Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I can't believe that it's been over 6 years. Where were you when you heard the news?

I was at home, listening to the radio, assembling a desk when the news began with his main title theme from "Star Trek," and I just knew...

Your thread certainly brings back a veritable flood of very sad memories of that day. Goldsmith did more with his music to improve the quality of my life than any other human on this planet, and for that I will always be grateful.

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I-love-Goldsmith, yes-I-do...
I-love-Ber-nard-Herr-mann-too! EVERYBODY SING!!!

It was supposed to be a big day for me. I had at that point done pathetic Q&A's with maybe three composers (all wasted interview oppritunities, looking back), but I had a major "fish to fry" so to speak, as I was going to do a phone interview with Gabriel Yared.

Sleeping in a bit late to make the time zone difference, I called him up, dinky tape recorder in hand to place up to the phone to record him, and started the interview.

At some point the conversation very, very briefly turned to good composers like Goldsmith, and that's when he informed me Jerry had passed away. I had not been online and had been unaware of the major breaking news. Horrible news in what was supposed to be my big interview day.


Luckily Yared was a really nice, open, and honest person to speak to and it drew me away from the passing for the while I was doing the interview.

The transcribed interview: http://rejectedfilmscores.150m.com/gabr ... rview.html
(the page needs to be re-designed badly)

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"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself"
"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages."
"Everyone votes for a dictator."
THE PRISONER

It was pretty much a regular day. I remember the first I heard about his death was in a posting at rec.music.classical. At first, I wasn't sure whether it was another prank posting (there was one like that about a year or so earlier at Film Score Monthly). Then I googled it on various news sites, and realized that this time, it was true. It was a real and strangely personal loss to me, even though I had never met Jerry Goldsmith in person. Somebody whose music I had enjoyed since my childhood/teenage days, whose film scores had given me so much (and continue to do so), had now passed away. A sad day that was.

I was at home that morning having gone to bed at 2 a.m., resentful after being forced to work overtime on one of my days off. Without my having had enough sleep, my girlfriend was on the phone breaking up with me when I took a second call from an old friend: a female musician whom I had influenced years ago into becoming a Jerry Goldsmith fan and collector. That's how I gently received the news. (And when I clicked back to the first call and told my girlfriend what I had just heard, she didn't care. Just as well, since she would have been offended to understand how minor the breakup now seemed.)

I had loved and consciously responded to music in films since early in childhood. When I was taken to see RIO CONCHOS at age 10, Goldsmith became the first screen composer whose name I deliberately tried to remember from onscreen credits; by 19 I knew he was my absolute favorite, and he has always remained so. While I never pretended, to myself or anyone else, to a personal relationship with him, my very limited contact with Goldsmith (related in a separate thread about IN HARM'S WAY within this forum) and as well as my 40-year love of his work and talent combined to leave me with a powerful sense of personal loss.

That morning I phoned or e-mailed other friends who would care, in case they hadn't heard. And since I had made no plans for that remaining day off, I spent most of it listening to Goldsmith music -- especially some unheard for a long time, as well as some of my least favorites.

At times solitude can be rewarding.

In Florida. Read about it on the Los Angeles Times website. It was around the same time composer/alto saxophonist Steve Lacy died, (Another person whose work I enjoy and appreciate).

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"I used to worry about losing my mind. Now that I've lost it I don't worry about it anymore." -Wavy Gravy

I was actually online, looking at Film Score Monthly when I found out... In the background I was listening to his score for THE RUSSIA HOUSE. I remember getting chills and then the tears began. It made me think back to being at the theater and seeing PLANET OF THE APES... THE WIND AND THE LION... THE OMEN... LOGAN'S RUN and CAPRICORN ONE... Just a handful of scores that made me aware of film music (as a kid). I looked at a letter he sent to me in response to some questions I had back in 1985... It had typo's, some white out... and his famous signature... It has been framed on a wall, no matter where I have lived since then.

His music meant the world to me... And, of course, still does. His death was devastating, like when a family member has passed away.

He is sorely missed... but his music will be with us forever...

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Another awesome year with Intrada... 2012

Sitting right here in front of my computer and reading the shocking news, I looked at my wife and said with a tear in my eye, Jerry's Gone.

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Jerry Goldsmith, Joel Goldsmith, John Williams, Elmer Bernstein,Michael Giacchino,Scott Glasgow,Alan Silvestri, Bernard Herrmann, Christopher Young, Bruce Broughton,Ennio Morricone and a host of others.

I was visiting a friend in Los Angeles; it was the morning after I landed. I logged on to check my e-mail and the message boards and found out. I was shocked because it seemed to me that films were still coming out with Jerry Goldsmith scores, and it seemed to have been out of the blue.

I wasn't even into film music back in 2004. Not nearly as much as I am now, anyway. I was 13 back then and I was only starting out, not even knowing about Intrada or Screen Archives or Film Score Monthly, etc. Though I'm pretty sure how I first found out about Jerry's death was by looking at his IMDb profile.

I hope this doesn't sound rude, but I think there was an awful lot of denial around the message boards in the year leading up to his death. It was very apparent that he was very ill. He backed out of films, he canceled public appearances… I was at the Hollywood Bowl and they played a piece of Goldsmith's, and conductor John Mauceri announced that Goldsmith's family was in the audience, and then called Jerry at home on the phone. But when things like this were pointed out at the FSM board, any suggestion that Jerry was ill was immediately shut down by a dozen insisting "He's fine! He was just busy that night!" The more evidence that mounted, the more that evidence was roundly rejected.

I do remember going to CNN.com that morning and noticed a small headline on the front page that said "Star Trek composer dies." And I thought "Ah, there it is," and actually looked at a couple of other things before clicking on that link. I knew it had to be Goldsmith, and I was in no rush to see the sad news.

Thanks for all of your memories. I've gotten a bit weepy reading your own recollections of his passing. What I wouldn't give for a new Jerry Goldsmith score.

Does anybody think he would have been asked to do the "Star Trek" reboot? Does anybody know why his theme wasn't used?

That same year I went to London to see the LSO conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. It's only when I entered the Barbican Center that I learnt that Jerry wasn't going to make it because of his bad health... So I just watched the LSO perform Jerry Goldsmith music... without Jerry. I realized that Jerry was already gone, months before his actual passing. However, I greatly enjoyed the whole concert and had a deep thought for Jerry. When the orchestra closed the concert by playing the somptuous theme from Supergirl, I just knew that Jerry was going to live forever.