesting failure upon release. Undoubtedly, Jerry Goldsmith’s score is the interesting part. Even Bradbury thought it outshined the film. Because the film is episodic, the score shows some stylistic range. At times it is melancholy and lyrical, and at other times sterile and electronic. It goes from tunefully impressionistic (“Theme”) to chillingly atonal (“Angry Child”). Goldsmith excels at atonality being a self-described serial composer. But his themes aren’t so much austere as they are formal and frequently haunting. The electronic bits are often subtle (like the use of an Echoplex on woodwinds), but on tracks like “21st Century House” the electronics branch out to constitute most of the sound. In fact, his use of electronics anticipates his work on Logan’s Run.
Jerry Goldsmith’s outstanding score for 100 Rifles (’69) is very experimental and dynamic, and doesn’t seem to have much in common with Hollywood’s Golden Age westerns or Ennio Morricone’s re-imaging of the sagebrush sound. As is his wonderful habit, Goldsmith pits cacophonous brass against clamorous percussion on the riveting “Escape and Pursuit”. And who else but Goldsmith would use detuned guitar and bass along with prepared piano in a western? The effect is strangely sinister and mysterious (“The Church”), and highly suggestive of mounting danger (“Ready for Ambush”). It’s an awesome display of the composer’s ability to re-imagine the western sound in Morricone’s wake. If one must limit their western soundtrack collection to a single Goldsmith score 100 Rifles should be the one.
Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (’59) is a breezy entertainment compared to the obsessive moods of Vertigo and shocking horror of Psycho, but it’s still a masterpiece of suspense with a riveting score by Herrmann. The composer started work on it right after scoring the pilot episode of TV’s The Twilight Zone. As was his practice, he wrote the score by hand, from beginning to end based on roughly sketched motifs. The sinister fandango theme music that opens the film, and ends without resolution, is melodically memorable and rhythmically invigorating. According to musicologist Christopher Husted, who wrote the booklet notes for the Rhino Records edition of the soundtrack, Herrmann claimed to have been inspired to use Latin American rhythms by star Cary Grant’s “Astaire-like agility.” Elsewhere, Herrmann uses popular melodies (“In the Still of the Night” and “It’s a Most Unusual Day”) to reinforce the romantic under current. The film’s love theme — a lyrical duet between clarinet and oboe — uses propulsive rhythms played on strings to suggest the steady forward momentum of train carrying Grant and Eva Marie Saint toward their shared destiny. The score has its share of ominous (“Kidnapped”) and thrilling sections (“On the Rocks”) wherein Herrmann combines swirling strings, stabbing winds and brass, and pulse-pounding percussion.
Considering Johnny Mandel’s prolific big band credentials one might expect a straight jazz score from him for Point Blank (’67), based on a Donald Westlake novel. But the soundtrack ambitiously explores 12-tone serialism — a style not so much hard-boiled as it is scrambled. Soundtrack collectors who associate Mandel with his warm, sensuous Oscar®-winning song “The Shadow of Your Smile” (’65) will be surprised by the cold modernity of the composer’s work on this crime thriller. Ponderous, dissonant orchestration with intermittent percussion accents and subtle use of the genre’s standby keyboard, the harpsichord, cast an icy disposition over the proceedings, rarely offering reassurance through crime jazz conventions. However, there are smooth lounge jazz source cues such as “This Way to Heaven” and most enticingly “I’ll Slip Out of Something Comfortable” that are almost jarringly accessible next to such disquieting tracks as “Nightmare” and “Unquestioned Answers.”
Lalo Schifrin came closest to blaxploitation with his excellent Enter the Dragon (’73) the Bruce Lee blockbuster directed by Robert Clouse. By then, the blaxploitation sound was enjoying great success with audiences regardless of skin tone. The evidence of comfortable assimilation was on the screen — as the movie’s Chinese hero (Lee) teams up with an African-American (Jim Kelly) and a Caucasian (John Saxon) — as well as on the soundtrack. The theme, with its chugging wah guitar rhythms, “Shaft”-like rhythm and ultra funky keyboard and brass lines, make it a classic of the blaxploitation genre. Elsewhere in the score, the mellow groover “Headset Jazz,” lean creepers “Into the Night” and “The Human Fly” also have funky appeal. The score remains a touchstone for fans of Schifrin, blaxploitation and classic kung fu. Rap group Wu Tang Clan paid homage to it with its debut album, Enter the Wu Tang (’93). And Rush Hour (’98) director Brett Ratner requested a Dragon-style score from Schifrin to accompany the high kicking, crime fighting, comic antics of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Simply put, Dragon is a notable and influential entry into the blaxploitation soundtrack genre, even if the movie barely qualifies.
Another Motown soundtrack from ’73 was Edwin Starr’s Hell Up in Harlem, the sequel to Black Caesar. James Brown, who scored Caesar, was originally asked to do Harlem as well, but the film’s director Larry Cohen rejected his efforts in favor of the Starr vehicle, featuring songs written by Freddie Perren and Fonce Mizell (who along with Berry Gordy and Deke Richards formed the Corporation, the production team behind the Jackson 5). Harlem’s outstanding tracks include the rousing, electrically charged theme song and “Easin’ In,” which boasts an often-sampled, finger-snapping intro. The song could have been a hit, but Motown neglected to promote the score — a mere contract fulfiller for Starr.
Coffy, the lively vigilante picture starring blaxploitation queen Pam Grier, features an outstanding Latin jazz-funk score by vibraphonist Roy Ayers. Tracks like “Coffy is the Color,” “Priscilla’s Groove” and “Aragon” percolate with irrepressible rhythms, dynamic keyboard figures and a relentless groove. One would be hard pressed to name a more high-energy blaxploitation score. “King George,” with its lowdown funk and two-channel “dialogue” celebrating a certain pimp’s powers of persuasion, may be the coolest mack daddy theme ever. There is even a bit of psychedelia mixed in (“End of Sugarman”).
The arrival of the ’50s brought two space exploration pictures of note. With a tagline that stated: “The Future is Here” Rocketship X-M was rushed through production and into release to beat the higher budget Destination Moon in ’50. Ferde Grofé Sr., who is best known for his “Grand Canyon Suite,” scored X-M using a Theremin for the eerie scenes on Mars. Before X-M actually arrives on Mars, however, one gets pure Golden Age orchestration with sweeping strings, boisterous brass and crashing cymbals. Although he rarely scored pictures, Grofé displays a knack for dramatic build-ups and atmospheric tension. The juxtaposition between the familiar, earthly sonorities of strings, brass and woodwinds and the otherworldly warble of the theremin echoes the scenes that find man in an ominous alien environment.
The Girl Can’t Help It (’56), starring one of Marilyn Monroe’s blonde bombshell rivals, Jayne Mansfield, is a giddy rock ‘n’ roll musical satire features a score by Lionel Newman and songs by Bobby Troup, who contributed similarly to Mansfield’s next comedy, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (’57), which is another classic sex comedy of the era. Girl features cameos by early rock ‘n’ roll legends such as Fats Domino, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent; legend has it that Elvis Presley was courted to make an appearance, but he allegedly asked for too much money. The theme song was a smash for Little Richard. Film auteur John Waters later used it on the soundtrack of his notorious trash classic Pink Flamingos (’72).
During the ’50s, certain filmmakers pushed the boundaries of subject matter. Elia Kazan transplanted Tennessee Williams’ melodrama A Streetcar Named Desire (’51) from Broadway, complete with its original cast. The film’s hothouse atmosphere of sexual frustration is made all the more palpable by Alex North’s influential jazz-tinged score.
"For Satan's Sadists, Harley Hatcher delivers one of the most memorable themes in the biker flick genre, simply called 'Satan.' The singer describes how he was 'born mean' and even at the tender age of two had earned the nickname of 'Satan.' The lyrics describe a troubled childhood against a backdrop of stately soul. Other tracks, like the brassy and irrepressibly poppy 'Gotta Stop That Feeling' and 'Is it Better to Have Loved and Lost,' make life with a biker gang sound pretty tame -- even one led by a guy named Satan.".jpg)
"High School Confidential features opening and closing onscreen performances by Jerry Lee Lewis of the title track, which the fiery piano-banging rocker composed. The single reached 21 on the chart, but took a nosedive when Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin."
"In scoring Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which is generally considered the original 'slasher' movie, Bernard Herrmann provided not only gripping cues for psychological and physical terror, but also deeply emotional underscoring for plights facing Janet Leigh's character. Herrmann's score identifies with Leigh's character while commenting on her situation as a detached observer. This is hardly surprising, given Herrmann's gift for suggesting character traits of an almost subliminal nature. Unlike on his other work for Hitchcock, Herrmann works with an all-strings orchestra, as if to call attention to the horrible, almost incestuous intimacy of the story as well as its stark black and white cinematography."
"For I Bury the Living, composer Gerald Fried takes advantage of the sinister sound of manic harpsichord trills alongside worried woodwinds and low strings that quote from a grim Volga Boatman folk song. For the remake of The Cabinet of Caligari, Fried's sweeping strings nauseatingly vacillate between sweetly romantic and suspenseful. More manic moments can be heard on 'The Rorshach Test,' on which argumentative brass jostle alongside panicked piano, and on 'House of Horrors' where frantic keys, woodwinds and brass feverishly repeat a hypnotic figure until dissipating into nervous strings."
"Logan's Run is a classic dystopian sci-fi film that was quickly forgotten when Star Wars arrived in theaters a year later. Set in a far-off future of domed cities, holographic entertainments and sex without love, it's a chilling morality tale with disco-era fashions and feathered hair. Jerry Goldsmith's score is among the most electronic soundtracks to accompany a major movie of that era. For scenes inside The City, Goldsmith employs synths that gurgle, squeak and whoosh with atonal abandon. Elsewhere, particularly for scenes outside The City, Goldsmith uses acoustic orchestration (strings, piano, woodwinds) to represent the natural world."
"West Germans weren't alone in their fascination with the Old West. The East German state-supervised film industry (DEFA) also produced its fair share of sagebrush sagas. The DEFA westerns made in the '60s and '70s mimicked West Germany's Winnetou films in so far as depicting Indians as noble (i.e. quasi socialist) victims of the white man's colonial (i.e. quasi-capitalist) barbarism. Such movies as White Wolf, Deadly Error and Kit & Co. were shot in Yugoslavia or Georgia, with Caucasians cast as Native American."
"Perhaps Elmer Bernstein's greatest contribution to the western genre is the best example of how the era's younger composers brought a relatively fresh, thoroughly American approach to a genre previously dominated by European-born composers. More than any other American western score of the Silver Age, The Magnificent Seven captures the best aspects of the genre's golden past, as well as the compositional trends of the 20th century. The marvelously rousing main theme is exuberantly heroic, and serves the score well through a variety of moods and orchestral treatments... What makes Magnificent different from Golden Age westerns, which tend to have 'Hungarian' operatic scores, is its obvious debt to American folk music, particularly the influence of Aaron Copland."
"A notorious example of post-porn mainstream cinema is Pretty Baby, which scandalously stars an occasionally nude 12-year-old Brooke Shields as a virginal sex object. The soundtrack presents Jerry Wexler's adaptations of ragtime piano tunes by Scott Joplin and Jerry Roll Morton that serve as source cues in the film's principle location, a seedy New Orleans Storyville brothel at the turn of the 20th century. The music is perfect for the film, but doesn't make for an especially compelling soundtrack listening experience."
"For sexy '60s camp, nothing beats Valley of the Dolls. Based on the best-selling novel by Jacqueline Susann, Valley is the sordid story of a trio of ambitious young women wrestling with the trappings of fame and fortune in New York while popping a steady stream of 'dolls' (uppers and downers). Much of John Williams' instrumental cues epitomize the swanky easy listening of the period. On 'Chance Meeting,' cascading harps and swirling strings accompany gently strummed acoustic guitar and bossa nova rhythms. And the era's attitude toward sex without marriage is perfectly summarized in the lyrics to 'Come Live with Me.'"
"On one of the few occasions when an Italian composer scored a British spy film, the soundtrack proved to the hard-edged and dark compared to the music featured in all-Italian productions. Piero Piccioni's intense music for Alistair Maclean's Puppet on a Chain (1971) suited its subject matter (drug trafficking) and its gritty era. The track list reads like an Amsterdam police report: 'Drug Dealers,' 'Psychedelic Mood,' 'Narcotics Bureau,' 'Drugs Hypnosis' and 'Night Club' – all of which live up to their seedy promise."
"Kill! – about an Interpol agent on the take from international drug rings – has a (pardon the pun) killer score by Berto Pisano and Jaques Chaumont. The theme sticks in one's mind like an ice pick. Its stabbing rhythm, pounding congas, death ray electric guitar and stroboscopic orchestration are brilliantly executed. The score is rife with mysterious melodies, superb abstract orchestral cues, psycho beat, sitar exotica and a sexy whispered vocal performance by actress Jean Seberg. Kill! is a critical Italian soundtrack."
"Hollywood legend Bernard Herrmann's final score accompanies the gritty Taxi Driver, about a cabbie turned vigilante. The jazz-tinged orchestral score harkens back to the early years of crime jazz film and television scores, but with a darker sensibility rarely heard in the soundtracks of the '50s. The track 'Diary of a Taxi Driver,' featuring Bickle's monologue about the 'scum' on the streets, is a mini-masterpiece of brooding menace, with pulsating snare and cymbal echoing the cabbie's restlessness like a ticking time bomb."
"The Mack, one of the legendary blaxploitation productions due to its lethal behind-the-scenes politics and its fact-as-fiction footage of the notorious Player's Ball, features one of Willie Hutch's bold blaxploitation scores. Hutch got the job when the filmmakers offered a cameo appearance to the Hutch-produced singing group Sisters of Love. The score features some of Hutch's best songs, including the affirmative soul number "Brothers Gonna Work It Out," the stirring ballad "I Choose You" and the hard-driving theme. For The Mack's home video release in 1983, the studio foolishly replaced Hutch's score with an R'n'B-lite soundtrack by Alan Silvestri that pales in comparison.".jpg)
"Guaranteed to thrill is the composite score for the classic It Came from Outer Space. Irving Gertz, Herman Stein and Henry Mancini contributed to this sometimes sentimental, often times spooky theremin-enhanced soundtrack. Shrill strings, agitated brass and woodwinds, harp glissandi and otherworldly vibrato sounds on the organ and theremin make this one of the most effective sci-fi scores of the era."
"One of Bernard Herrmann's finest sci-fi scores is Fahrenheit 451. The project came along at a difficult time in the composer's private life, as he'd just gone through a painful divorce. Then Alfred Hitchcock fired Herrmann from Torn Curtain, their seventh big-screen collaboration, for failing to deliver a pop-oriented score. Ironically, it was Hitchcock disciple Francois Truffaut who hired the composer to score his adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a cautionary tale of a dystopian future where books are forbidden and burned by firemen... When Herrmann asked Truffaut why he'd been selected when the director had access to younger, more avant-garde composers, the director said that those composers would supply him with music of the 20th century, and that Herrmann would compose music for the 21st century."
"The Satan Bug is an earthbound germ warfare thriller with a score by Jerry Goldsmith, who clearly drew inspiration from the title for his diabolically angular theme music featuring spidery staccato percussion. The Satan Bug sounds a bit like a rehearsal for Planet of the Apes, which is one of Goldsmith's best sci-fi scores. Bug shares with Apes a penchant for exotic melodic motifs, which are – yet again – reminiscent of the ultimate sci-fi soundtrack classical reference: Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring.'"
"The most famous – or rather infamous – film to arise out fo the post-Dollars western revival was the ultra-violent The Wild Bunch. Director Sam Peckinpah once acknowledged that his film might never have been made had it not been for spaghetti westerns. Although the film frequently takes place south of the border – a familiar conceit of countless Spanish-location Italian westerns – Jerry Fielding's score does not mimic the style of the Italians. Fielding's score marks a break with the past and attempts to create a fresh interpretation of the genre. It has a grander sound than most spaghetti westerns – fuller orchestration, with less emphasis on individual sounds. On the whole, the score eschews old-school over-the-top emotion and big-sky grandeur in favor of subtlety."
"Star Trek (The Original TV Series) owes part of its enduring success to the rich orchestral music that accompanies each far-flung episode. As Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry recollected, the composers for the show were asked to emphasize the emotional components of the drama, not the science and gadgetry. As a result of Roddenberry's directive, the scores are primarily orchestral, with little to no electronic effects."
"Hammer's Horror of Dracula was an even bigger hit than Hammer's Frankenstein and spawned several sequels. Composer James Bernard again used the film's title (actually just "Drac-u-la") to compose the theme. The orchestral sound is typical of Hammer. Strings swirl menacingly as brass blares with full-blooded passion. Woodwinds flutter like bat wings in the night, and thundering percussion punctuates the grim processional that promises inevitable doom. In other words, break out the crucifix and holy water -- Count Dracula is on the prowl! Bernard's "Dracula" theme remains one of the most identifiable horror themes ever."
"While some mainstream films relied on studio regulars like Mancini, Bernstein and Jones, others turned to popular songwriters. One of the most famous examples is the soundtrack for the award-winning blockbuster The Graduate. With songs by Paul Simon (and performed by Simon & Garfunkel), and additional music by jazz pianist Dave Grusin, the film struck a big chord with audiences and record buyers. The soundtrack enjoyed immense popularity, hitting number one on Billboard. It was the first modern soundtrack to repackage previously released pop songs that the filmmaker appropriated to fit certain scenes in the movie. This is a common practice today, and a regrettable one at that, as it tends to coerce music fans into purchasing music they may already own in a context that has nothing to do with the musical artist's original vision... While director Mike Nichols' use of Simon's songs is spot on, the practice of pop song appropriation has become little more than a marketing strategy for albums that feature 'music from and inspired by' the latest formulaic flick in lieu of an actual soundtrack release that features the original score."
"Dario Argento's Suspiria remains Goblin's most focused and effective horror soundtrack, fittingly for the director's most innovative film. The hypnotic and sinister theme uses celesta and bell sounds, along with synth, organ, guitar, bass, drums and percussion, to create a spellbinding whirlwind of demonic rock. Further enveloping the listener in a hellish atmosphere throughout the score are the wheezing, wailing, screaming, groaning voices of the band members, sounding like evil spirits echoing up from the pits of hell."
"The most influential element in Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Omen is the use of chorus. These days no self-respecting movie studio puts out a horror movie trailer without music featuring a 'demonic' choir (usually Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna'). The Omen arguably established that tradition with 'Ave Satani.' Somehow, nothing sounds as sinister as a brooding male and female choir chanting in Latin over a dark, minor key dirge.... Interestingly, the composer noted that his initial ideas for the score stemmed from 'hearing voices.'"
"John Williams three-note motif for Jaws is so effective and memorable that one need only hear it briefly hummed to identify it. The theme has transcended its connection with the movie, having come to represent imminent danger of any kind. It is rare film music that carries that kind of cultural collateral."
"More than any other score of the Silver Age of cinema, Star Wars revived the epic style of the Golden Age with large orchestras, grand themes and sweeping imagination. John Williams – who had worked through the '60s under the name of Johnny, penning pop and jazz-influenced scores in the Mancini vein – began to dabble in epic scoring with Irwin Allen's disaster flicks, and he really came on strong with Jaws. In the 18-month period spanning 1977 and 1978, however, Williams made his mark with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars and Superman. The Star Wars score (like the movie itself) is a throwback to a more innocent age of sci-fi cinema –to space operas of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. The Star Wars score sounds as if the paranoia of alien abduction horrors ('50s/'60s) and post-apocalyptic dystopian nightmares ('60s/'70s) never even happened."
"Omitting strings from the orchestration entirely, the ever-experimental [Bernard Herrmann] employs [on Journey to the Center of the Earth] thundering pipe organ, mesmerizing harp, blaring brass, crashing percussion and a rare wind instrument known as the serpent that collectively evoke the cavernous journey into the bowels of the Earth."
"[Elmer] Bernstein scored Sweet Smell of Success, a cynical drama set on New York City’s Madison Avenue, where reputations are built up and torn down over cocktails. While Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis exchange Machiavellian manipulations, Bernstein’s score and additional jazz tracks by Chico Hamilton pour on sophisticated scorn."
"While many crime scores barely qualify as genuine jazz, there are a handful from the era that come closer than most. One of the best belongs to I Want to Live! (’58), a true story about a murderess on death row. Johnny Mandel’s sexy smoky score is a classic. The 26-piece All-Star Jazz Orchestra burn through the main theme, “Poker Game,” “Stakeout” and “Gas Chamber Unveiling” and other hot-blooded and emotionally wrenching tracks. Also featured are half a dozen cuts played by Gerry Mulligan’s Combo."
"A sure sign that jazz had found a home in Hollywood came in ’56 when Elmer Bernstein earned an Academy Award® nomination for The Man with the Golden Arm. The film’s gritty subject matter — heroin addiction — may have opened many eyes to the dangers hounding modern man, but the score opened audience ears to the high drama of hard-driving horn blasts, sultry woodwinds, rumbling bass and crashing percussion. No crime theme seems to swing harder than “Frankie Machine.” The brass screams against a backdrop of jackhammer percussion. On “The Fix,” the same theme takes on a nightmarish urgency. On “Desperation,” rumbling discordant piano and locomotive drums capture the single-minded obsession of the junkie. Golden Arm is simply one of the genre’s most iconic scores."
"Odd sonorities always have been innate to Morricone’s magic. Listen to the distorted keyboard notes at the beginning of “Scherzi a Parte.” Alone they would become tiresome after a few bars, but used sparingly against more traditional instrumentation the squonking cartoonish noise is a marvelous example of how well electronic sounds can mesh with acoustic sounds. The most amazing track on Duck You Sucker (aka A Fistful of Dynamite or originally Giu La Testa) is the nine-minute “Invenzione per John” (or “Inventions of John”), which deserves to be dubbed “Reinventions of Ennio.” Morricone reprises his theme but extends it through free form abstraction by overlapping melodic ideas where every element seems out of sink with the other. Morricone deconstructs his musical thoughts and along the way discovers countless variations on his theme. It’s the most hypnotic nine minutes you’re likely to find on an Italian western score. It’s nothing short of brilliant."
“It would be a stretch to categorize a lot of the music heard in 200 Motels as rock. Zappa’s astonishing gift for complex orchestral arrangements makes even the most progressive rock bands sound pedestrian.”
“Teenage Rebellion boasts a handful of unintentionally funny spoken word tracks with titles like ‘Pot Party’, ‘The Call Girl’ and ‘The Gay Teenager.’ Narrator Burt Topper walks a fine line between objectivity and moral objection as psychedelia and beatnik vibes provide musical counterpoint; it’s funny how the hallucinogenic crime jazz that accompanies Topper’s indictment of drug culture only serves to make that culture more attractive.”
“After watching a five-hour rough cut of [The Thomas Crown Affair], Michel Legrand took a six-week vacation during which he wrote 90 minutes of music that the film – in turn – was edited around (very unconventional to say the least). If Legrand’s experiment had failed he would have been obligated to write a second score for free.”
"Piero Umiliani delivered a thoroughly groovy score for Mario Bava’s Five Dolls for an August Moon, which presents a series of grisly murders in a story line similar to Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. Never before has a group of people been knocked off one by one to such an absurdly breezy, fun-loving musical backdrop. …a mood so light it is tempting to think that Umiliani never even saw the film when he delivered the music."
“[On The Taking of Pelham, One Two Three] David Shire set out to create a sound that would be ‘New York jazz-oriented, hard-edged’ but with a ‘wise-cracking subtext to it’… The music is diabolically calculated and pulsating, yet swings like a big band from hell.”
“More than any other pre-blaxploitation film, Cotton Comes to Harlem… set the template for blaxploitation movies to come. The original LP cover features a proto hip-hop painting by Robert McGinnis that includes a gold Rolls Royce, bikini-clad babes and the movie heroes brandishing huge handguns. Ironically, the artist is white, and so is the funky score’s composer.”
"Suspense enters the picture [The Bird with the Crystal Plumage] when a malevolently groaning male voice pursues the frightened panting of a female voice over avant-garde jazz, with angular keyboard lines being taunted by frantic drums and spastic, sickly brass. While abrasive atonality is a perfect accompaniment for onscreen murder and mayhem, most record collectors will agree that it makes for a difficult and sometimes disconcerting listening experience. Fans of Morricone’s relentlessly experimental spirit, however, will appreciate the extremes on display."
