INTRADA Announces:
GLADIATOR
Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 231
The 1992 Columbia production Gladiator might have been part of a sports movie quartet for Jerry Goldsmith—he’d tackled basketball in in 1986, baseball in 1992, and football in 1993. Gladiator boasted some of the inspirational qualities of Goldsmith’s other sports-related movie projects, but the overall tone was much darker, dominated by desperation, poverty and violence. Goldsmith had been employing an extensive palette of electronics in his scores since the mid-1980s, and his Gladiator score balances traditional orchestra and synthesizers equally. One key approach to the score is a funk-based, staccato bass line; clicking, metallic-sounding synth effects; a bluesy low piano line; acoustic rhythm section (including bongos); keening strings; and, finally, a burst of distinctive action licks for flute, marimba and piano that characterize Tommy Riley’s fighting abilities. The score also features a moody love theme for piano and woodwinds, sparked by the smash of Simmons electronic drums, a staple of Goldsmith’s late’80s-early ’90s electronic effects. Although Goldsmith's score was removed from the film, Intrada is proud to present his complete score (from the original stereo elements) for the first time.
Brooding actor James Marshall plays Tommy Riley, a former Golden Gloves champion whose real ambition is to be a writer. After his mother dies and his father takes on too many gambling debts, Tommy finds himself enrolled in a run-down high school on Chicago’s South Side. He is soon stuck between two feuding gang members: closet family man Abraham Lincoln Haines (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and vicious ringleader Shortcut (Lance Slaughter). When Tommy gets in between the two, his obvious fighting skills attract the attention of grizzled boxing manager Pappy Jack (Robert Loggia). Pappy has been organizing illegal, underground boxing matches and Pappy sees a quick opportunity to make some cash off Tommy. Tommy sees opportunity too—to erase his father’s gambling debts and get himself out of the slums. But Lincoln is fighting for his own personal reasons—his wife and child—and despite their growing friendship, the two young men soon find themselves facing each other in the ring.
INTRADA Special Collection Vol. 231
Retail Price: $19.99
Available Now
For track listing and sound samples, please visit
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7973/.f
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