Jazz scores
- This topic has 40 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 13 hours, 8 minutes ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Someone came up to you and told you to list 10 – and no more than 10! – great jazz scores that should cover most of film history. Which would you choose?
That depends a lot on where to draw the boundaries – how does the music qualify as jazz, are films based in stage musical allowed, and so on.
Anyway, these are the ones that immediately come to mind:
– Stormy Weather
– Singing in the Rain
– The Glenn Miller Story
– The Benny Goodman Story, although the sound could have been better and Goodman wasn’t in top form.
– Crime in the Streets
– West Side Story
– Chicago
– Swing Kids – not for Horner’s mundane score, but for the unbelievably good big band recordings of 30s swing classics.
– The Artist
– The PostRunners-up:
– Ellington’s film scores
– The Man with the Golden Arm
– The Pink Panther“Real” jazz — by that I mean mostly or to a larger degree spontaneous and improvised music — only rarely belongs in film scoring. Because when the director breathes down your neck and asks you to bring that oboe in earlier, you can’t. Improvisation — the soul of jazz — is for obvious reason the enemy of picture-locked precision. A trumpet that plays what it “feels” will always be a threat to a scene that needs what it means. In jazz, you let go, in film, you hit your mark.
Jazz is “free style”, which is often at odds with the needs of film, so why not fake it? But of course, that’s a generalization. There IS room for improvised music in film, and there are some “real” jazz scores. However, some scores that may “feel” like “real” jazz actually aren’t. Why should they? The audience neither cares nor notices if the sax solo is improvised, it’s just whether the music “lands”.
So when some film music feels like it has a “jazz score,” what it often means is that someone composed something that sounds like jazz. That’s certainly true of Alex North’s A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, which “feels” jazzy, but is composed and written out like a classical symphony. It’s all in the score. It walks like jazz, it talks like jazz, but under the hood, it’s not a duck… I mean it ain’t actual jazz.
Also, while the first “talkie” was famously called “The Jazz Singer” and there has been a lot of jazz music on and in film, it wasn’t until the 1950s that the “sound of jazz” started to weave its way in the motion picture scores. For that reason, I don’t know how to list 10 Jazz scores that cover most of film history.
But I try to go for 10 Jazz Milestone Film scores. (I actually break the rules and name 11, but one is a “two for one” entry. 😉 )
Alex North: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
As I said, it’s not “real” jazz, it’s composed like any other film score. But nevertheless, it is groundbreaking. One of the first major Hollywood scores to incorporate “the sound” of modern jazz. And it’s just a darn great score.Elmer Bernstein: The Man With the Golden Arm (1955)
I haven’t seen the score for this one, but I suppose it’s composed through similar to Streetcar? Still, this is even jazzier, with diegetic and non-diegetic music sometimes blending, and with actual top jazz players perform.Miles Davis: Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (1958
Perhaps the first “real” jazz score? Not sure. I think Miles Davis really improvised the entire score, so yep, this may be the first actual “jazz” score. The soundtrack sure plays like a smoky jazz album.Duke Ellington: Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Another probably “real” jazz film score, composed by jazz legend Duke Ellington. Great album, feels like pure jazz, and works in the movie.Henry Mancini: The Pink Panther (1963) / Touch of Evil (1958)
I temporarily break rule here an name two Henry Mancini scores, because they are so very different.
All of the above were “dramas”… but isn’t jazz also fun and freestyle? In comes Henry Mancini. It’s perhaps more easy listening than actual jazz, but it’s got a jazzy vibe, and the theme is iconic… so I just had to mention it.
TOUCH OF EVIL I mention because it was quite ingenious to have ALL the film music play as diegetic music from some source. Nice “touch”.Quincey Jones: In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Bluesy, jazzy… not sure how this was composed, but it’s definitely a film score that has a “jazz” feeling to it. And it’s one of Quincey Jones most famous film scores, so I just had to mention it.Lalo Schifrin: Bullitt (1968)
Schifrin was classically trained but always loved Jazz. BULLITT just feels like a very jazzy score, and provided the template for the urban-gritty-jazzy sound many cop dramas and TV shows would have in the 1970s.John Barry: Body Heat (1981)
Hard to write a jazz film score list without mentioning at least John Barry, much of whose film score output of the 1960s was very jazz influenced. But I pick BODY HEAT… not necessarily “real” jazz, but certainly “smoky”, “bluesy”, with a sultry, haunting “jazz sex… I mean sax” part.Pat Metheny: The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
Jazz fusion, perfectly suited for that movie. Of course, the song “This is not America” became quite famous, but the score is definitely worth hearing. In record stores (when there were such things), it as often in the “Jazz Section” (under Pat Metheny) rather than the soundtrack section, so I include it here. It sure has the sound vibes of the “Pet Metheny Group”, a “real” Jazz band.Jerry Goldsmith: The Russia House (1990)
Goldsmith’s jazziest score, with Michael Lang at the piano, and real jazz music legends Branford Marsalis on saxophone and John Patitucci on bass, so it’s about as much “real” jazz as you can get into a nevertheless meticulously planned and recorded score.Cool list – and great shout-out to the underrated THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN.
I’ve always considered TOUCH OF EVIL more blues than jazz, but the boundaries are sometimes fleeting.
Yes, I’m perfectly willing to say TOUCH OF EVIL (or IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT) is more blues than jazz… as you said, the boundaries are not set in stone, they are fleeting. What is “jazz”? Louis Armstrong (my uncle was a big fan and had lots of his music recording) once said “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know”, but of course, one has to define it in some way to distinguish it effectively from something else.
Good selections!
I’ve always considered TOUCH OF EVIL more blues than jazz, but the boundaries are sometimes fleeting.
The main title even is Latin jazz.
Jazz is really a fluid genre and didn’t it have its origin in blues/gospel as basically any US pop music has? As mentioned some jazz scores may not “really” be jazz because too much composed. Maybe excpet the Miles Davis one which as far as I know was improvise to picture.
I could list lots of 70s groove crime scores that also are or have jazz parts…
Ten scores with a jazzy slant that I love, in no particular order:
Twin Peaks (Badalamenti)
Get Carter (Budd)
Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (Bjerre)
Motherless Brooklyn (Pemberton)
A Streetcar Named Desire (North)
Petulia (Barry)
Not With My Wife You Don’t (Williams) – yes, it’s also poppy, as well as jazzy and bluesy
Gone With the Wave (Schifrin)
The Thomas Crown Affair (Legrand)
Høst (Vardøen)And then, breaking my own rules, a few more:
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Grusin) – but it’s closer to funk, so then I would need to count Shaft and Super Fly too, perhaps
Mad Men: On the Rocks (Carbonara)
Menage all’Italiana (Morricone)
Vivre pour Vivre (Lai)
Le Samourai (de Roubaix)
Peter Gunn (Mancini)
Chinatown (Goldsmith)
The Omega Man (Grainer)Not too long ago, I came across an Ennio Morricone score for a movie starring Kirk Douglas, called “Un Uomo da Rispettare” (The Master Touch) from 1972.
I had never heard of the movie or score before, but this became a favorite right away, it’s musically up there with the best Morricone scores, and I was surprised again by Morricone’s versatility. The score mixes avant-garde techniques with echoplex, Jazz fusion and trumpet (a bit remeniscent of Chet Baker’s sound… Morricone had actually done some collaborations with Chet Baker some years earlier). It’s really a dynamite “jazz(y) album”.This is the first track, it’s almost 12 minutes long.
Un Uomo da RispettareWhile jazz scores were certainly more prevalent back in the day (still waiting for our resident jazz guys Dr. Jacoby and Graham Watt to present their favs from yesteryear, although the parameters are probably too wide for them), there are still some decent jazz scores in later years, coming out with regular intervals. One is the 2013 film LAST VEGAS. True, it’s a fairly middle-of-the-road comedy, despite an all-star lineup including Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas and Robert de Niro, but I dig the Mark Mothersbaugh score. Pretty heavy on the funk side more than jazz, perhaps (and occasionally sprinkling it with more traditional drama cues), but with Hammond organs and sweet grooves throughout.
If I’m covering film history, I would have to include A Streetcar Named Desire as the first, and Bob Belden’s Three Days of Rain as the most recent great jazz score.
Johnny Mandel’s I Want to Live is probably my favorite.
This topic is complicated by the fact that a lot of jazz “soundtrack” albums were really promotional tie-ins, e.g., Peter Gunn, and not scores per se.
You mean rearranged and rerecorded?
Well, yes, there was that, but I should have clarified: I was really referring to jazz or jazz-like scores to TV shows that received contemporaneous soundtrack albums. On “Peter Gunn,” for example, only the main theme and opening bass & drum section of “Fallout” were from the show. Mancini simply arranged a jazz album and called it “Peter Gunn.” Granted, some of the tunes, like “Dreamsville,” appeared on the show after the fact. This was somewhat typical with jazz TV scores, and it extended into the spy soundtrack era a few years later.
Well, yes, there was that, but I should have clarified: I was really referring to jazz or jazz-like scores to TV shows that received contemporaneous soundtrack albums. On “Peter Gunn,” for example, only the main theme and opening bass & drum section of “Fallout” were from the show. Mancini simply arranged a jazz album and called it “Peter Gunn.” Granted, some of the tunes, like “Dreamsville,” appeared on the show after the fact. This was somewhat typical with jazz TV scores, and it extended into the spy soundtrack era a few years later.
Yeah, same with CHECKMATE.
I’m always on the lookout for new, interesting jazz scores, and now I’ve discovered another — Nick Gomez’ HOLLYWOOD GRIT, released just a few days ago, which very much taps into old-school, sultry noir tropes. But it requires a tolerance and love of the saxophone (which I thankfully have):
But it requires a tolerance and love of the saxophone (which I thankfully have)
I do too. Never understood why people hate saxophone. Of course it can be annoying, just like almost any other like especially solo violin 😉
Hmm, not sure I can list 10 examples. Not that I dislike jazz in film scores, it’s just that I don’t have a lot of them. In fact, I had to look through my collection to remind myself of jazz-influenced scores I have enjoyed. And some of these may be bordeline cases regarding the “jazz” label.
But anyway, in no particular order (and it seems that I landed at almost 10):
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (Shire) (OK, this HAS to be at the top of the list. 12-tone jazz-rock-funk?! Love it! 🙂 )
CHINATOWN (Goldsmith)
THE RUSSIA HOUSE (Goldsmith)
CHECKMATE (Williams)
LUCKY YOU (Chris Young)
CASINO ROYALE (Bacharach)
THE YAKUZA (Grusin)
I, SPY (Grusin)
SNEAKERS (Horner)It is probably to a certain degree a matter of interpretation if a score is counted as a jazz score.
Not 100% sure for John Williams’ The Post, Catch Me If You Can or his 60s comedy scores. Same question for Goldsmith’s LA Confidential or Isham’s Black Dahlia.
No doubt is for sure for Joseph Vitarelli’s The Last Seduction or Mancini’s Pink Panther.
By far my personal favourite jazz film music album is the Filmfest Gent album of Terrence Blanchard.
I really love the sound of that.
Great music.
Great fusion of Barry like wall of sound and jazz element, best of them the great solo trumpet.Oh, how could I forget about CATCH ME IF YOU CAN? I think that definitely qualifies as a jazz score, as quite a few cues in it are more or less pure jazz. So that would also go on my list.
And I see now that I probably deviated from Thor’s original question, about listing 10 of the greatest jazz scores in film history. While I just listed scores that I personally enjoy. And not just film scores, but TV scores also. 🙂
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN is a fine score, and it’s definitely jazz, but the fact that Dan Higgins’ sax solo was not improvised, but written so clearly down by Williams kinda challenges a core component of jazz.
By the way, this thread was not about the 10 greatest jazz scores in history (how do you decide that anyway?), but 10 personal favourites that COVER the entirety of film history.
There are several genres of music that include improvisation, yet they are not jazz.
And there are jazz compositions by major composers, including Duke Ellington, that contain no improvisation.
So improvisation, while a key component component of jazz, is not the only or ultimate criterion for assessing whether something is or is not jazz – especially when we consider the directions that jazz took in the postwar era with the third stream movement. I therefore have no qualms about characterizing Catch Me If you Can or A Streetcar Named Desire as jazz. YMMV.
True. And I personally prefer the more “organized” jazz over the free-form. Some of the most free-form jazz goes on my nerves.
So improvisation, while a key component component of jazz, is not the only or ultimate criterion for assessing whether something is or is not jazz
Agreed. I would say that things like syncopation and the use of certain harmonies are elements that will define something as “jazz”, just as much as improvisation will.
Although, I just read in the Williams biography that he considers improvisation to be the most important thing in jazz – at least from the musicians’ point of view (Williams calls it “freedom”). 🙂
Although, I just read in the Williams biography that he considers improvisation to be the most important thing in jazz – at least from the musicians’ point of view (Williams calls it “freedom”). 🙂
Well, sure. I think the primary issue with jazz scores is that cues have to be timed to the visuals, so you typically get shorter cues, especially if we’re talking about TV shows, meaning less time for a soloist to stretch out; whereas live, or on a record, those kinds of time restrictions don’t exist. In jazz scores, improvisation will mostly show up in source cues, or sometimes in longer cues if there is enough space for a solo.
My impression is also that improvisation and the communication of the players during it is the defining key moment of jazz. Just jazz chords itself does not make music jazz. Losts of 70s music uses them without technically being jazz. That’s why some jazz purists will not consider a written solo (like Williams’ noted above) as real jazz, basically everything that is not created in the moment of playing (besides the obviously existing base composition).
… basically everything that is not created in the moment of playing (besides the obviously existing base composition).
Most “real” jazz is not 100% “created in the moment of playing.” Jazz musicians play arrangements. (See Art Tatum.) Even much free jazz will use some sort of a roadmap as a jumping off point. (See Anthony Braxton.) Improvisation in jazz usually occurs within existing frameworks.
Just jazz chords itself does not make music jazz.
Much more than chords. Rhythm, groove, feel, alternating between swing 8ths and straight 8ths, accents, etc.
That’s why some jazz purists will not consider a written solo (like Williams’ noted above) as real jazz…
Then they are also discounting much postwar jazz, including Ellington’s extended compositions, third stream compositions, etc.
Most “real” jazz is not 100% “created in the moment of playing.” Jazz musicians play arrangements. (See Art Tatum.) Even much free jazz will use some sort of a roadmap as a jumping off point. (See Anthony Braxton.) Improvisation in jazz usually occurs within existing frameworks.
That’s why I mentioned the “base composition” 😉 Anyway, it’s not my opinion as I am not pinned down to those definitions. And it gets difficult with crossover styles anyway. It’s all rather fluid to me. After all improvisiation is a large part of lots of styles, too.
Again, this was a thread I did on FSM in 2008, but I’m just taking the original post and putting it in here to move the discussion forward – a particular micro genre within the overall category of jazz scores that I call ‘baroque jazz melancholy’ (although not as micro as Dr. Jacoby’s religious jazz rock scores from the 70s):
“There is one particular “sound” I really love; what I call “baroque jazz melancholy”. This is an almost classical tune with a jazz undercurrent or backbeat and with a minor-moded melody to go.
Examples include the “Main Title” from THE EIGER SANCTION or “Main Title” and “Rickard Escapes” from THE LAST RUN. If there’s a harpschicord that goes with it, even better.
Do you know what I’m talking about? Any other examples of this?”
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.