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It's like a jungle out there!
When I was a kid,I used to buy albums with film music on and I sometimes still do. However,when you listen to the actual score from a film,you felt really cheated about the standard of music on the compilation albums. For example,one of them had the music for Born Free and it sounded like the Andy Ross orchestra from Come Dancing.
I recently purchased - well a couple of years ago - a box set and was disgusted with it as I recognised none of the music from the said films.
However,there was one I bought years ago called Jarre On Jarre which the late great composer played his own music with the LSO (I think). It included Lawrence Of Arabia,Witness,A Passage To India,Ryan's Daughter,A Passage to India etc.
Ta Ta
Marky B
It's like a jungle out there!
Cover albums by Hugo Montenegro, Geoff Love, Chaquito (Johnny Gregory) and Roland Shaw are still brilliant to listen to.
Jack Parnell, Ray (Buttondown Brass) Davies and even Ronnie Aldrich also recorded some gems.
Blimey, yes, Geoff Love cover versions - I think I still have a number of LPS from Music For Pleasure (the late lamented Woolworths, I think) with Geoff and his orchestra. Roland Shaw too. Often handicapped by small orchestras, usually with no or a tiny string section, and lousy arrangements. Some so bad they're good!
Fuse's cover version of Lawrence of Arabia at the Arabian Fashion World London. Afterwards Rowan Atkinson read out the Sykes Picot Agreement to the captive audience.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IwlHYdlfoY&feature=related[/ame]
name='Gerald Lovell']Blimey, yes, Geoff Love cover versions - I think I still have a number of LPS from Music For Pleasure (the late lamented Woolworths, I think) with Geoff and his orchestra.
His Big Terror Movie Themes is a must. Splendid covers of the Death Wish and Three Days Of The Condor themes. In fact pretty much all of his albums are good.
Check out his work as Mandingo. Not film connected but absolutely brilliant.
name='Gerald Lovell']Blimey, yes, Geoff Love cover versions - I think I still have a number of LPS from Music For Pleasure (the late lamented Woolworths, I think) with Geoff and his orchestra.
I have quite a few of the Geoff Love albums and they are very good. I particularly like the War Movies one. I think that Geoff Love also recorded under the name Manuel and His Music of the Mountains.
I used to have an eight track cassette of Count Basie plays Bond that I
played in my old Hillman Imp many moons ago.
Sounds Incorporated's Bond covers are also well recommended. Ditto for the bizarre but excellent Penthouse Magazine Presents The Bedside Bond album (quite collectable today).
name='RogerThornhill']I think that Geoff Love also recorded under the name Manuel and His Music of the Mountains.
Sure did. His Mandingo work was a collaboration between himself and Norman Newell. African-based Shaft-style funk - and brilliant it is too.
name='vincenzo']Sounds Incorporated's Bond covers are also well recommended. Ditto for the bizarre but excellent Penthouse Magazine Presents The Bedside Bond album (quite collectable today).
Sure did. His Mandingo work was a collaboration between himself and Norman Newell. African-based Shaft-style funk - and brilliant it is too.
It's very good indeed, I think that my father had just about all of his albums.
The rock band 'ash' do a great cover of the music played by the alien 'rebo band' in the 'Mos eisley canteena' scenes in 'star wars' as a b side to one of their singles, i think the title is 'canteena band'?
Add me to the Geoff Love collectors club! Picked up quite a few of them on Long Player from various charity shops back in the day.name='RogerThornhill']I have quite a few of the Geoff Love albums and they are very good. I particularly like the War Movies one. I think that Geoff Love also recorded under the name Manuel and His Music of the Mountains.
David Arnold's Shaken Not Stirred album has some good covers -
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJNwZxY3h2Q[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maeELHysFPE[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fIsqetVctA[/ame]
Some of Geoff's gems can be revisited here (though I'd recommend passing on the Mrs Mills albums).
As a teenager (many years ago!) I too have very fond memeories of buying albums of TV and film music themes from the likes of Geoff Love, Roland Shaw (Decca Phase IV ?) and Jack Parnell I believe. I could not afford the original soundtracks so these budget albums had to suffice. They were great fun and introduced me to a wealth of film music that I would otherwise never have heard.
It also has to be said that in those days (late 60's, early 70's) soundtrack albums were much more difficult to get hold of than today, and many were simply unavailable. Shops like Woolworths however often stocked Geoff Love's albums on the MFP label, making them very easy to obtain. I remember being thrilled at getting the theme from "Airport 1975" on one of Geoff's albums and it was only many years later that I managed, by chance, to find the OST. I think "The Exucutioner" by Ron Goodwin was on the same album and remains, to this day, the only recording of this that is (was) commercially available.
Wouldn't it be great if EMI were to re-issue Geoff Love's film music albums on CD!
On a further note about Geoff Love, I remember being absolutely blown-away by his arrangement of 'The French Connection' theme on one of his albums. When, a few years ago, Film Score Monthly released the OST (by Don Ellis) I snapped it up thinking I was in for a treat. Inexplicably however, none of the tracks bore any resemblance to what I heard many years ago on that Geff Love album! I'm still puzzled about this.
Forty years ago, a fortnight before I ran Doctor Zhivago at the Plaza, we ran a nine minute colour short about the making of the film entitled Zhivago: Behind the Camera with David Lean. The music in the short was fantastic and I was really looking forward to running the film. Then, a week later, we had the trailer and that had the same spectacular music in it. I was so impressed, that I immediately went to a record shop and bought the Doctor Zhivago soundtrack LP. Upon playing it, however, I discovered that the music wasn't anywhere on the LP at all. "They must have left it off", I thought, feeling a bit cheated having paid over £2 for the LP. Well, the following week, the film itself arrived and I was amazed that the music wasn't anywhere in the film, either, not even in the overture; intermission or exit music. The score by Maurice Jarre wasn't very good at all and MGM must have realised this, so they had the music for the short and the trailer specially composed (or specially chosen) for the short and the trailer to make the film seem far better than it actually was. They certainly succeeded, as the short and the trailer made the film look like the best thing since sliced bred. I wonder if anyone else felt cheated at the time over this blatant deceit.
Of course, the short and the trailer had the usual "Somewhere My Love" and Russian dancing music in them, but they were dominated by this special music.
The big turning point for me was the release of the Charles Gerhardt Classic Film Scores series. It was overwhelming to at last have albums with magnificent music that actually resembled the original scores. I still have and treasure these albums.
name='Gerald Lovell' date='22 July 2010 - 03:30 PM' timestamp='1279809041' post='455009']
The big turning point for me was the release of the Charles Gerhardt Classic Film Scores series. It was overwhelming to at last have albums with magnificent music that actually resembled the original scores. I still have and treasure these albums.
Yes, Gerald, I have some of those as well...for Alfred Newman; Dimitri Tiomkin and Miklos Rozsa. Not only are they superb re-creations of the originals, but they have the added advantage of being in stereo.
An interesting point concerning cover versions of scores is that composers sometimes record their own cover versions. Take John Barry's 'Moviola' albums for example. The arrangements differ very significantly indeed from the original versions on most of the tracks. At the risk of incurring the wrath of devoted Barry fans I will say that I for one find the Silva Screen re-recordings to be far superior (in most cases) to Barry's own 'Moviola' recordings, which come across to me as being completely lacklustre and one-paced. I appreciate that they are essentially concert arrangements, but having been to two Barry concerts I can say that the live performances were infinitely superior to the drab ones on the Moviola albums.
Then there is the question of the 'film performance' of a score compared to the soundtrack album performance. As we know, the two can often be quite different performances with different orchestrations/arrangements. In the vast majority of cases both versions are conducted by the composer, so which performance should be regarded as the 'correct' definitive recording of the score, and which as a 'cover' version? I think that it depends on how one approaches soundtrack albums in general. Let me explain. Years ago, before the existance of home video, listening to a film soundtrack album at home was the closest one could get to re-experiencing the film. It wasn't JUST about liking the music - it had that extra dimension to it. In those days, where the soundtrack album differed from the actual music heard in the film was a source of great frustration to me. It just wasn't right! Why wasn't it the same as in the film?!! So in those days I would hve said without hesitation that the film recording of the score was the corect one and the soundtrack album, if it differed, was simply wrong. These days, with DVD, digital projectors or large screen TV's, surround sound etc. we can experience a film at home almost exactly as we did in the cinema. For me at least, the soundtrack album no longer serves as a momento of the film - it must justify itself on a purely musical level. So if the 'film performance' and 'album performance' are both available, as they increasingly are, then I make judgement in purely musical terms. Often I find that the album version is far more listenable than the film version away from the film, and therfore preferable to own. This is exactly the oppposite of my view all those years ago in the 70's! An interesting phenomenon I think.
name='PJL' date='22 July 2010 - 10:48 PM' timestamp='1279835282' post='455120']
An interesting point concerning cover versions of scores is that composers sometimes record their own cover versions. Take John Barry's 'Moviola' albums for example. The arrangements differ very significantly indeed from the original versions on most of the tracks. At the risk of incurring the wrath of devoted Barry fans I will say that I for one find the Silva Screen re-recordings to be far superior (in most cases) to Barry's own 'Moviola' recordings, which come across to me as being completely lacklustre and one-paced. I appreciate that they are essentially concert arrangements, but having been to two Barry concerts I can say that the live performances were infinitely superior to the drab ones on the Moviola albums.
Then there is the question of the 'film performance' of a score compared to the soundtrack album performance. As we know, the two can often be quite different performances with different orchestrations/arrangements. In the vast majority of cases both versions are conducted by the composer, so which performance should be regarded as the 'correct' definitive recording of the score, and which as a 'cover' version? I think that it depends on how one approaches soundtrack albums in general. Let me explain. Years ago, before the existance of home video, listening to a film soundtrack album at home was the closest one could get to re-experiencing the film. It wasn't JUST about liking the music - it had that extra dimension to it. In those days, where the soundtrack album differed from the actual music heard in the film was a source of great frustration to me. It just wasn't right! Why wasn't it the same as in the film?!! So in those days I would hve said without hesitation that the film recording of the score was the corect one and the soundtrack album, if it differed, was simply wrong. These days, with DVD, digital projectors or large screen TV's, surround sound etc. we can experience a film at home almost exactly as we did in the cinema. For me at least, the soundtrack album no longer serves as a momento of the film - it must justify itself on a purely musical level. So if the 'film performance' and 'album performance' are both available, as they increasingly are, then I make judgement in purely musical terms. Often I find that the album version is far more listenable than the film version away from the film, and therfore preferable to own. This is exactly the oppposite of my view all those years ago in the 70's! An interesting phenomenon I think.
You make interesting and valid points there, PJL. I agree very much with your opinion of the Moviola albums, which to me are dull, dull, dull.
On the differences between the film performance and the soundtrack album performance, a good example was the main title from Psycho. Even with Bernard Herrmann conducting, the tempo on the albums was always too slow compared to the film itself, but there are thankfully now a few re-recordings available at the "correct" tempo.
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