The little vacation at the beginning of the month and dearth of new hard copy releases made for a quiet June here.  A lot of soundtrack labels continue to provide access to digital versions of their releases.  I have not yet decided whether to review those here or not.  The main reason is that often the sound quality can be questionable and in some cases the releases are simply on-line re-issues of hard copy discs. 

That said, there are plenty of limited edition releases to get excited about the past few months and keeping up with them is almost a job in itself.  In case you have not heard yet, Robert Townson at Varese Sarabande celebrated his 1000th release by announcing that the label is releasing Alex North's score for Spartacus.  This is one of many holy grail scores for film music fans whi have had to settle for a meager representation on an old MCA CD.  Varese's new issue is a 6 disc plus DVD extravaganza in a limited pressing of 5000 copies.  One disc features existing stereo score material, two discs present the entire score albeit in mono, then there are extras and a disc entirely devoted to versions of the "Love Theme."  It starts shipping in August so look for that to be an easy "best of" selection if it arrives before that month is out.  No indication on the site if this is selling fast or not yet.

On the new score front there seems to be little to get excited about.  I've heard James Newton Howard's score for The Last Airbender and it feels semi-influenced by Zimmer's synth-score styling (so a lot like their last two Dark Knight collaborations).  Looking forward to hearing Howard Shore's Eclipse but I do suspect it will be much like a Shore suspense score.  Other than that, it feels like a lackluster dumping ground for films this summer.

In the midst of all this, a few choice selections worth looking for in the meantime are provided here.  First up is another limited edition from Varese.  For those of you older readers who remember how ecstatic we were to receive a 2-LP set of Star Wars music and a later hard-to-find CD boxed set of all the music, it must seem hard to believe that something as new as Giacchino's score for Star Trek received a new 2-disc "deluxe" treatment.  The limited edition (5000 copy) set is still claiming around 2000 or so copies available.  The music receives a fine presentation here in one of the composer's most engaging scores.  It gains a lot from hearing it here in what claims to be its entirety.  Some will be irritated at the glossy oversized cardboard presenation of the two discs but once you figure out how to put it in your music library you'll forget about it anyway.  All three of the first Star Trek Movies are now available in expanded editions we await those for IV, V, and VI plus all those Next Generation scores.  The release is available mostly at www.varesesarabande.com in their "Soundtrack Club" collection.  If your wallet is heavy you can grab this and the Spartacus release.

La-La Land released another late 1990's score this month.  This time it is Jerry Goldsmith's The Edge.  If you have not seen this David Mamet penned thriller it makes for a great movie night.  Fine performances from Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins are almost overshadowed by Bart the Bear's rampages--some of the scariest live-action bear footage you will likely see.  Goldsmith's score is superb and the presentation here expands on the Milan release while correcting some clicking issues that appeared on some pressings.  One of the composer's finest nature themes appears in this score along with some great action sequences. 

I picked up a few older releases this month as well.  Among them was John Addison's score for Torn Curtain. 

This appears as "out-of-print" but can be tracked down pretty easily.  Addison's score has a great main theme and

a fun little love theme.  It's a short CD coming from that era when many were still around 40 minutes in length but it

is a score worth having.

I've enjoyed Cliff Eidelman's music since his score for Star Trek VI and wish he could get himself some worthy

scoring projects.  His music for the little seen Steve Martin drama,  A Simple Twist of Fate features a truly

beautiful main theme that helps pull together this subdued score with many gentle moments of beauty.  It was a

welcome respite from the action and adventure music that made up a lot of my listening.  It's probably not one of

his "best" scores but continues to demonstrate that we should hear more from him.  Maybe someday we will when

we get away from all the cut and pasting scoring that seems to be the norm these days.

If you were a kid in the early 1970s (back when the studios had not recognized the marketing niche of children's

films) you likely grew up on re-issues of Don Knotts movies.  My favorite is The Ghost and Mr. Chicken-

always a perennial October film viewed in our home.  The score for that and nearly all of Knotts' comedy films

was by Vic Mizzy.  Mizzy is known mostly for his theme to the original "The Addams Family" series and for

"Green Acres."  By the 1960s he had alrady had a long career with a delightfully developed style of fun

orchestrations.  You can hear many of his scores through the great releases from Percepto.  A little sale helped fill

in my Mizzy collection with a two-score disc featuring music from two other films, one originally intended to be

scored by Henry Mancini.  The scores are for The Caper of the Golden Bulls and The Perils of Pauline. 

Fun melodies, essentially mono-thematic approach to scoring, and bubbly orchestrations with a little Spanish flair

in the first score make this a healthy dose of Mizzy's ability.  One of the great "Silver Age" composers deserving

your attention!

July will probably be a bit spotty for blog entries here so be patient and catch up on some great listening!

The 2009 Oscar Ceremony is still being reviewed everywhere, but I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Michael Giacchino on his first Oscar for Up.  I am still not sure why stars who can barely pronounce the titles of the films are sent out to mispronounce the names of the composers.  At least they did it with conviction--something they tell young radio announcers honing their skills at college classical music stations.

I'm not sure why contemporary dance is necessary to accompany music for film when they scores are chosen because of how they work in a film.  Surely it is now possible to perform a score segment live to picture during this telecast and let the music speak for itself which each of the nominated scores could easily have done.

I have been watching Giacchino's rise to Hollywood luck, because really that is what it takes sometimes, that must just be one wonderful ride for him.  In 2004, long before anyone even knew who Michael Giacchino was, I had a chance to write a review of his video game score for Secret Weapons Over Normandy for Film Score Monthly (I think it was January of that year).  Back then my first reaction was, "video game music, good grief what next."  But then I popped in the music from this La La Land release and was totally enthralled.  Giacchino had been writing for video games for a while so this was not necessarily his first or even best score necessaruly.  It was filled with plenty of martial Americana and my review commented on some of the similarities with his approach being similar to that of John Williams' military music.

At the time, Giacchino had taken over Pixar's The Incredibles.  Film music fans were quite frustrated that John Barry had been taken off the project.  From my 2004 review, [Giacchino's] break may be around the corner with next fall’s Pixar release of “The Incredibles.”...There is no doubt that here is a composer that can continue the tradition of Hollywood scoring that many have come to love through other Lucas and Spielberg films.  How prophetic that statement seems now 6 years later with one score after another continuing to impress fans even when the films themselves seem lackluster. 

The hope now is that he can break out of animated films more and work in some more serious fare that can further expand his musical horizons.  Hmmm..didn't we think the same over thirty years ago for another composer whose style is part of Giacchino's musical material?  Here's to more wonderful music making and a new year of potential great music from all the composers out there!