Intrada Soundtrack Forum

August 1, 2000

Jaws
Composed And Conducted By John Williams
Decca Records 289 467 045-2
20 Tracks | Total Time 51:17

You think something’s gonna happen. You should be scared. The movie’s already caused you a jolt. Then nothing happens.

John Williams tipped you off. He didn’t say anything.

One of the most amazing things about "JAWS" is how composer and director placed the music. If there’s a shark in the water the music tells you. If the shark’s on a coffee break then so’s the music. Few movies better showcase the power of using - or not using - music. No false pizzicato stingers here. Just like the movie the scares are telegraphed, believable. Without tricks.

Another thing about this score. Much of the first half emphasizes the unseen predator. There’s darkness and terror. All the inner fears given shape with music. The other half spreads out instead. It’s rousing, buoyant, adventuresome. You actually feel scared in the first half, fired up and ready to rumble in the second.

Spielberg was initially surprised, and dismayed, at the theme John Williams just created for the shark. Just a pair of notes sawing back and forth. Upon examination he grew to understand it, like it. He used it as part of his storytelling. He relied on it. The rest is history.

"JAWS" made box office history. It started "ticket holder" lines. People came in pairs just to get in. One stood in line for tickets, the other saved a place in another line for after getting tickets. If you arrived early enough you made it in.

John Williams took home an Oscar for his score. MCA released about 36 minutes of it on records. The excerpts chosen were terrific, representative choices. One big problem. The pressings stunk. Loud clicks and pops opened the record. On a score that literally starts with pianissimo strings this was a big liability. Re-recording the score also caused drawbacks. The music still shined, tracks were edited beautifully, but the sound was anemic, void of any real dynamics. A later CD issued on MCA addressed the clicks and pops. But nothing else.

And the biggest negative for me. The album omitted the quietest - and most touching - cue in the score. More on that later.

So just when you decided it was safe to go back swimming, thinking there would never be a better album along comes Decca. With them the shark's scarier than ever.

The music is familiar enough. Mostly. Everything from the first album is included. Again, mostly. Tracks re-recorded for the original album now appear in film versions. In a few cases that means a shorter piece, in other cases it means entirely new sections. Several cues previously unreleased in any form are also heard.

Here's where the quiet cue comes in. When Brody gets slapped by Mrs. Kintner, the camera captures reactions from several onlookers. Williams enters with a solo for French horn, adds more horns in harmony, then melts into the most gentle, reflective cue of the score, "Father and Son". Cut to Brody sitting at the table with his youngest son Sean. Williams colors this most touching sequence with little more than pairs of shifting chords in vibraphone, low basses underneath. In a movie full of shudders, shreiks and thrills this sequence is both haunting and distinctive.

Another major new highlight is "Into the Estuary". Vivid music for the shark attack in the pond, a gruesome severed leg, horrified spectators. Brody pulls his son from the water, peers out to sea. He can't avoid the water any more, he's getting sucked into it big time. The camera zooms into the water too, pulling us out there too. Williams juxtaposes very low strings with high strings hovering above. A nice way to close the scary first half and prep the rousing second half.

One thing to get used to. The original album played the opening theme, edited to a somewhat altered portion of "Sea Attack Number One", then developed the main theme as an album version. This new CD takes the brief opening theme, edits to "Chrissy's Death" and includes for the first time the beach discovery. If you're used to the way the original album played, and liked it, you're not alone. This new twist might catch you off guard.

Certainly one of the neatest things John Williams did with this score was close it discreetly. In the last reel the shark is destroyed. So's the musical counterpart. For the end credits Williams avoids quoting the shark motif, plays a gentle version of his adventurous seagoing music instead. It's pure class.

Sound and presentation are top drawer. Notes and quotes from the earlier laser production are also included.

Place this score on a pedestal. It's one of the greatest.

August 8, 2000

Logan's Run and Coma
Composed And Conducted By Jerry Goldsmith
Decca Records 289 467 045-2
20 Tracks | Total Time 51:17

Two scores using four completely different ensembles. Each a marvel of orchestration. Each great listening.

"Logan’s Run" made a splash in 1976 partly due a noisy campaign to sell the movie to the public, partly because it used the Todd-AO camera process, with stereo sound. Multi-channel sound had been in wide use for over two decades but was now mostly attached to musicals and select big productions. The "Star Wars" cycle was about to happen - but it hadn’t yet. So "Logan’s Run" stood out.

The domed city looked neat, the effects dazzled, but results were uneven. Parts of the novel (by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson) were dropped, the story about the "cubs" edited, presumably in favor of screen time for effects. Everything looked tampered with.

Today Goldsmith’s music remains the major asset. Originally issued on an MGM LP, it was later reissued on CD by Bay Cities. It’s now a new release on Chapter III Records.

"Logan’s Run" uses three different ensembles. Goldsmith set rules for each and doesn’t break them. There’s an all-electronic ensemble, used for interiors, the Carousel, the love shop. That’s it. A second, larger ensemble adds strings and piano. This group colors dramatic scenes, ones with actual storytelling. It’s also used for indoor action scenes, including those unexplained "cubs".

For scenes outside the dome Goldsmith adds brass, woodwinds and percussion to his strings and keyboards. This full orchestra appears mainly in the last part of the movie.

But there’s more than creative orchestration. Themes are structured well. Two are very important. The first, a scale-like motif, uses six-notes. It’s everywhere. It begins the score in trumpets, fully exposed, recognizable. Once familiar, you’ll hear it constantly. In action cues, warm sections, bridge passages, subtle electronic spots, thundering low brass parts. It’s played by every ensemble, in whatever scenes, be they love, drama, action. No matter where the music goes this motif is close by.

The second theme appears judiciously. It starts a neatly disguised variation, emerges later a fully drawn tune. Doing double duty, it’s both a theme for the outside world and a love theme.

Everything starts with "The Dome". An electronic fragment, then trumpets on the first theme. Soon there's a disguised hint of what later becomes the longer second theme. The full orchestra is used but Goldsmith’s playing by his rules. Things begin outside the dome. Once inside the orchestra tacets and we’re left with electronics alone.

Logan and Jessica meet "On the Circuit". Goldsmith quotes his second theme, beginning the love story. It's in pieces but it's there. Since Jessica also introduces the concept of an outside world to Logan, the tune’s double duty neatly begins here.

Two electronic cues representing city life are heard with "Flameout" and "Love Shop". Note subtle use of the main motif during the former.

Using the string and piano ensemble Goldsmith fashions a rousing action cue for "Intensive Care", Doc’s botched attempt to laser-roast Logan. Propulsive, built from the first motif, it’s a great four-minute ride.

Eventually, in the movie, Logan and Jessica do make a run for it. An obstacle is Box and his "Ice Sculpture" world. Goldsmith uses his indoor electronic, piano and string ensemble but skillfully adds "percussion" by imaginative use of strings.

The runners finally do get out. Bursting forth, brand new to them, is "The Sun". A turning point for everything, the largest ensemble enters. Brass fanfares ring, the longer second theme soars, then trombones grind away with the first motif. All hell breaks loose on screen.

Easily a highlight is "The Monument". Logan and Jessica explore freedom outside, swim, trek for miles. It’s all captured for eight minutes using rich versions of the love theme, subtle bridge passages of the six-note motif. Their trek brings them face to face with remnants of the Lincoln Memorial. Goldsmith goes for it, sending his brass upwards in a spectacular fortissimo. What this album comes down to for my money.

Mention is due a forceful fight scene, "You’re Renewed", set in the outside world between Logan and pursuer Francis. A particularly vicious struggle, Goldsmith hits his stride with an agressive, violent hammering from the orchestra. Logan subdues Francis with the pointed end of an American flag pole, ironically slaying him amidst the rubble of Washington, D.C. Goldsmith accents the fatal blows, then segues to low key statements of his two themes.

Other cues include "The Truth", accenting strings, built entirely from the main six-note motif, and the majestic finale music for "End of the City".

As with the original LP, a brief up-tempo arrangement by Jimmie Haskell allows the love theme one final, though innocuous, say.

Discordant note here. The sound is one step from annoying. In fairness, this is true of every issue to date. Shrill, thin, almost no low end. Much of the album begs to be heard at loud levels but the harshness overrules. Play it softly I guess.

Next time: Coma.

August 15, 2000

Logan's Run and Coma
Composed And Conducted By Jerry Goldsmith
Decca Records 289 467 045-2
20 Tracks | Total Time 51:17

COMA has a lot in common with LOGAN’S RUN. Of course, both are seventies scores, both are MGM movies, both had original MGM record albums, both were recorded by Aaron Rochin at then MGM (now Sony) Studios. But musically, both showcase orchestration. Some of Goldsmith’s most inventive.

A previous column examined LOGAN’S RUN. This time COMA gets the scalpel.

Of all the instrumental families in the orchestra, strings are the most expressive. Range, color, dynamics, harmonics, bowing techniques, muted effects, vibrato, playing above or below the bridge, pizzicato, glissando, double and triple stops, you name it. From the lowest bass to the highest soprano, you’ve got the ranges covered. Add divisi-writing (allowing numerous additional parts) and you’ve multiplied your options. Tap on the instruments and you add percussion effects. No other family, be it brass, woodwind or percussion, provides a composer with such opportunity. Warmth, passion. Delicate nuance. Soft and gentle expression. A whisper.

Put a room full of strings together and they can melt in your hands.

Or they can scare the hell out of you. Produce fear. Cold-blooded horror. Intense, piercing, shrieking terror. We’re talking really scary music.

Look at the artwork for COMA. See the hanging body, suspended by wires. Figure the music falls into the latter category.

Few composers have really exploited strings in film music. Really exploited them. There was Alfred Newman. Maybe the greatest exploiter. He made strings come alive in his scores. Especially violins, queens of the orchestra. His music soared. Play "Cathy’s Theme" from WUTHERING HEIGHTS and see. The guy knew the instrument.

Bernard Herrmann maybe came close. While it seems his passion was for woodwinds, he wrote a masterpiece for strings alone - PSYCHO. It’s dark, intense, nervous. It plucks and jabs. It’s everything "Cathy’s Theme" isn’t.

So along comes Jerry Goldsmith. Always willing to explore. Remember in his first movie score, BLACK PATCH, he used an orchestra but left out the trumpet section.

In COMA Goldsmith exploits strings about as far as anyone has tried in movie music. Nearly every technique gets called for. But never one to take an easy way out, Goldsmith added to the challenge. He scored for strings. Lots of ‘em. But not alone. In a first, I think, he added a family of clarinets. Not a woodwind section, just clarinets. He completed his ensemble with keyboards and limited percussion. The resulting sound, especially all those clarinets playing against strings, was striking and original.

He voiced terror with his strings doing whatever he desired. Low and ominous, then a glissando from hell. Suspense, action, all manner of thrills. But the clarinets took things somewhere else. Playing the main motif, a four-note idea heard at the start of "Jefferson Institute", they added a smooth, calculated coldness to the music. When playing trills, runs, other busy clusters of sound, they added nervous energy. Add keyboards and you’ve got unusually scary film music.

COMA has been mistakenly identified as "12-tone" or "serial" in structure. It’s not! Amazingly, Goldsmith keeps things well within tonal-writing technique. Even his main motif is tonal, suggesting a simple major triad. Consider it a sign of genius that Goldsmith manages such dissonant, frightening music within more traditional ideas.

There’s a love theme but it’s only heard twice. First, in the beach scene, with an upbeat arrangement. Later it ends the score ("A Lucky Patient") with a brief, delicate quote for piano. By restricting the appearance of this theme Goldsmith manages to keep the mood frightening. The love theme gives some warmth, helps you care about Dr. Wheeler (Genevieve Bujold), but COMA is about thrills, not romance.

My favorite highlights. The main motif played smoothly on clarinet in "Jefferson Institute" becoming an icy figure for high violins a few seconds later. Add neat ascending piano clusters too. Note also a generous use of unison writing in octaves for the strings, a Goldsmith trademark. There’s a great end to the cue: the main motif on high clarinet and violin slicing through a warm chord in the lower strings.

Ostinato rhythms on piano, under soaring strings, create another Goldsmith trademark during "A Chance Encounter". Ditto the 5/8 piano rhythm opening "A Lucky Patient". How it reappears and developes later in the cue is powerful. Strong upward glissandi in strings cutting into low chords early during "A Free Ride" stand out too. This cue also illustrates, especially at the end, how Goldsmith avoids serial writing, using traditional material, but keeps everything "modernistic" in appearance.

To be clear, the score is dissonant. Warmth and melody have their little say during love theme quotes and that’s it. The bulk of the score is rooted in cold, icy terror. Much of the fun is in noting the numerous effects Goldsmith uses with his ensemble.

Those familiar with the earlier Bay Cities CD should note this new Chapter III issue restores the sequence to that of the original MGM album. Both issues contain the major highlights of the score plus a pair of disco pieces. One, scored by Don Peake, is heard during an early scene of Dr. Wheeler exercising. It seemed out of place on the old MGM lp. It got shoved to the end of the Bay Cities disc. It still seemed out-of-place. Now it’s back as the fourth track. And it’s still out-of-place.

Program away.

August 22, 2000

Marnie
Composed By Bernard Herrmann
Conducted Joel McNeely
Varese Sarabande 302 066 094 2
41 Tracks = 50:39

The last score Herrmann had in a Hitchcock movie. Their celebrated partnership began with THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY in 1955 and ended ostensibly with MARNIE in 1964. TORN CURTAIN followed a couple years later but the music was rejected.

MARNIE has another big thing in common with THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. Both scores have the same orchestral requirements. Standard string orchestra plus harp with added woodwinds and French horns. No trumpets, trombones, tuba or percussion. The colors are still varied, moving between stark, transparent solo woodwind passages and rich, passionate strings. Another color stands out. French horns, often in ripping, trilling figures, pierce everything they come up against. They begin agitated terror motifs, soar amidst string themes, take command during the hunt. No other instrument gets as much of a workout as do the four horns.

In fact, it’s a ferocious trilling from horns that starts everything. They present a frightening motif that permeates the story, emphasizing Marnie’s fears. Especially the color red.

Hitchcock’s obsession with Marnie (Tippi Hedren) is the whole show. Herrmann figured it out and wrote everything for her. The theme is hers. There’s music for her mystery, her fear, her horse, her mother. There’s a love theme for Marnie and employer Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) but it’s cut from the same cloth as Marnie’s theme, rather than a new tune for Rutland. In the movie Rutland’s character isn’t fully drawn. He’s obsessed with Marnie, appears to get satisfaction in probing her phobias, but isn’t written sympathetic. He even rapes her. So the movie sustains only partial interest. One finds the mystery intriguing but the people cold, the romance aloof. Not so the music.

Some interesting things in the score. The tritone is an important device. An unsettling musical interval, it colors much of the harmony, even making melodic passages intriguing.

Also used throughout are rapid, busy trills and running figures for woodwinds. Herrmann often relied on repetition, increasing tension or fear by ever-tightening the material. While MARNIE has repetition there’s an abundance of agitated, trilling music. MARNIE becomes one of Herrmann’s busiest film scores. Rather than simply create suspense he keeps things racing, nervous, phobic. The mood remains until the mystery is solved.

Marnie’s main theme is recognizable, similar to a theme in the 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD. Here the guise isn’t oriental, rather lush, soaring, full of chromatic chords. Following the trilling motif introduced by horns, this theme imbues the "Prelude" with a sense of importance. Herrmann tells you instantly that Marnie will combine nervous phobias with rapturous beauty.

Important note. A flaw perhaps. On the original soundtrack the opening trills and runs carry through until the sweeping Marnie theme emerges. In this new recording there’s an inexplicable dropout, a gap, during this opening phrase. It’s like the musicians simply didn’t play one of the important flurries, or an awkward digital edit occurred during mastering. If it’s in the original manuscripts Herrmann obviously didn’t intend it as he corrected it. It interrupts the musical phrase. I’m not informed and certainly don’t know what it is. It just startled me.

Beyond that this new performance is good. The woodwinds are particularly noteworthy. Clarinet runs and solo lines are outstanding, combined woodwinds are rich, clean and precise. Much of the success of the recording is also due to the French horn players. They’re sturdy, accurate, dynamic.

Highlights are plentiful. I like the "Marnie" track, an opening unison figure in woodwinds followed by a muted horn chord. Much of the cue develops disguised fragments of the Marnie theme. Eventually harp and strings lead to a surging quote of the tune, ending on one of those important tritones mentioned earlier. In fact it’s interesting to note how many ideas Herrmann uses that are drawn from fragments of his main theme.

The love theme per se, introduced during "The Storm", brings warmth to the score. Less a theme than a turning figure in strings, it gives way to more fragments of the main theme. When heard during "Love Scene" it again plays more as a turning phrase for the strings, soon followed by ideas from the main theme.

A neat device occurs at the start of "The Stranger". Like contradictions in Marnie’s character this little idea shifts back and forth using major and minor chords simultaneously. Not wrong notes, the idea happens in key moments probing Marnie’s changes in behavior. This cue also brings about some Vaughan Williams-ish harmonies which continue throughout the next several cues.

A major highlight, also used in the short suite recorded by Herrmann years ago, is "The Hunt". French horns exist for movies with hunting scenes. Herrmann gathers all four of them together, skillfully combining hunting calls for pairs of them with rapid triplets "yelping" about. For a moment it’s literally a tour-de-force for the players.

Numerous cues are short, as written. Producer Robert Townson carefully allows them to flow together where musically appropriate, maintaining picture sequence. It works smoothly, brings continuity to many smaller pieces.

Discussions of the movie often ask whether the ending is finished, or at least happy. There’s still one tough relationship to work out. Herrmann seemed sure of the outcome though. His "Finale" ends with a resounding major chord, matched again as the brief end "Cast" finishes.

Packaging is attractive, with great notes by Herrmann authority Christopher Husted. They combine information about the score with a sense of Herrmann’s private life at the time of scoring. It makes fascinating reading to go with Herrmann’s fascinating listening.

August 29, 2000

The Dirty Dozen / Dirty Dingus Magee
Frank De Vol / Jeff Alexander
Chapter III Records CHA 0132
Total Time = 54:31

Two on one. Well, no. One and part of another on one.

DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE is one of those albums you probably had to grow up around. It came out in 1970. That’s when soundtrack collectors were getting stuff like PATTON, AIRPORT, WHERE’S JACK, THE REIVERS, other neat records. Re-recordings were yet to be. No Charles Gerhardt, no Varese Sarabande. No soundtrack labels at all. If you collected movie music you grabbed what few things showed up. Like DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE. Sometimes they surprised you.

DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE was okay. Rowdy orchestral music for a rollicking, grownup-ish comedy western with Frank Sinatra. Fun stuff. "Strum" is a highlight. But this new CD leaves off two cues. The title song and the final track, no less. Without explanation. Certainly not for length!

It wasn’t a great album but the title tune was funny. Since important cuts are gone I’ll just go to the other half of this new CD and pretend they haven’t done MAGEE yet. Which they kinda haven’t.

Three years before MAGEE came out MGM issued a half hour record to THE DIRTY DOZEN. It was a terrific cross-section of funny training music and exciting stuff.

Robert Aldrich made his World War II movie for adults. Tough, violent, profane for those days. One thing he liked to do was get a movie going, introduce characters, start a story, then wham! Credits. This movie was no exception. There’s an execution. Then a long briefing. An assignment is handed Lee Marvin. He objects. They argue. Finally the narrative expands to a military courtyard. Trucks enter. And great music.

It’s an exciting opening piece, a fanfare-ish brass motif. There’s pulsating rhythm to spare, and percussion to keep everything in uniform. There’s a pause (in the movie) as the misfits linger, line up. Then, without warning, credits begin. Long after you’ve forgotten they hadn’t ever rolled. De Vol completes the piece he started a couple of moments ago. Low brass taunt, strings play a seesaw figure, muted trumpet answers. It swells, the fanfare comes back in full glory to a thrilling rattle of percussion.

It was a spectacular way to set things in motion, like part of a performance. Something with showmanship.

This new CD presents everything the way it was on the original sixties record. It’s a sequence designed for musicality, not picture order. The movie divides by chunks into training, then war games, then war for real. The album mixed things considerably. But it worked fine. If you grew up with it you’d want the familiar sequence. If you’re new to this one it won’t matter.

My guess is De Vol has limited fans today. He’s known best for his work with Aldrich. Especially a pair of thrillers with big female stars, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? and HUSH... HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE. Those are two of the most exciting, full-blooded thriller scores anyone wrote. Unbelievably, no recordings were ever issued. De Vol also did FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, happily released by Film Score Monthly. He had assorted records like THE HAPPENING and GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER. Things weren’t so rewarding on CHOIRBOYS but you can’t win ‘em all.

Anyway, DIRTY DOZEN gave De Vol room to be tuneful one minute, terse and powerful the next. His background in TV themes helped him create complete, funny packages of music for numerous "Building the Barracks" training scenes and "Switch-Hitters" war game stuff. Quotes from war tunes and Bagley’s classic "National Emblem March" kept things rollicking. De Vol was an expert in dramatic music too. Action music highlights THE DIRTY DOZEN.

One great sequence: the newly-appointed "dozen" heading off to begin training. The music cautiously worked a variant of the main theme as trucks departed, became a regal processional as they neared the camping ground, sounded a flourish upon arrival. It appears as the first half of "The Chateau". The balance of the cue covers later stuff when the "dozen" prepare to face combat with Germans behind enemy lines.

"Mission Accomplished" covers Jim Brown’s big moment and a final battle scene. For aficionados of low brass, "The Battle Begins" provides noteworthy bass trombone and tuba parts.

One of the best pieces is "Finale & End Title". Though brief, it’s a terrific example of a composer bringing his music to a rewarding close. After a powerful statement from the orchestra catching a big scene for John Cassavetes, De Vol summarizes the main theme in subdued fashion for a moment, then hits hard with a resounding final quote.

My suggestion. Play through to this point and stop the CD. Hearing DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE immediately after the De Vol score ends feels jarring. Especially when knowing Jeff Alexander’s effort has been edited.