August 20, 2018

  • Andrew Powell's score for "Rocket Gibralter" Appears

     

    Andrew Powell is more familiar to pop music fans as one of the members and arrangers of The Alan Parsons Project.  This was a different direction than the start of his career performing with a number of symphony orchestras.  His composition studies included work with some of the more avant-garde composer of the day: Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gyorgi Ligeti.  He would be involved in the progressive rock scene which led to his mostly popular music career working as a producer on a host of important albums through the 1980s and 1990s.  His film scoring work focuses on two scores from the 1980s. Ladyhawke (1985) appeared on a La-La Land limited edition in 2015.  That was a certainly more high-profile film than his second score, the more intimate Rocket Gibralter (1988) now available on this new Intrada release.

    Daniel Petrie’s (A Raisin in the Sun, Fort Apache the Bronx, Cocoon: The Return) intimate family drama focuses on a septuagenarian, Levi, played by Burt Lancaster, and his family that is gathering for his latest birthday.  Each of the adult children’s own issues and problems keep them focused more on themselves while the grandchildren seem to pick up on something significant about to happen.  Among a fairly strong cast, is a young Macauley Culkin in his debut feature film role.  In a story that might have become more macabre or bizarre, the audience is able to view the events closer to the eyes of the children.

    The “Opening Titles” invite us into a simple, and reflective world.  It is beautifully scored with an opening harp idea that provides a bit of support for a flute motif which is answered with a warm cello line.  The melody is developed with delightful orchestral colors that allows for a mix of melancholy, warmth, and hope.  This gives way to an 1980s soft-rock sound of gentle keyboard thematic presentation which firmly dates us in “contemporary” mode (“Crow’s Voodoo Curveball is Back”).  There are many delightful little moments like the use of flutes in “The Grandchildren Cycle to the Beach” which creates a light moment of innocence which will become an important motif.  The music for Levi and the grandchildren is really some quite beautiful music with delicate wind colors and to the emotional narrative flow.  There is also good forward energy to add a sense of joy and excitement in places like “Fixing Up Rocket Gibralter.”  “Levi and Blues Lunch” has some nice acoustic guitar work in a more contemporary musical style.  For the more serious moments, Powell explores some slight string dissonance (“How Long Have I Got Hank”; “Levi’s Death”).  The final moments of the score feature some of the more dramatic and tension-filled moments with an almost Herrmann-like cue in “Taking Levi to Rocket Gibralter”.  These lead us to the musical support that builds toward the final Viking funeral.  In this way, the score demonstrates a set of three distinct stylistic approaches from the warm, nostalgic thematic ideas for Levi and the grandchildren, the more pop urban cues, and the final push of dramatic writing that is decidedly different in the final third of the score.  All of this comes to the fore in the final sequence and moving finale, “Preparing the Pyre/Chase Across the Beach/Levi’s Viking Funeral.”

    The primary score presentation runs 38 minutes with an additional 10 cues of alternate material.  The thematic ideas here are engaging and the blend of pop and orchestral musical development works well.  The music certainly does a bit of pulling at the heartstrings without being too maudlin.  Rocket Gibralter is a wonderful little score the likes of which one hears and then wishes for a score release.  Intrada has made that possible for those who may have been touched by this film in their own childhood.  It is worth noting that the recording of the two different ensembles is somewhat noticeable here as it shifts between the two.  The music is filled with wonderful orchestral writing, thematic ideas that linger, and a sense of nostalgia and love that make the score quite engaging.  The shift in the final third allows Powell to demonstrate a variety of dramatic and intense underscoring work that reveals more of his skill as a composer, already apparent from his handling of the various solos and orchestral colors.  Like many good scores, it will have you wanting to take a look at this little late-80s independent film.

    Intrada is releasing this as a limited edition of 500 units:  www.intrada.com.