Graham Watt
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Goldsmith! I think I have more CDs of his than by any other composer. THE OMEN was one of the first LPs I ever bought, and therafter it was incredibly exciting to come across copies (in brick and mortar stores) of PAPILLON, THE WIND AND THE LION etc etc. These were years when I just absorbed the music without trying to intellectualise it, or worse, go in warily beforehand due to cynicism. They were incredibly exciting times, and a lot of it was to do with my age.
But now, “dulled and prosaic with the poison of life” (H.P. Lovecraft must have been an absolute blast at parties), I see that my interest in his scores waned steadily after the early ’80s. That was a long time ago. I loved all the note-crunching he did from the late ’50s through to around 1982, but I found his music “decreasingly interesting”. That’s the thing I loved about those long, early decades – his music was often startling, and genuinely thrilling to listen to. And although I love POLTERGEIST, the three RAMBO scores and THE RUSSIA HOUSE, I found that his music was both too sentimental and simple. One review of the WARLOCK soundtrack has stuck with me. I can’t remember who wrote this, but it went along the lines of, “I think I put more effort into listening to this than Goldsmith did in writing it”.
But he’ll always (I think) be in my top 3 just for all those amazing scores he did from… let’s narrow it down… around 1963 to 1979. Sixteen years with a 90% hit rate from me. That’s quite incredible.
Thanks, Malte! I conquered my fear and overcame the difficulty! That’s today. Tomorrow is another day, another challenge.
I may not even have The Kentuckian, although I may have kept it because the cover art reminded me of Marx Johnny West action figures. Were those sold in Scotland?
Doc, I’ve just checked SoundtrackCollector, and it seems that the Marx Johnny West action figures graced the cover of the old Preamble CD, which also included pieces by Newman, Friedhofer and Waxman. The “from my vinyl-collecting days”, Entr’acte LP had, I think the same content, but no Johnny West figures on the cover. I never picked those up, which suggests that they “weren’t” sold in Scotland – although perhaps they just weren’t widely available.
I kind of “thought I knew” that I had some selections from THE KENTUCKIAN in my collection, but it seems I don’t (didn’t). I must be remembering the theme “as taped off the telly” back in the day. I also recall watching the film. My dad had told me about a scene he loved, in which Burt Lancaster sprints across a shallow river to get at Walter Matthau, who is trying to load his gun.
One thing which initially put me off getting the Tribute Classics releases is that they almost always have a huge amount of tracks: THE KENTUCKIAN including WILLIAMSBURG has 72, although thankfully – if MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is anything to go by, it will probably play with hardly a break.
I still don’t see how to “copy” something which is longer than one line. When the blue-line mouse control trail comes to the end of the first line, it doesn’t carry on to the second line. I shall experiment with this very numbskull postage right ‘ere.
Am I getting the hang of it? I’m trembling in my slippers, for I have to face up to the wrath of the intimidating DOCTOR JACOBY now!
I still don’t see how to “copy” something which is longer than one line. When the blue-line mouse control trail comes to the end of the first line, it doesn’t carry on to the second line. I shall experiment with this very numbskull postage right ‘ere.
(Graham Watt, 450 BC)
I doidn’t press B-QUOTE at all there. At least I don’t think I did.
I still don’t see how to “copy” something which is longer than one line. When the blue-line mouse control trail comes to the end of the first line, it doesn’t carry on to the second line. I shall experiment with this very numbskull postage right ‘ere.
(Graham Watt, 450 BC)
Beginner’s query here – How do I quote parts of previous posts? I played around with the B-QUOTE thing for a few minutes, then gave up.
Did that work, Graham?
Beginner’s query here – How do I quote parts of previous posts? I played around with the B-QUOTE thing for a few minutes, then gave up.
Thanks, “Doc”! I understand.
Are there any Herrmanns that you don’t much care for? That question is for all of you. I think I already have “enough” Herrmanns, meaning that I have a nice “cross-section” of his body of work. As he’s very much “on/off hot/cold” with me, I feel I could live without more – although I’m still considering getting THE KENTUCKIAN at the end of the month, and will probably die before I really know if I would have liked THE BATTLE OF NERETVA (for example).
Dr. Jacoby, allow me to be so bold as to register “mild surprise” at your statement in which you single out Morricone as your “hands-down favorite (sic) film composer”. Correct me if I am being presumptious, but I imagine that you only really like Morricone 1967-’75, especially his psychedelic scores for gialli and Italian “erotica”. Now, I don’t know you, but based on the fact that you look a little bit like Russ Tamblyn in your photo (is that really you?), I just can’t imagine you “getting into” the trillions of “Spaghetti Westerns” that Morricone wrote, much less such “Hollywood mainstream fare” as THE UNTOUCHABLES. Russ himself adores “1960s counterculture rock, folk and experimental”.
Regarding Gerate’s comments about BENEATH THE 12-MILE REEF, I think the “wow” on the original FSM release was corrected in a later Kritzerland edition. That’s actually a score I love. I’d probably pick up the Kritzerland if it wasn’t so expensive. I haven’t listened to the FSM in a long time, though. Despite the “wow”, the overall sound quality never bothered me. I think in the early days of FSM we were just grateful to have the music, and accepted aural deficiencies much more readily than we would today.
I was a late developer when it came to buying soundtracks (with my pocket money, of course). The Phase 4 LPs were amongst the first LPs I ever bought, and I was already 13 or 14 years old. An enormous part of my (late) formative years. I think I knew all those suites note for note before I saw any of the films, and when I eventually did catch up with them, I wasn’t the only teen to think “They’re playing it too fast”! You know what I mean, I’m sure.
Over the years, his music kind of fell out of favour with me. I felt myself growing away from it for some reason, and I began to find some of my later LP acquisitions almost boring. There’s an LP of his library music for HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL (I think), which was like listening to paint dry. Having said that, some of his scores on LP and later CD are favourites of mine. OBSESSION was and is absolutely magnificent (the original LP prog – clumsy edits and all – not the full score) and I’ve “kind of” started getting back into his stuff, thanks largely to the re-recordings by Joel McNeely (I adore THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL), Bruce Broughton (JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS – tremendous) and the Tribute Classics releases, which I only happened upon recently. Of those, I have (and love) MYSTERIOUS ISLAND and FAHRENHEIT 451/ THE TWILIGHT ZONE: WALKING DISTANCE), and I feel compelled to add THE KENTUCKIAN to my collection, perhaps by the end of this month.
So, when I only had music by Bernard Herrmann and Miklós Rózsa in my collection, they were my two favourite composers. Rózsa might now still be very high, around Number 5. I’m not sure if Herrmann would now be in my Top 10, but some of his scores would.
STAR TREK (TOS) was a huge part of my childhood, although my first memories of it are probably not from its original run. Maybe Season 3, but not Season 1. I lapped them all up on their multiple BBC repeats (remember “Holiday Star Trek” during the school holidays, Brits)? I loved everything about it, and when my wife got me the box set of the original scores… well, I’m so lucky to have married her.
I didn’t like any of the films or scores as much as I loved even “Spock’s Brain”. I think I appreciated the first film, because it seemed to be an attempt to do “serious” SF, and that was one of the many things that people hold against it. Whatever, it wasn’t true to the spirit of the TV show, whereas STAR TREK II was. I enjoyed that film back then, not so much nowadays. STAR TREK V I found to be absolutely atrocious, and I checked out after that.
THE ORIGINAL SERIES music, as a whole gets 10 outta 10 from me.
The Goldsmith scores get an 8 outta 10.
The Horner scores get a 7 outta 10.
The “oddball” Rosenman score gets a 7 too.Off the top of my head, I don’t think Haskell was involved with COMA. Wasn’t the Love Theme Goldsmith’s own arrangement? I think the Disco piece was by Don Peake.
Harping on about EARTHQUAKE a bit more, I notice that Jimmie Haskell is credited, among others, as “arranger”. Does that mean that the re-recording wasn’t all Williams’ work? It is “known” that he conducted it all, but listen to some of the lovely fleshed-out/beefed-up themes. They almost sound like what Haskell did to Goldsmith’s “Love Theme From LOGAN’S RUN. I think we ought to know more about that kind of thing.
Really, Thor? You surprise me. I’m fascinated by (in this case) John Williams’ thought process when figuring out how to beef up something as spare and atmospheric as EARTHQUAKE into the highly listenable album that was released at the time. Even Tim Greiving wasn’t interested, although he did (I think) briefly touch on the issue when mentioning CHECKMATE .
I’m “almost” finished The John Williams Project. I think I have one or two of his compilations yet to play, and I actually don’t know offhand how many of his scores I have where he shares space with other composers (Amazing Stories comes to mind). So yes, I can now clearly say that he is indeed a great composer. But I knew that in 1974.
A little bit off-topic, but I was comparing the LP re-recording of EARTHQUAKE yesterday with the score tracks on the JW Disaster Movie box set, and I was… almost amazed at how much more elaborate the source cues are on the re-recording. I love “elevator music” anyway, and “easy listening” for posh restaurants, but the original score tracks play almost too authentically elevatorish/ posh restaurantish. The re-recordings really give the soloists (piano and flute) a workout – even if it’s not a “proper” jazz workout.
On the same (off)topic, we spoke about that Tim Greiving book in the last “Cheers” chat, and we agreed that he could have given more time to JW’s early TV work. Likewise – and I’ve just noticed this – he gives very little (if any) time to re-recordings such as EARTHQUAKE and THE EIGER SANCTION (to name two). And there are vast differences there, as you know.
And – before I go – I don’t think I’m a real completist of any composer (except GIL MELLË), but I’m about 80% with Williams, meaning his film work at least. I still would love to get (off the top of my head) DRACULA, THE FURY and JAWS 2, but what do you completists do with things you “like the least”? Buy them but never play them after the first listen? I have that dilemma, becuase I can easily get both A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN and JOHN GOLDFARB PLEASE COME HOME… but do I need them? A completist would obviously answer “yes”. But what about boring, sane people like me?
I personally hate the aforementioned BSX/DDR (tee hee) A.I. covers. I will purchase their new release of The Bionic Woman because one of the CD’s is by Fielding, but I almost grudge paying money for something that looks so anachronistic and hideous. The Fact that Ford Thaxton himself has says he doesn’t give a toss makes me even more unwilling to shell out… but I know (and he knows) that “we” will.
Hey Thor, that’s a nice playlist of FALL. Nevertheless, I surprise myself by finding that it needed no whittling. As I said before, it plays like a full-blown concert work. I wouldn’t jettison any tracks.
I’m kind of intrigued by the others on your list. Ignorance tells me that RED RIVER and DUEL IN THE SUN wouldn’t be to my taste, but a year ago I would have thought that of ROMAN EMPIRE.
In some ways I think I’m developing backwards (regressing?). I’ve also recently taken a renewed interest in Alfred Newman. There lies another topic.
Thanks for the comments so far, all. I put a similar question, specifically about THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, on the FSM Board, and MichaelM replied that “it’s wonderfully overblown”. Maybe the adverb “wonderfully” is what makes the difference between the pre-convert Tiomkin me and the post-convert me.
Last week – “Why don’t you like THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE?” “It’s overblown.”
This week – “Why do you like THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE?” “It’s wonderfully overblown. ”
Truth be told, I don’t think I’ll ever be a proper Tiomkin fan, but I amnow a fan of THE F OF THE R.E.
Hi Gerate (may I call you Gerate?) – JAWS: THE REVENGE came in with the latest batch just last week. I’v listened to it twice and it hasn’t grabbed me, not yet anyway, and I usually love Michael Small’s music. In this case I think he might have been the wrong man for the job. His talent was so immense that it seems wasted here. Between the Williams material, Small just seems to be filling space with not-very-interesting filler material. I might change my mind after I get to know it better, and of course you might love it, but so far I’m unimpressed and slightly disappointed.
Ach, ye’re such a hurdy gurdy wi’ yer footie, Kev. How do you know there’s even gonna be a next Zoom? Thor, when’s the next one?
Nice to see you all again. I missed quite a lot of it at the start, but enjoyed the rest of it. Apart from music, we touched on mass tourism and “auditors” on Facebook with their mobile phones. Or at least I did. Thanks for being there, all!
Is that like today, man? I suppose I wouldn’t mind seeing some of your ugly mugs again. What time is the bar open in English money? I’ll probably get roped into doing things against my will, like buying clothes (WTF?), but I’ll try to be there unless I get depressed and unsociable.
I’m sorry I missed it. In my favour, I didn’t know about it. In my contra, I could have at least kept up to date with this site. Hopefully I’ll see you at the next one.
The esteemed Dr Jacoby mentions BARBARELLA . That’s a good story he spinneth, and an even better LP. It also illustrates nicely what BUG is not. I challenge Dr Jacoby to stop by my Hoola Hoop ranch and identify BUG as being related to Bob Crewe and the Fox.
Regarding FORBIDDEN PLANET ,yes, “organised sound” is music and vice versa. I really enjoy the opening track to FANTASTIC VOYAGE , and that’s compiled from the Universal sound effects library.
