Trevor Jones
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A fascinating career trajectory he’s had: “Hot stuff” in the 80s and 90s –> dwindles away in the 2000s –> retires from Hollywood –> moves back to Cape Town in South Africa to initiate various education programmes in his home city.
Always been a fan, ever since the massive crossover hit LAST OF THE MOHICANS (which remains my favourite). Have 12 of his scores. Was glad when he made a “comeback” of sorts with his son’s film TO TOKYO in 2018.
Any thoughts on Jones?
He was never in the top league but I like him a lot. The “Muppets” films like LABYRINTH or DARK CRYSTAL, RUNAWAY TRAIN or stuff like CLEOPATRA. I have a soft spot for ARACHNOPHOBIA.
His bits of MOHICANS were the best part – that battle trakc is great – of this “style clash” score (which I find a missed opportunity somehow…). I have a problem with him that I often find thte theme nice but is is then repeated too often without much variations and tthe rest of the scores feel a bit static. I had this issue especially with CLIFFHANGER. That and MOHICANS I are indeed some of the few CDs I sold several years ago. Of course neverthess I regret it now 😉
I absorbed his score for Dark Crystal. The way all the character themes sounded like sharing the same melodic DNA is something that later Howard Shore also did for The Lord of the Rings. But Jones was earlier doing this for a fantasy world. Really liked this.
Never had that feeling about one of Jones scores again.
Yeah, his Angel Heart score was interesting atmospheric and so.Then I was triggered again by his Dark City score. But I liked it much better in the movie than on record.
From Hell worked quite fine on album, too.But there was no Dark Crystal anymore. Mohicans never did much for me.
I like him, not sure I have 10 or more of his albums though. Trevor Jones was a name I recognized from my earliest days of film score collecting (he was listed as composer for EXCALIBUR, though comparatively little of his music remained in the film, it was almost all Wagner and a selection by Orff), though it took a while before anything by him entered into my collection.
CLIFFHANGER may be my favorite Trevor Jones score, a gorgeous action score, an enjoyable listen from beginning to end.Famous case of a (nearly) rejected score. Nothing was officially released of it yet, right? I remember one re-recorded track of one of these Edel compilations.
I find it interesting that everyone here seems to have had a quite different Trevor Jones experience. Apart from Last of the Mohicans and Cliffhanger no score was mentioned twice.
I was never a big fan of CLIFFHANGER, to be honest, so I sold the CD years ago. Even if I have a nostalgic connection to the film. The LAST OF THE MOHICANS soundalike theme was actually the best part, I thought. Interestingly, I’m also no big fan of the “muppet scores” to LABYRINTH and THE DARK CRYSTAL, although I think the latter film is a bloody masterpiece. Something about the “whiney” themes there that grate on me, if that makes sense (it probably doesn’t).
I echo EXCALIBUR (although his medieval tropes play second fiddle to the Wagner), the propulsive RUNAWAY TRAIN, the sumptous DARK CITY and the Zimmer-like G.I. JANE.
Also shout-outs to less talked about works – NATE AND HAYES (great, rollicking adventure score), THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH (about the Amundsen/Scott polar race) and the warm CRISS CROSS with its THE DEER HUNTER-like main theme. And from his wind-down period in the 2000s – AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, LOCH NESS and AEGIS. The ‘comeback’ score that I mentioned earlier, TO TOKYO, is also quite beautiful.
Oh, and a funny thing with THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH: The cue “Heilberg’s Assault on the Glacier” was clearly temp tracked with The Alan Parsons Project’s “Gold Bug”, I think.
I echo EXCALIBUR (although his medieval tropes play second fiddle to the Wagner),
Wasn’t his Merlin score kind of a fan favourite? But nobody here mentioned it. So probably, no.
Yes, I do remember it being somewhat of a fan favourite. Never did that much for me, I’m afraid.
MISSISSIPPI BURNING was a great film – a favourite in my young years – but the music left no impact, alas. Same with ARACHNOPHOBIA, which I forgot to mention earlier. As someone who actually has arachnophobia, it definitely made an impact when I first watched it (I think in the theatre, although could be VHS). That scene with the spiders coming into the country via banana crates left me skeptical of bananas for years! But outside a track or two, I wasn’t that impressed with the score, so that’s another one I sold at some point.
By the way, it’s weird that G.I. JANE doesn’t have a commercial soundtrack release yet. What’s that all about? I have a bootleg, of course (there are several bootlegs around), which also includes suites from KISS OF DEATH, HIDEAWAY and SAVAGE ISLAND.
Well, there is an album of GI JANE with 20 minutes of score.
https://www.discogs.com/master/417363-Various-GI-Jane-Original-Soundtrack
God, you’re right. Forgot all about that! Unusual for me to forget OSTs, even if they’re «songtracks».
Wasn’t his Merlin score kind of a fan favourite?
Not sure, but MERLIN may have been my first Trevor Jones CD, I liked it, listened to it maybe two or three times, and that’s it. Not because I didn’t like it, but just never got around to playing it again. Never saw the Hallmark series either, and probably never will. I enjoyed that the score was mostly long cues, and as far as I remember, it was a good score well recorded; the sound quality was excellent, but I have not listened to it in at least 25 years, which is why I considered it but did not mention it.
I’ve never liked LAST OF THE MOHICANS as much as most (I like it, and I like it more now than I did when the movie originally came out), I find CLIFFHANGER a by far, far more satisfying musical composition.
LAST OF THE MOHICANS has a wonderful sweeping theme… but that’s it. Whereas CLIFFHANGER has a wonderful sweeping theme, fully developed and integrated into a longer composition. So I was never that much of a fan of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, especially not when compared to CLIFFHANGER, which I find far more interesting. Musically, that is. As far as movies are concerned, LAST OF THE MOHICANS is the better of course.I have MERLIN as well and remember I liked it but haven’t listened to it for quite some time so memory faded about details (applies to 3/4 of the collection). I also saw the series although not my favorute Artus saga variation and even the follow up one.
In 2022, Jones received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cape Town. That’s about the latest news I have from him. There are some photos on this on his Facebook account.
I just received a press release that Trevor Jones is this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient at the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent.
Once again, that means I’m tempted to go, for the prospect of an interview. I haven’t met or interviewed him before. But again — money and health…
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