Intrada Soundtrack Forum

April 06, 1999

We made a big move this last week. The label office. The store. Our modest warehouse. While working with boxes of store inventory I pulled a random stack of CDs and found 3:10 TO YUMA at the top of the pile. An old fifties western scored by George Duning. So I began thinking about music not on CD yet.

An easy target. But with a twist this time. Not the usual "where is DIE HARD"? Something with a little different ring. Kinda like what happened with classical recordings.

For instance, in Tower recently and not finding a particular symphony by William Schuman, I queried the classical staffer about it. He said quickly that it was never issued on CD, only on an old out-of-print LP. The kind of answer I often give in our store to "where’s THE SWARM". I pursued the issue. "By any chance do you know why?" He answered "it would never sell".

A noted American composer from the twentieth century with a fair output of work represented on those old LPs, but with very few CDs.

So as I unboxed some more of our store inventory I thought more about George Duning. A noted film composer with a fair output of work represented on old LPs, but with very few CDs.

There are some pretty big names in film music with rather small profiles on CD. I don’t mean composers with one or two minuscule projects or writers dwelling in the land of forgotten no-budget pictures. I refer to some of the big ones. Composers with sizable output, and lots of LPs.

Let’s take George Duning. If you allowed LPs into your library and chased down as much as you could afford, you’d own Duning soundtracks including: THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG; BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE; THREE FOR THE SHOW; 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS; COWBOY (a classic album); THE DEVIL AT FOUR O’CLOCK (another really great one); ME AND THE COLONEL; ANY WEDNESDAY; HOUSEBOAT; SALOME, and still others like TOYS IN THE ATTIC and THE MAN WITH BOGART’S FACE. There are even full Duning LPs to TV shows like THE BIG VALLEY and THE NAKED CITY. These things didn’t just appear from unknown labels but were the product of RCA, Decca, Colpix, ABC, Columbia, Warner Bros. and so forth. Many of ‘em even had reissue LPs on labels including CBS, Varese Sarabande, MCA (Japan) and such.

But a glance at this man’s CD career takes little time. That aforementioned disc to 3:10 TO YUMA sits alongside PICNIC. Depending on how you sort your library you might also readily spot his contribution to the TV series STAR TREK. A pretty limited CD output for a composer so well covered in the LP days. Scratch one big point for those vinyl collectors who proclaim selection supremacy over our CD world.

Faring even worse it seems is Bronislau Kaper. I can list a number of notable LPs, things like MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and LORD JIM, of course, but also THE WAY WEST, THE SWAN, A FLEA IN HER EAR, LILI and AUNTIE MAME. None of those is currently available on a CD. It’s hard to imagine that so far LORD JIM has only appeared as an ultra-low quality "bootleg" CD from Germany, in mono no less. Yes, the LP was in stereo. Scratch more marks for the LP collector.

For some strange reason Victor Young fits this bill too. He had LPs on RUN OF THE ARROW, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, GOLDEN EARRINGS, SANDS OF IWO JIMA, THE BRAVE ONE and OMAR KHAYYAM in his repertoire. 80 DAYS inexplicably disappeared awhile ago and you need to seek out BRAVE ONE as an expensive CD import from Japan. The others fell into that huge black hole of apathy I guess.

I was always kind of fond of Frank Skinner. His really prolific output centered around Universal movies and Decca recordings. But he had a lot of them. Record collectors could seek out such titles as SHENANDOAH (my favorite), MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, IMITATION OF LIFE, BACK STREET, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, MADAME X, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR and INTERLUDE. Not one of these has made it to the compact disc medium. Come on!

You could probably include Ernest Gold in this discussion with little trouble. You can’t even find EXODUS on CD without some troubles. And non-existent are his SHIP OF FOOLS, SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA, TOO MUCH TOO SOON, TRUE STORY OF THE CIVIL WAR and that rather classic ON THE BEACH. I suppose since Rykodisc (praise them) brought out CDs on IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG this composer at least will not be completely forgotten. (Postscript here: he passed away this year.)

Malcolm Arnold has an Oscar for THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. And it’s about the only score you can get on CD. You need to appreciate vinyl to hear THE LION, THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN (a masterpiece), DAVID COPPERFIELD, TUNES OF GLORY, THE KEY, NINE HOURS TO RAMA, THE HEROES OF TELEMARK, TRAPEZE and THE INN OF THE SIXTH HAPPINESS. That’s a lot of famous movie music relegated only to the old 12" record.

But one I just can’t figure out any way I try is Andre Previn. Now here’s a famous name, still today. Maybe bigger now. I can reach over to the CD shelves and grab his… ELMER GANTRY and IRMA LA DOUCE. That’s it. Now what’s up with this??! Those record collectors have FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (what an album), THE FORTUNE COOKIE, TWO FOR THE SEESAW, DEAD RINGER (my own favorite), INVITATION TO THE DANCE, GOODBYE CHARLIE, INSIDE DAISY CLOVER and THE SUBTERRANEANS. This kinda stands out.

Maybe that staffer at Tower had it right. Here I’m more often asked about a missing title in the Jerry Goldsmith catalog. A composer with hundreds of scores, vast quantities of them recorded and most of his old LP catalog now available on CD. But a few stragglers out there like LONELY GUY or SEBASTIAN still wait. And many of the people I talk to are more anxious for those than virtually anything by George Duning.

The soundtrack market might be getting bigger. It seems like it. But is it getting narrower-minded.

It seems like it is.

April 13, 1999

I was asked the other day to identify great action cues for someone. I attempted to put a list together of action music spanning a number of decades. As I worked backwards I just came up short.

Then it crossed my simple mind. Action movies are a product of recent times. Of course there were action movies of sorts going way back. All those Warner Bros. gangster movies of the forties, the Flynn swashbucklers, the zillions of Z-grade juvenile delinquent flicks of the fifties, the James Bond series and so forth.

But "action movies" unto themselves are newer. I never really heard the term when I was growing up (the sixties) so it must be a newer term. It must be.

Anyway, movies like John Sturges' THE GREAT ESCAPE, J. Lee Thompson's KINGS OF THE SUN and Sam Peckinpah's MAJOR DUNDEE seemed to qualify at the time. Big and exciting. THE SATAN BUG (also Sturges) would be a good example of what I mean though. Terrific action scenes. Fights. A helicopter sequence. That kind of stuff. But there were other scenes too. Lots of dialog. Travelling around and such. The action scenes were dotted about at various intervals. Even in Bond films there were other things going on to tell the stories.

Today the action parts are non-stop. Movies like the DIE HARDs, the LETHAL WEAPONs, any number of Joel Silver productions, ARMAGEDDON and hundreds of others, all have action on top of action. No longer a great Bond pre-credit sequence or something, the whole movie plays like a trailer for two hours or more.

The music has a new role. Keep it rolling. Fast. Help those explosions, those chases. Make as much noise as can be gotten onto four or six channels of digital sound.

I still put together a list. It ended up heavy at one end. Eventually it just went full circle. So be it.

I started off with CAPRICORN ONE. Jerry Goldsmith. This one even fit my bill as an "old" action movie before they were called that. Big set pieces, helicopters, chases. But mostly story and suspense. The soundtrack follows suit. There are only two major action cues and one of them is the Main Title. But the other one is "Breakout". Once Jerry gets that ostinato going in the low strings and bass trombone it doesn't quit. Trumpets and high strings swirl. But the great moment, the best thing ever done in an action cue might just be the sound of four French horns ripping up and down those scales behind everyone else. It's my favorite action cue. Period.

Goldsmith did more of my favorites. Next up was "Raisuli Attacks" from THE WIND AND THE LION. There's a great rapid zig-zagging string theme early on. Then somewhere in the middle of the cue Goldsmith gives that running figure to the trumpets. All of them. Great moment.

Sticking with Goldsmith (easy to do with action music) I listed "Antonio's Death" from PAPILLON. Something about the trombone glissandos at the end. And "Night Of The Beast" from POLTERGEIST. The highlight is a flashy section for horns, then trumpets, on triplets over pounding low brass. And a tuba part that leaves shivers. Each of the Rambo movies has a place on my list. "The Boot" from RAMBO III sticks out. "Escape From Torture" in the second movie is up there too.

TOTAL RECALL certainly keeps a breathless pace. "Clever Girl" is a standout, but so is just about every other cue. A footnote: Two cues not on the album ("The Implant" and "The Massacre") really should have been. They are spectacular.

John Williams has made action movie history. While I'd rather listen to his rich and passionate things like EMPIRE OF THE SUN and BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY it's pretty easy to sit through his legendary Indiana Jones and Star Wars stuff. And things for extra-terrestrials and dinosaurs too of course.

Basil Poledouris does well with action. He has a particular sound, often preferring a dynamic pulse and unison horn lines over the frenetic and incredibly busy style Goldsmith wrote in the seventies and eighties. I recall however that Poledouris once sat beside me at a dinner and swore he was done with action movies. I hope he lied. My own favorite action score of his is RED DAWN but having started my label with it probably interferes with any sound judgement. UNDER SIEGE 2 is a great one, but a massively disappointing soundtrack album in that it is just too damn short. Length isn't always an issue for me but on that one it's a problem.

Bruce Broughton writes fantastic action music but prefers more intimate musical challenges. While he goes for the CARRIED AWAY nuances I do try and point out to him a sheer adrenaline rush has merits too. With that in mind I list "Let's Finish It" from TOMBSTONE and most of SHADOW CONSPIRACY. Scores that are just "loud" to use his words.

And of course James Horner has some masterful action music. I think "The Ambush" from CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER stands out, as does much of ALIENS. "Stealing The Enterprise" from the third STAR TREK movie gets high marks too.
Taking a giant leap backwards I decided that Elmer Bernstein had some of the best action music going for awhile. He had a kind of kinetic rhythm-based style that still gets copied today. "The Chase" from THE GREAT ESCAPE is one of the best of the sixties.

I always liked "Assault On The Train" in Jerry Fielding's THE WILD BUNCH, but I tend to link Fielding with complex harmonies, challenging string music, and a lot of clarinet in his scores, at least over any particular action things.

Max Steiner wrote some of the busiest action music between the thirties and fifties. His chase cues were exceptionally florid for all the players. It's hard to list composers of this period and link them to "action scores" though. Themes were important back then. Compositional forms were used. Action music was more in line with THE SEA HAWK and ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (two classy Korngolds) where rhythms were only part of the compositional whole. Not subtle perhaps, no less than today, but nothing I list as examples of "great action cues".

Just for the interest of it I mention a favorite action cue from an LP release (no CD yet) to an unlikely candidate by a composer unrelated to action scores. Yes, you guessed it - Marvin Hamlisch and THE SWIMMER. The piece he titled "Hurdles" remains one of the most exhilarating and rhythmic cues in film music. Anywhere.

Coming full circle (back to the present) it isn't just that symphony orchestra sound that works. I have enjoyed a lot of the new music keeping pace with action scenes, notably from Hans Zimmer. Everything in THE ROCK interests me, as does most of BROKEN ARROW and CRIMSON TIDE. His sensibilities to today's film tempos have led to other composers following suit in action movies. It has legitimized a whole new way of scoring. And it works. Witness Harry Gregson-Williams, Mark Mancina, Nick Glennie-Smith, Trevor Rabin, John Powell, Don Harper, John Van Tongeren.

Some honorable mentions. Patrick Doyle when he's not doing comedies. The entire train station chase in CARLITO'S WAY is amazing. And Alan Silvestri, when he's not doing comedies. Obviously PREDATOR has great moments, but so does JUDGE DREDD and THE ERASER.

On a last note. I decided sometime ago that James Newton Howard was going to be a legendary contributor to this genre of music. The "Helicopter Chase" from THE FUGITIVE caught my attention. Plus WATERWORLD has extraordinary moments too.

Anyway, Howard has left a mark on me that'll last a long time. My single favorite action cue of this decade is "They're Coming" from OUTBREAK. Ironically it's because of the similarity in structure to "Breakout" from CAPRICORN ONE, right down to the ripping French horn figures amidst an exciting 5/8 ostinato.

Boy. Talk about full circle.

April 20, 1999

Breakout
1975
Composed and Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
Prometheus Club Release 502
17 Tracks 40:00

For the second release in the Prometheus CD club (release one was Master Of Ballantrae by Bruce Broughton) executive producer Luc Van de Ven hits one out of the ballpark - Breakout by Jerry Goldsmith. Since it has one of my favorite musical moments of the seventies (I'll try to explain later) it’s certainly a homerun for me anyway.

If you’re a fan of Goldsmith this one is a no-brainer.

By 1975 Goldsmith had established himself a leader in writing for virtually any genre of picture. Drama, science fiction, comedy, western, war. He had a gift for composing with a sense of locale. Music to capture a place. His flair for this made The Sand Pebbles, The Chairman and Tora! Tora! Tora! spectacular examples of Hollywood music with oriental color. He excelled in particular when heading south of the border. Witness Bandolero, 100 Rifles, Under Fire and so many others.

Like Breakout.

Charles Bronson starred. It was a movie literally made for his range of expression. He had been particularly good in supporting roles throughout the fifties. With The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963) his incredibly sensitive supporting roles caught a lot of attention. After The Dirty Dozen (1967) he pretty much became a star.

Interestingly he aimed his sights at action-oriented fare. The success of Death Wish (1974) sent him to stardom but he chose to follow up with similar stuff, becoming a caricature of himself in numerous Death Wish sequels and clones.

Breakout is one of those projects intended to showcase the star and little else. Bronson in decent form, a sturdy supporting cast with Robert Duvall, John Huston, Randy Quaid and Jill Ireland, capable direction by Tom Gries and outdoor production values by Chartoff/Winkler all added up to an okay movie.

But in the seventies Goldsmith was at the peak of his form. Even with mediocrity on the screen he got inside of it, under it, sometimes way out in front of it. He made locales colorful, love scenes tender, action scenes thrilling. If the movie didn't particularly challenge or stimulate he’d still find inspiration to write at his best. When Goldsmith scored a terrific film it had a great score. When he did an okay movie it still had a great score.

The locale in Breakout is the U.S. and Mexican border, the distance covered by a single helicopter ride. Goldsmith sets the tone immediately with his "Main Title". Not revealing his primary theme right away he simply establishes the flavor with his marimba-based rhythm. Soon a secondary theme associated with the Robert Duvall character (a business partner framed and sent to a Mexican prison) enters in brass. Already Goldsmith has shown a gift almost exclusive to him. He builds a layer of musical material, sets a location, even establishes a theme for one of the principals, in only a few bars of music.

Following a complete statement of the material Goldsmith introduces his main theme. It’s a motif really, four ascending notes that are so flexible he can use them in almost any fashion throughout and keep the music coherent. This presentation however is straightforward, heard on a very high trumpet.

The initial frame-up (a murder) comes at about 3:03 into the "Main Title". I must admit this is my absolute favorite moment - the highlight of the entire score. It makes no sense, it’s not even a theme, but I've played these few seconds over and over again. (My family is begging me to find track two!!) While the lower orchestra and percussion thumps with repeated exclamation points for the killing, upper woodwinds pierce through with a gnarly figure as high violas sing their own line. The music expertly captured the flashy visuals, a jerky freeze-frame, advance a few frames and freeze again device. I loved it when I saw the movie in the theater. Now I can play it endlessly without the gun shots. Wow.

But I'll move on. The score has more to offer. There is a tender side. For scenes of Jill Ireland either visiting her husband Duvall in prison, or thinking of ways to get him out, Goldsmith uses the four ascending notes as a stepping stone for a love theme. Usually heard on piano, it’s a great way of bringing some haunting melodic material to the score while keeping tabs on that flexible main motif. Three examples of this side of the score can be heard during "Schemes", "All Yours" and "Farewells". All three of those cues also use a degree of solo clarinet, another favorite solo instrument in Goldsmith’s universe.

There are several examples of Goldsmith’s strong sense of orchestral color as well. During "Buried Alive" he uses a number of woodwind solo passages, marimba, guitar, harp glissandos, percussive textures and any number of things to underscore the lengthy scene when Duvall finds his planned prison escape thwarted with a premature burial of sorts. Highlighting the cue is a tremendous surge from the tuba as Duvall struggles to get free of his coffin.

In a pretty neat move, Goldsmith saves his first full thematic treatment of the primary motif until half way through the picture. As we get Charles Bronson’s convoy of vehicles heading to Mexico to stage a breakout Goldsmith launches a unison rhythm in "Border Crossing". His theme now becomes a soaring line for Bronson’s helicopter. Typical with this composer the theme isn't overused, in fact appearing in this guise only one more time to actually close the score.

There are three major action set pieces in the movie. Two rescue attempts (one fails, one works) and a fistfight scene for Bronson on an airport runway. (Predating Raiders Of The Lost Ark by years this movie also has a combatant getting shredded by an aircraft propeller - and here it’s more explicit.)

For the action music Goldsmith wrote in his customary energetic and busy style. The flavor remains true to the Mexican locale but the emphasis is on the rhythmic material. The thematic ideas are fragmented and there is an abundance of bass trombone and lower piano. The four-note motif glues it all together in expert fashion. And in the best tradition of Goldsmith’s seventies action style the ostinato approach (repeated rhythmic figures) is ever-present. The "Breakout - Part Two" is especially thrilling, using the thematic material over a terrific swirl of strings and trumpet figures. As the cue races to a conclusion the orchestra becomes one giant ball of energy - never losing sight of the Mexican locale nor the four notes that continue to hold it all together.

The aircraft set piece comes during "Stalking/End Title" . As Bronson struggles with his opponent Goldsmith turns to his hardest and most aggressive music of the score. The outcome hits with a burst of trilling strings and piercing brass. The music returns to a piano-dominated rendering of the love theme. Strings enter, a brief moment for electronics develops, and the score builds to a reprise of his full theme.

The quality of the recording is simply first rate. The sequence follows the picture. There’s a full orchestra, but not a huge one. The mix favors stereo separation and orchestral textures over reverb and other gimmicks attempting to expand the size. - something I am grateful for. I'll take clarity of the instruments and those close mikes any day.

Or tonight, since I’m playing that opening cue again.

April 27, 1999

Jason and the Argonauts
1963
Bernard Herrmann
Conducted by Bruce Broughton
Performed by the Sinfonia of London
Intrada MAF 7083
29 Tracks

This is the week Jason arrives for us. It’s our most ambitious project to date and worth talking about. I’d love to generate anticipation in it. Here’s some thoughts that would make boring liner notes. But perhaps I can get away with them here.

I honestly feel the finest players in the world are to be found in the U.S. and London. Period. But they cost. These two locales house the best - and most expensive players on the planet. With few exceptions the vast majority of film music recordings are done in other territories - because of the money. And we considered that. But upon studying the scores I could see we would need world class musicians.

Herrmann wrote insanely for this score. A standard symphony uses three to four players in the low brass, for example. Herrmann wanted no less than ten. There is no comparison between the sound of two or three trombones and a tuba, and that of six trombones and four tubas. Not just in terms of volume. But mass. The sonority when all these players are on different notes (such as in "The Titans" cue) is awesome. A clash of cymbals can be a dynamic sound but the ringing of multiple gongs, tam tam and several pairs of cymbals - simultaneously - is something else indeed. And if Herrmann desired the effect he wrote it.

Perhaps the scale of the sonorities he sought is best shown with his massive woodwind needs. An orchestra typically sports a pair of flutes, clarinets, oboes and bassoons. Jason and the Argonauts calls for four piccolos and four flutes, six oboes, six English horns, six clarinets and six bassoons. And if Herrmann so desired, he required the clarinets to play on bass clarinets or contra-bass clarinets, the six bassoonists to use contra-bassoons. The resulting sounds are certainly incredible.

And these requirements again weren't just for volume. Herrmann very skillfully broke sections of the score into unique groups. The Argo music gets one unique group. The harpies are colored with woodwinds and muted upper brass. Talos gets the full brass and percussion. The hydra hissed to woodwinds with low brass. And so forth. With each group Herrmann displayed some of those most amazing orchestrational textures. In this capacity he was without peer.

If I had to pick a sonority that most impressed me it might be the sections with the harpies. Incredibly animated woodwinds, muted brass and plucked harp figures. From four harps! Chilling.

In terms of power, Herrmann attacked that issue with a vengeance. I don't think there are many other examples of film music where the sheer size and power of the orchestra can compete with what Talos received. And when he attacked Jason's men on the beach Herrmann required no less than ten pounding tympani to accompany the huge brass section. With extra bass drums to boot.

All of these above musical sonorities needed to be addressed, and a lot of others, if we were going to do this project. So the price tag went ballistic. But I actually forgot that for a few moments when I watched the studio fill with players, expressions on their faces of total bewilderment as they assembled. Some of them mentioned never having seen so many like instruments together in one room! And if there was a favorite moment for me it would most certainly be the one in which my close friend Bruce Broughton walked over and simply said, "that was the loudest session I've ever been on".

In order to make the sounds happen on recordings it was necessary to really address an issue that has bothered me on a vast number of similar re-recordings. The amount of reverb used. Artificial stuff. Something to increase the size. And the results: often no focus of the sound. The stereo might be there but the image is not. On some re-recordings (the Goldsmith/Varese/Royal Scottish National Orchestra discs of Patton and The Sand Pebbles for example) it is almost impossible to hear where the trumpets are. The percussion gets lost in the background. It is certainly difficult to determine the unique sonority of something like a xylophone combined with chimes, woodblocks and two kinds of snare drum, for example.

So I decided (and take any blame for) the decision to record in a somewhat unorthodox manner. I wanted to hear all of the sounds Herrmann wrote into Jason. If there were parts for trumpets with three different kinds of mutes simultaneously, I wanted to hear that timbre. Or if there were crashes from cymbals on either side of the orchestra, and different size gongs in the middle, I wanted to hear where they were coming from.

That’s one thing live. But to record it required something rather imposing. I knew we had the best engineer for the job. Mike Ross-Trevor. Bruce and I choose him first every chance we get. So Mike and I discussed for weeks the challenge. Not the usual small handful of mikes covering left, center, right and overhead, but a vast array covering all the sections within, all those individual players. Not one for the harps. Four for the harps. And so forth. Quite literally, microphones everywhere.

And these mikes would be close. If a player breathed, the mike was there. Since we were going to reproduce the musical effects exactly as Herrmann had written them we would need to be prepared for where and when all of them occurred. Rehearsals, time. And a studio designed to keep the sound dry and in control. Which, happily, was Mike’s stomping ground so to speak, at Whitfield Studios. The very place that Bruce had recorded his (and our) magnificent Tombstone. With the same orchestra no less!

Last, though not least, in capturing all of this. The 20 bit digital format was a must, to be sure. But we opted for the Genex format, a multi-channel hard disc system allowing for true 20 bit recording in a 5.1 channel mode. This allowed us to get those 5.1 discreet channels of sound coming with the Dolby Digital and DTS playback systems of the future. And it gave us a program with two channel stereo up the wazoo.

No need to mention (though I will) that this all really did cost. And then some.

I’m very happy that our rather tiny label pulled all of this together and recorded what I truly feel is one of the most dynamic and powerful, most professionally performed and recorded film recordings to date.

If it be the one that sinks our boat - then I suppose Bruce will need to find a new label.

And I'll need a new line of work.