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April 2000 Film Music CD Reviews |
Film Music Editor: Ian Lace |
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index page/monthly listings/April/
For those wishing to print these reviews
without CD cover graphics there are
scrolling copies available
Month by Month index
Alphabetical composer indexReturn to the April Index with thumbnails Part 4 [Part 1] [ Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
James Sedares conducting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
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Virgil Thomson is probably best remembered for his scores for a handful of films including, Louisiana Story, The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River, plus his comic opera, Four Saints in Three Acts.
Thomson was a pupil of Nadia Boulanger in Paris where he lived for many years. He taught music at Harvard, played the organ at King's Chapel, Boston and was the respected yet feared music critic of the New York Herald Tribune. As Leonard Bernstein remarked after his death, "Virgil was loving and harsh, generous and mordant, simple but cynical, son of the hymnal yet highly sophisticated. We all loved his music and rarely performed it. Most of us preferred his unpredictable and provocative prose." Virgil Thomson had a great influence on the work of his fellow composers particularly Aaron Copland.
This album eschews Virgil Thomson's more progressive music in favour of four of his more immediately attractive and accessible scores. The excellent booklet notes, by Marina and Victor Ledlin, include Virgil Thomson's own extensive programme notes from the first performances of his works. Sedares and his Wellington ensemble clearly enjoy this predominantly jolly outgoing music.
Thomson's Symphony on a Hymn Tune dates from 1928 and it is an affectionate, humorous view of the composer's favourite hymns. The main theme is based on the old Scottish melody that is sung in the Southern States to many texts but most commonly to 'How Firm a Foundation'. Another familiar hymn tune, 'Yes, Jesus Loves Me' appears as a secondary theme. The Symphony has been described as 'simple, straightforward and folklorish in style, evoking nineteenth-century rural America by its dignity, its sweetness and its naïve religious gaiety.' It opens on a serene pastoral evocation with lazy echoing horns and develops episodically with quirky humorous material and ends with a rather 'farmyard' cadenza for trombone, piccolo, solo cello and solo violin. The andante is song-like and contemplative with the odd caustic or sour comment from the brass and it ends with a suggestion of a distant railway train. The bright Allegretto is a passacaglia, strongly rhythmic with a jazzy swagger. The concluding Alla breve was used by Virgil Thomson in a slightly altered form as the finale of the film, The River.
The short (16½-minute) Symphony No. 2 in C major (1931-1941) has a folksy, bucolic charm with trumpet riding high over cantering staccato strings and woodwinds as the work opens. Virgil Thomson describes the work thus - "The expressive character of this symphony is predominantly lyrical. Dancing and jollity, however, are rarely absent from its thought; and the military suggestions of horn and trumpet, of marching drums, are a constantly recurring presence both as background and foreground." There is too, a tenderness and old world charm (although brittle enough to be challenged by bugle calls from the barracks even in the lovely andante) that for me dates the atmosphere this work further back than its composition to the turn of the 18th/19th centuries. Beneath all, there is a concern for classical elegance. The concluding Allegro scintillates.
The music for Symphony No. 3 (1972) (another brief 16½-minute opus) was originally in his String Quartet of 1932, then it was intended as ballet music for Thomson's opera Lord Byron but production problems ensued. It begins most arrestingly and atmospherically with crescendoing waves of cymbals and gong strokes and strident brass. But almost immediately the mood relaxes and we hear the strains of dance music and for the rest of the movement it is a clash of pompous and assertive masculinity and graceful femininity. The following glorious Tempo di Valzer confirms that this work belongs again to the turn of the previous century and the ballrooms of the Hapsburgs with all their colour and glitter. The following andante has a morose tenderness and the finale mixes the innocent elegance of a minuet with all that martial material again.
Pilgrims and Pioneers (1964), was composed for a documentary film, Journey to America, conceived for the New York World's Fair of that year. The film charts the history of American immigration. It has to be said that it is a predominantly austere morose work treating old hymns with a deep melancholy. The gloom is lifted only sporadically. Not surprisingly this is its premiere recording.
Notwithstanding Pilgrims and Pioneers, this is a very approachable and attractive album
Reviewer
Ian Lace
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Maya: Maya was a television series, filmed entirely on location in India. The series was based on the feature film of the same name and was about an English boy in search of his lost father and his friend and Indian lad who with his elephant, Maya, is fugitive from the law. Slater provided a colourful score that evoked crowded streets, beast-infested jungles, mysterious matters, nostalgic interludes and chase sequences.
The music for Maya, herself, is pensive and sad. Of the other 18 tracks, I will mention only the most impressive. 'Maya Goes on an Expedition' is very colourful if a little clichéd. 'Crowded Bazaar' is another very colourful and vibrant cue full of the atmosphere of it s locale - it may sound a bit more Arabic than Indian though. 'Jungle' is a sultry evocation where you sense danger lurks round every corner, the orchestrations are particularly colourful and effective. 'A Tiger Hunt' has driving rhythms and great excitement. 'Ferocious animals' is just that - frightening and sinister. Low woodwinds and bleating trombones combine to present a comic and very persuasive evocation of 'Maya's Mud Bath.' The End Titles have a Romantic nostalgia and the majesty and sweep that is hard to resist. Its telling you it's the end of the show but you don't want it to end.
A well put together suite with the musicians totally committed to this lovely evocative music.
Horror Rhapsody: What memories of my early cinema (theater) visits this evocative Rhapsody brings back! This is a wonderful homage to all those ghouls and monster movies that Universal released in the late 1930s and '40s. These movies now have a cult following and their success is due in no short measure to Salter's music. His horror figures: pounding but characterful percussion, wailing woodwinds and screeching strings - all appropriate to the characters and settings of each film - have all passed into the musical language of the genre. Laced with the horror motifs he creates for the ghouls and monsters, Salter allows a modicum of sympathy for them understanding they are the creation of more evil human minds. There is also tenderness for his ladies in distress and some slapstick relief for the comic elements. Salter is also a master of atmosphere and location whether it is a fog-bound London street, a laboratory lit by lightning flashes as some diabolical experiment is taking place, or moonlight filtering through graveyards, or shadows moving across tombs of ancient Egypt. The Rhapsody has many delights including the mysterious 'Chorus of the Egyptian Priests' from The Mummy's Hand and there is a sly reference to Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice - from, I think, Son of Frankenstein.
These scores may now be museum pieces but I submit that Salter's music is every bit as imaginative and persuasive, and more so than many a modern score in this genre. Take the way he manages to put the frigheners up the audience with his sudden high brass screaming/screeching. I would suggest that young composers throw away their synth boards and listen intently to Salter.
Maya
Reviewer "Zara"
Horror Rhapsody Ian Lace
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It seems a very unsatisfactory thing to have to score a traditional western with electronics out of financial necessity. It transpires that the director of Ballad of a Gunfighter, Christopher Coppola studied electronic music under Jim Fox in 1980, before transferring to film school. Coppola writes in his notes about how he and Fox dreamed of a film-making that would be a true meeting of film and music, where "Neither art would be subordinate to the other." He adds, "I like to think that this is how it is with Jim Fox and me. That's why he's written the music to all but one of my films". Yet the very language Coppola uses contradicts his intention - shouldn't the films he and Jim Fox make together as creative equals be 'our films', not 'my films'?
Coppola describes the music as "a majestic tone poem painting a nostalgic picture of the Old West". Given that the film has had no sort of showing in the UK, it is difficult to argue with the man who made it, though the music sounds to me too often fragmented and atonal for the director's description. Only rarely does it evoke the feel of the Old West as we know it: there are some acoustic musicians involved, though they are not credited, and at times it is difficult to be sure what is real and what is synthesised. Apparently the "micro-budget" of the film made this mixture a necessity - perhaps financial problems also explain why the film took ten years to complete, which also suggests it was a true labour of love - a homage to the dime western and the myth of the western as much as the real West. It is only to be hoped that after all this effort the results were worth it, for on disc the music doesn't inspire enthusiasm.
There is too much brooding underscore to make for a memorable CD, and while it is generally very competent, the synthesised trumpet sounds terrible. This is definitely one score which would sound much better with a real orchestra - contrast with my review of Philippe Blumenthal's General Sutter, which originally too was going to employ synthesisers out of fiscal need-be.
There is some very forceful action writing towards the end of Ballad of a Gunfighter, and a great deal of atmospheric work before that, including some rather modernistic passages in tracks like 'Stampede and Burn'. Yet apart from the mouth organ which appears on various tracks, there is nothing that really speaks of the genre. The music could at times come from a contemporary thriller, a TV SF show or even a low budget horror movie, and is likely to disappoint anyone wanting a traditional western score. With no really memorable theme, and with 29 tracks over 51 minutes there is additionally a rather off-putting fragmented feeling to the disc. Johnny Rivers catchy 'The Ballad of Hopalong Cassidy' ends the album, and will probably appeal to more listeners than anything else here. It probably makes much more sense attached to celluloid, but given the total obscurity of both the film and the composer, it is hard to see who might be interested in this album.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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John Ottman first came to most people's attention through the unusual double success of scoring and editing on of the key films of the 90's, The Usual Suspects. Many of his scores have tended towards films with dark subjects, and he has now made the move to directing, helming his first feature, a sequel to the worst Scream rip-off of 1999, Urban Legend. This is hardly auspicious stuff, though given that the film is a teen-slasher picture, ultimately devolved from John Carpenter's Halloween, it does put him in the same rare ground as Carpenter, being a director who also scores and edits his own horror movies. What ever his talents calling the shots, he has already proved himself by far the more accomplished composer, even if he has yet to pen anything so iconic as the Halloween theme.
Snow White - A Tale of Terror was one of those acclaimed movies no-one saw. It was not even released in its home country, while in Britain its nominal theatrical run was followed by instant obscurity. Staring Sigourney Weaver and Sam Neil (soon after Carpenter's vastly under-rated In the Mouth of Madness), the film's crime seems to have been to be an adult fairy tale, something for which there is a vanishly small market. However, John Ottman clearly thinks very highly of this particular score, and notes that the recording sessions are among his 'fondest memories', subsequently being depressed that the film was not issued theatrically.
To one with no attachment to the score, and not having so much as seen the video-box to the film, it is hard to summon quite such enthusiasm. It is however, a most skilfully wrought (at times overwrought) dark fantasy work, with some romantic melodic sequences (including an attractive main theme which evokes memories, both thematic and in terms of orchestration, of John Williams Jane Eyre) and rather more, strange, unsettling and otherworldly music. Ottman tells us that he required the choir to 'give their best loon impression'!, while other techniques included rattling chairs with sticks, 'electric violin bending', and writing 'ascending and descending tremelo string lines' to describe Claudia's (Weaver) unbalanced state-of-mind. It is all most effective, and if rather opaque on early plays, proves to be a score which reveals increasingly layers of subtle detail upon repeated attentive listening.
With orchestra, choir, and what occasionally sounds like the kitchen sink too, this is a big score, recorded in a church near Seattle to give it a mysterious, ambient acoustic. Fans of horror scores will find this an inventive fair few notches above the bang-crash-wallop electronics of the bargain-basement end of the genre - there is plenty of glittering orchestral colour and baroque fairly-tale melodic atmosphere - though without having seen the film some listeners may find parts of the proceedings hard going. However, if the thought of something between Jerry Goldsmith's Alien, Legend and The Mummy, garnished with fine English-sounding Gothic romanticism and a dash of the spirit of Bernard Herrmann appeals, this might just be the disc for you. Full-blooded is perhaps the best description.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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When Danna's score began, his easygoing, seemingly effortless musical approach took me immediately; considering "Girl, Interrupted" comes from a composer specialized in using music to the determent of pop culture, it is atypically accessible. True, some may view this soundtrack as though the composer lowered his standards, and to a degree I suppose that could very well be, but in an uncanny way he again bridges the creation gap between high art and populist entertainment found in much of his work.
Despite the increased informality of the score, Mychael Danna retains his position as one of the most original film composers working today. The sleeve notes by director James Mangold (whose comments are fleeting, amusing, and revealing) explain the so-called Glass Orchestra, a notable ingredient that utilizes "shards of glass, crystal goblets, glass flutes and harmonicas." Several of these effects appeared in Thomas Newman's underrated "Oscar and Lucinda" from 1997, and hints of them stretch back to previous works by Danna and into centuries before; nevertheless, they remain fascinating. He incorporates them masterfully into the better acknowledged sounds of acoustic guitar, piano, drum, and chamber orchestra, and in the 34 minutes of underscore featured on the album he offers them with soft dirges, surreal marches, and the sweet Americana of the main theme. Unfortunately, none of these venture far to express creative emotion.
The listener should feel that what he hears is precisely what was needed.
From what I gather, the impetus for the offbeat material is the film's precarious psychological constituents. The picture is a retelling of author Susanna Kaysen's institutionalization in both a psychiatric hospital and the psychiatric treadmill of her conflicted mind. The album production probably isn't very helpful on that last front.
The cue names troublesomely appear only in the album's booklet, and there are no timings for the release's 29 tracks. Not quite as annoying, but considerably less consequential, on the first half of the disc are ten popular songs performed by Wilco, Them featuring Van Morrison, The Band, The Mamas & the Papas, The Chambers Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, Merrilee Rush & The Turnabouts, Aretha Franklin, Skeeter Davis, and Petula Clark.
Reviewer
Jeffrey Wheeler
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Most TV theme compilations fall down by being too eclectic a mix of styles. To follow that analogy I'd have to say that this one just about stumbles, but recovers itself without too many people noticing. Twenty tracks range from the sublime vocals of Duncan Browne's "Salve Me" (from Shadow Of The Noose) to the now rather dated throatiness of David Mackay and Ken Ashby's "That's Livin' Alright" (from Auf Wiedersehen Pet).
There's a heavy George Fenton leaning, covering: Beyond The Clouds, Bergerac, The Trials Of Life, Shanghai Vice, and The Monocled Mutineer. Otherwise it's quite a throwtogether of artists. Standouts include: The Music Sculptors' "Friends In Hibernation" (from The First Snows Of Winter), Andy Price's The Union Game, and Bill Connor's Resort To Murder.
Basically, it's one of those cases of finding enough themes you like to warrant the chance of liking some of the others. It's certainly better than most put which are seemingly put together arbitrarily.
Reviewer
Paul Tonks
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This is the music for a 1998 BBC documentary series recounting the struggles between the forces of modernisation and conservatism within Catholicism over the past three decades, specifically following the changes since John XXIII. In her notes Debbie Wiseman says that she has attempted to portray in musical terms, "the machinations of this metamorphosis… through the medium of what is to me an enduringly powerful religious image - the choir." It may be an obvious approach, but sometimes the obvious is best, and it is hard to see how any other means of scoring could have so resolutely encapsulated through its very sound, resonate with the accumulated wealth of the Catholic musical tradition, the essence of the subject. This is not to say that Wiseman consciously imitates the style of any particular Catholic composer, rather that her score is an evocation of the spirit of centuries of musical development, realised through her own distinctive melodic personality.
While Catholicism may claim to have Absolute Truth, this score valuably reminds us that there more to church music than any one tradition, for interspersed with Wiseman's score are four 'ethnic' selections, including praise music from Zambia, and music as performed by the Inter Religious Choir for Cochin. These pieces from outside the western tradition do rather break the flow of Wiseman's more classically orientated writing - and so from a musical point of view might have been better placed in a group and the beginning or end of the disc - but by being integrated into the main body of the score serve to remind us that no one has a monopoly on the 'right' musical way of worship. In the end it is all tradition, and in-grained cultural preferences aside, who is to say that one church musical tradition is of inherently superior worth to another?
Nevertheless, it is Debbie Wiseman's music which is the centre of attention, with 35 minutes of the 50 minutes of the album devoted to her score. This music is divided into 17 tracks, the writing demonstrating a seemingly effortless blend of choir and subtle orchestration - solo violin, cello, cor anglais and oboe are prominent. If this is church music, it is so with a sense of drama and tension, music which synthesises the tranquillity of sound of the earlier Roman tradition of Palestrina et all, with a growing sense of musical argument which developed progressively over the following centuries. In screen terms one obvious point of comparison is John Williams excellent score for Monsignor, and against this Absolute Truth more than holds its own. The grandiose title theme speaks of both eternity and the implacable might of the eternal city, a bell resolutely toiling either a summons to prayer, or to account. For there is something spine-tinglingly dramatic here, a reinforcement of the fact that 'Rome' is a temporal authority of enduring power, not to be trifled with or under-estimated.
'Smile of History' is more romantic, almost summoning Miklós Rózsa's nativity music from Ben-Hur, while later thematic material evokes images of the loneliness of command, describing a tension between the avowed aims of Catholicism and the earthly realities of governing one of the most powerful of global organisations. The writing is rich, full and replete with portentous beauty. Debbie Wiseman's solo piano, a trademark of the composer, has a characteristic eloquence on such themes as 'Remembrance', while the choral writing truly suggests an epic scale. The only thing that stops me giving this 5 stars is that, as a CD the score exhibits a certain necessary repetition. It is however, a most rewarding score, and alongside Wilde and Warriors, one of Wiseman's best currently available. Both the performances and the atmospheric sound are first rate.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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My one regret is that I didn't watch the TV series, and now I am keenly awaiting the first repeat, for if Aristocrats is half-as-good as the soundtrack album suggests it might be, then it is a television masterpiece. Aristocrats was a 1999 BBC drama serial based on the story of the Irish Lennox family in and around 1770. What happens I can not tell you, though both from the titles and the music romantic intrigue would appear to be high on the list of priorities. What I can tell you is that, as an album, Mark Thomas' score is absolutely gorgeous, with melodies that set a whole new standard in the hauntingly beautiful stakes. In the time I have been reviewing film and television scores no disc that I have received has given me so much pleasure: indeed, Aristocrats has too often been occupying my CD player when I should have been listening to something else.
The music is a modern interpretation of the baroque - consider the way Vaughn-Williams transformed English folksong, then imagine a similar approach applied to the music of Handel and Vivaldi. The result is an exquisite hybrid with a wonderful flow of melancholy pseudo-baroque melody, suffused with a 20th century English classical warmth of string writing and delicate orchestration. Crafted with filigree attention to detail and considerable thematic diversity, there is here the quality that Philippe Sardé brought to Tess, that indeed many French composers have sought to apply to matters of the heart. There are vigorous up-beat passages ('Fireworks'), a lively dance ('Masks'), while 'Lord Kildare's Courtship of Lady Emily' offers playful variation on the central themes and 'The King's Party and Family Reconciliation' has a driving urgency which recurs in various sections. However, it is the timeless beauty of the main themes in various more sombre treatments which form the heart of the album. It seems rapidly to be becoming something of a cliché (see Earth: Final Conflict which I've also reviewed on FMOTW this month) but no one recently has made better use of the wordless female voice than Mark Thomas does here. The composer takes the voice of Méav and treats it as a solo lead instrument to utterly captivating effect.
If Ennio Morricone's music for The Mission and Once Upon in a Time in America count among your favourite scores, if John Williams in English pastoral mode for Jane Eyre and Angela's Ashes meet with your approval, make it a priority at least to hear Aristocrats. The best soundtracks don't always come from the most famous names - Mark Thomas has written over 100 scores, yet remains virtually unknown outside the film and television industry - and after much consideration I will go as far as to state that after 25 years Aristocrats has replaced Williams' Jane Eyre as my all-time-favourite television score. If I had seen the series last year I would almost certainly have voted for this 'score of the year'. Now someone, give Mark Thomas a major feature film to score.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
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When Holst composed the Planets some 90 years ago, mankind had little knowledge of the true nature of the massive neighbouring giants orbiting around the Sun. He drew inspiration mainly from the Greek mythology and the astrology of the Greeks and Romans. Venus, always portrayed as the incarnation of beauty is actually an inhospitable planet. The mighty and formidable Mars, the bringer of war, turned out to be a cold, desert world.
It was time for a musical update. It was time to portray the planets as they really are. And this took form through a BBC series exploring the true nature of our solar neighbourhood. To underscore the series, Jim Meacock took a fresh look at the family of worlds inhabiting the solar system and created a diverse and vast musical universe. From the typical trumpet passages in the Main Title, later assisted by the whole orchestra to build a satisfying theme, to each Planet's unique musical identity as depicted in the various tracks, the composer successfully captures the coldness and magnificence of Space. 'The Moon' theme paints the bright and lifeless Moon initially with bright orchestral colours building a grand theme, followed by solo instrumentation, discreetly accompanied by the orchestra. Venus is no longer (musically speaking) a delicate and peaceful melodic landscape but harsh and atonal, in keeping with the essential inhospitability of the planet. Mars is no longer attributed the famous march theme but a refined, updated, for the technologically advanced, Space Era, persuasion with percussion, winds and piano depicting giant volcanos and red rust. Similar palettes are utilised throughout the score, mixing short grand themes with orchestrally-refined passages, often furious and atonal.
Unlike Holst, the composer does not glorify the Planets. He musically refers the listener to various strange, cold, inhospitable and lifeless worlds. Space is musically painted as it is: vast and cold. The booklet contains various pieces of information about the planets and is a nice accompaniment to the music, clarifying and justifying the composer's choices for orchestral colours and the structure of the music.
It is a nice, although not easy due to the length and nature of the music, stand alone listening experience and an appropriate update to the original Planets.
Reviewer
Kostas Anagnostou
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Reviewing what is essentially someone's calling card looking for possible employment has many inherent drawbacks. One feels acutely aware that the composer may be pinning his hopes and dreams on making it in the impossibly competitive world of film and television scoring and that my few words of personal opinion may have some bearing on that goal.
So with this at the back of my mind I approached Ian David's music with unusual tolerance, hoping I would be impressed enough to give his work a glowing review.
Sadly for us both, after listening to the ten tracks included here, I realised that no such review would be forthcoming.
Probably the biggest problem with Ian's work is the unerring sense that this is music very much rooted in the 1980s, the saxophone, electric guitar and synthesiser arrangements reminding me of the type of background music used in films like TOP GUN and BEVERLY HILLS COP. Also, without wanting to appear to be overly critical, a wider variety of styles and shading would have been welcome, as this selection of tracks do not really convey enough different moods or emotions.
If this music is to find a home, my feeling is it is more likely to be in TV or commercials, so perhaps all is not lost. And despite my own less than enthusiastic response, I do wish Ian David good fortune and success with his future endeavours.
Reviewer
Mark Hockley
CURIO CORNER
If Only They Had Written for Films: No. 2 - ROBERT DOCKER
I am cheating a little over our second subject in the series, "If Only they had written for Films", because Robert Docker actually did write for films although one would be hard pressed to find his name in any of the reference books. I feel, therefore, very justified in categorising him in this way and particularly this month because Marco Polo have just released a new album of his works in their British Light Music series.
For the record, Docker composed and arranged for films - the notes do not reveal how many nor their titles, except Chariots of Fire for which he arranged part of the score - the honours of course went to Vangelis. Listening to this album, one realises his talent was very much underused. His Legend, for instance, could have been well employed in one of those 1940s romances where a concert pianist suffers quite terribly, the Scène du Bal would have graced any 19th Century ballroom scene and the 'Romanza' from Three Contrasts would have been ideal for a woman's weepie.
Robert Docker was an accomplished composer, arranger and accompanist in the field of popular light music. For many years he was associated with BBC Radio programmes and in particular with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the long-running series, Friday Night is Music Night.
So, to the review:-
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The opening and closing works in this concert, for piano and orchestra, are most impressive.
The concert opens with Legend , probably Docker's best-known original composition. Although it is strictly light music its grandiose heroic and romantic form gives the impression of something altogether more substantial. It was never used as film music yet it was cast from the same mould as those other heart-on-sleeve Romantic mini-concertos so popular in the 1940s: Charles Williams' The Dream of Olwen, Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto and Hubert Bath's Cornish Rhapsody. Davies and Knight pull out all the Romantic stops
Pastiche Variations, for piano and orchestra was completed in 1980 and it is receiving its first commercial recording here. It is Docker's most serious and substantial work. The humorous variations are based on the traditional French tune, Frère Jacques and, most unusually, the work begins with the first variation before the theme is announced. The variations are written in the style of Docker's favourite composers. Besides an obvious affection for the music of Rachmaninov, one can detect, amongst others: Brahms, Copland, Kodály, Smetana and Tchaikovsky and, I think, Bax. There is also a cunning allusion to Dohnányi's Variations on a Nursery Song, which clearly must have inspired this work. Great fun.
The concert includes two of Docker's most popular works: Tabarinage (translated as buffoonery) that is a vulgar and cheeky but immensely appealing can-can; and the spirited Fairy Dance Reel a vivacious piece of Irish whimsy.
Three Contrasts for Oboe and Strings begins with a comic burlesque of an 'Alla Marcia' that might be a Falstaffian caricature. I felt a brisker pace might have helped this movement. The following 'Romanza' is a lovely piece, of sorrow and regret, while the 'Rondolet' is a perky conversation piece between admonishing strings and cheeky and plaintive oboe, before the strings mellow to sing another lovely tune for the oboe to embroider.
The sparkling and vivacious The Spirit of Cambria is a clear demonstration of Docker's supreme skill as a sensitive and imaginative arranger. He wraps four well known traditional Welsh tunes in his own original linking material. As one might expect, there is some magical writing for the harp.
Air , from Air and Jig for Strings, is an expressive and peaceful English pastoral evocation with prominent material for the violas. Blue Ribbons is another example of Docker's imaginative arrangements. Taking the traditional air, 'Oh dear, what can the matter be? , he adds much colour and weight, and an appealing romantically mournful violin solo.
Scènes de Ballet is to my mind the least successful of the works here, it is based on classical ballet music. The Prelude has a stately sorrow but hardly impresses, the Allegretto, the best movement, has an engaging tune and is light and frothy, but the Adage and Finale are rather heavy going - perhaps they needed a lighter touch?
Nevertheless a very entertaining concert and an important addition to Marco Polo's British Light Music series.
Reviewer
Ian Lace
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Dick Powell's attractive light lyric tenor voice wooed film audiences through the depression years of the 1930s and his well-groomed debonair charm served him well through so many Warner Bros. Musicals. This album comprises two dozen songs many of them very familiar and very welcome: 'By a Waterfall'; 'Wonder Bar'; 'I'll String Along With You'; and 'I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm' to name but a few. Also included are three famous film soundtrack recordings: 'Young and Healthy'; 'I Only Have Eyes for You' and 'You Must Have been a Beautiful Baby'
Beginning as a banjo player and vocalist with bands in Kentucky, Indiana and Chicago, Powell went on to Hollywood where his first of 60 films, of which 30 were musicals, was Blessed Event (Warner, 1932). But he really made his mark in the epoch-making, twice Oscar-nominated Forty-Second Street. He went on to appear in numerous Busby Berkeley musicals that are now classics. In 1944 he began another successful career as a dramatic actor playing Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlow in Murder My Sweet; and later, in 1952, founded Four Star Playhouse and went on to direct and produce many successful plays and dramas. He was married to the petite husky-voiced film actress, June Allyson from 1945 until his death in 1963.
Reviewer
Ian lace
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1. The Japanese Sandman
2. My Mammy.
3. Cherie
4. Say it with Music
5. Stumbling.
6. Hot Lips.
7. Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.
8. Linger Awhile.9. What'll I Do.
10. Somebody Loves Me.
11. Valencia.
12. The Birth of the Blues.
13. In a little Spanish Town.
14. My Blue Heaven.
15. Among my Souvenirs .
16. Ramona.17. Ol' Man River
18. Together.
19. My Angel.
20. Great Day.
21. Body and Soul.
22. All of Me.
23 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
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1. I'm an Old Cow Hand.
2. Never in a Million Years.
3. Too Marvellous for Words.
4. I Fall in love with you Everyday.
5. Change Partners.
6. Hold Tight Hold Tight.
7. Deep Purple.
8. Six Lessons from Madam La Zonga.9. The Breeze and I.
10. I Hear a Rhapsody.
11. High on a Windy Hill.
12. Amapola.
13. Yours.
14. My Sister and I.
15. Maria Elena.
16. Green Eyes.17. Blue Champagne.
18. Jim.
19. Tangerine.
20. My Devotion.
21. Besame mucho.
22. Star Eyes.
23. They're Either Too Young or Too Old.
24. When they ask about you.
I have chosen to cover these two records in one review because together they contain typical music from Big Bands in the era 1920 to 1943, some 23 years. Paul Whiteman from 1920 to 1933 and Jimmy Dorsey from 1936 to 1943. From a social history point of view, probably even more importantly, they represent popular music of that era. All the tracks on both records were hit recordings and so if television had been invented somewhat earlier, we are hearing what would have been on" Top of the Pops" in those days!
The production of both albums was carried out by the same team, transcriptions from the original 78's by Peter Dempsey and David Lennick, whilst audio restoration and remastering was carried out by Martin Haskell and Tim Debney. They have done a really excellent job, because these tracks are not marred by any of the scratch and hiss that were the bugbear of the 78 rpm recording.
Paul Whiteman employed many of the famous jazz musicians of the time including Bix Beiderbecke, Bunny Berigan, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Frankie Trumbauer and Eddie Lang. Little is heard of their improvising ability however and it was probably the prospect of regular work that attracted them, more than the musical experience! Despite this Paul Whiteman played an important part in the history of both Big Bands and popular music in general, to the many fans of the music of the 20's and 30's this represents a musical feast.
The Dorsey brothers Tommy and Jimmy seem to have spent most of their lives in disagreement, only coming together occasionally with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. They seem to have been of a remarkably different temperament, though each was an excellent musician. Tommy was a disciplinarian whereas Jimmy was easy going and humorous. The tracks on the CD are mostly of tunes which are still frequently heard to-day, Bing Crosby is the vocalist on the first three tracks and it is easy to see why they were so popular. All of the tracks have vocals and the remainder are shared between Bob Eberly, Helen O'Connell and Kitty Kallen, who were the bands regular vocalists at the time. The Andrews Sisters make a surprise appearance on track 6.
In reviewing these albums it is noticeable, as to how the rhythm sections gradually move from the plodding sounds of the early 20's, toward the looser sounds of the 40's a trend which has continued up to to-day. These albums represent two unique pieces of history in the development of Popular Music and the Big Band, the standard of musicianship throughout, is such that there is little doubt that Paul Whiteman and Jimmy Dorsey employed the best musicians that were around at the time.
Both albums are worthy of three stars.
Reviewer
Don Mather
Don Mather is a Saxophone and Clarinet Player and Bandleader in England's West Midlands.
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1. Trane-like
2. Once upon a time.
3. Never let me go.
4. I want to tell you 'bout that.
5. Will you still be mine.6. Goin' way blues.
7. In the tradition of.
8. The night has a thousand eyes.
9. Carriba.
10. Memories
11. I want to tell you 'bout that. ( Alternative take with acoustic bass)
Throughout the history of jazz, the jazz trio has always been an essential ingredient and the master's of the development of the music, have always featured in them, Nat Cole, Errol Garner and Oscar Peterson have been to the fore at various times and McCoy Tyner now has a trio which in it's style, is of equal standing with those jazz giants.
Tyner originally came to prominence as the pianist with John Coltrane, a man who changed the way we all play the saxophone and a genuine innovator. It was only after Coltrane's untimely death in 1967, that we all started to realise just how influential Mc Coy Tyner had been during that period of musical development. The fascinating thing about him is how his music continues to develop and the charismatic image which he brings to the live performance. That charisma even comes through to his recorded work which has a powerful presence about it.
The great jazz trio depends on the ability end empathy of the other two members, in Stanley Clarke on Bass and Al Foster on Drums, Tyner has the ideal complement. They are both sympathetic accompanists and outstanding soloists. From a personal point of view I am not wild about the Electric Bass, that is probably because I always think of Rock Bands when I hear it, but if we have to have it there is no-one better than Stanley Clarke. Fortunately it is his superb String Bass playing on the majority of the tracks.
Seven of the tracks are Tyner compositions and each is complete, they all have a distinctive melodic content and make excellent vehicles for the trio to improvise on.
Stanley Clarke contributed "In the tradition of." and there are three standards, "Never let me go", "Will you still be mine.", and "The night has a thousand eyes."
My favourite track is "Will you still be mine" , probably because it is a tune I play and I am familiar with. The more I play the CD and I have played it a lot, the more I find it difficult to be certain which one I like best! This album rates
My advice is go out and buy it! - Don Mather.
Don Mather is a Saxophone and Clarinet Player and Bandleader in England's West Midlands.
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This CD would normally not qualify for review on this site but it is included because one track brings back memories for this reviewer from, as far as I can recall, the late 60s/early 70s - Mungo Jerry's In the Summertime with its jaunty pronounced rhythms.
The rest of the numbers comprise a mix of country/gospel/rock numbers from artists such as: Three Dog Night, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Pipkins, Tree Adams and Nild Lofgren.
The film, a comedy, stars Danny DeVito Bette Midler and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Not being really qualified to apply a star rating to this one, I will pass - Ian Lace
[Part 1] [ Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
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