Film music fans may recall Terence Blanchard’s 1999 album, Jazz in Film for its interesting program of film themes treated to semi-improvisational noir-like musical explorations of music that had already a jazz-template from which to work.  This new release from Pirouet Records, Germany, takes its title from a Morricone score, Cinema Paradiso, and features tenor saxophonist Jason Seizer in an equally intriguing program whose jazz roots may be a little sketchier.  Seizer’s combo here features pianist Pablo Held with bassist Matthias Pichler and Fabian Arends on drums.  The arrangements are not credited here, but they do take a page from  the noir-like styles of Blanchard’s album with a Stan Getz-like style that suggests smoky backrooms.

This impression is set as the album begins with “Carlotta’s Portrait” from Herrmann’s Vertigo score.  Though a seeming unlikely candidate for improvisation, this is a rather convincing atmospheric take on the music.  The title track, from Morricone’s 1988 score, has a more relaxed approach that unfolds over almost 8 minutes of dreamy playing.  One of the marks of this album, and also why it is so interesting, is that Seizer has chosen some equally unique music alongside some of the more familiar pieces.  Among the former of these is Roque Banos’ score for The Machinist (2004) in the dark exploration of “Steve’s Care.”  The primary theme from On the Waterfront (1954) picks up the pace just slightly as the melody here allows for interesting interpretations and accents.

Stanley Myers’ beautiful “Cavatina” from The Deer Hunter undergoes a bit more deconstruction and re-emphasis of the familiar melody with interesting harmonic shifts and a chance for a central improvisational area for the combo.  Another unusual choice, but one perfectly suited for this setting is “Jungle Beat.”  This less familiar musical exploration from The Jungle Book might seem an unlikely first choice from George Bruns’ score, but it works very well here and allows for a slightly faster-paced interlude from the dreamier opening free jazz improvisational ideas.  The same approach also makes “Children’s Games” from Desplat’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a great jazz number again allowing perhaps greater room for flexibility in a lesser known film score.

The last two selections are worlds apart in their respective film’s genres, but much closer than one might think.  A double take was in order when reading the track listing to see Jerry Goldsmith’s “Alien Main Theme” as the penultimate track.  How would or could one translate this intriguing slowly unfolding melody to both make it recognizable but also allow room for Seizer’s exploration of the music.  Well, the result here is quite compelling as the harmonic ideas of Goldsmith’s theme are easily stripped down as elongated jazz harmonies.  His wavering melody works very well to launch into slight improvisational ideas and somehow the mysterious character of the music itself is not lost.  The choice of the “Love Theme” from Alex Noth’s Spartacus score then becomes all the better as parallels can be closely made in the way the same expanded harmonic palette created this rich melody.

Cinema Paradiso is not an album for film score purists.  But, Jason Seizer’s sensitive and languid approach to this music shows his own appreciation for their sources.  The result is some very fascinating musical interpretations perfect for unwinding after a late night at the movies.

Conductor David Firman leads this new Royal Philharmonic compilation from their Here Come the Classics series.  Firman has a long history of work in film music going back to the 1990s where he served as a keyboardists on scores such as Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Return of the Jedi and Batman.  For the present release, he has chosen a very interesting and diverse collection of great film music suites along with some lighter tuneful material.

Fans of Charles Gerhardt’s film music classics will recognize several of the suites included here.  Firman uses the same arrangements for Key Largo, The Lost Weekend, Wuthering Heights, and Captains Courageous.  The performances here are equally stellar with “Cathy’s Theme” being a wonderful presentation avoiding some of the cloying sweetness of some performances.  One really feels that Firman is moving through these suites not as a series of disconnected sequences, but as a more unified whole that makes transitions between different moments work very well here.  These more intense suites are balanced with film versions of lighter fare like Jarre’s “Rosy’s Theme” and “Adela’s Theme” from Ryan’s Daughter and A Passage to India respectively as well as Hadjidakas’ classic “Never On a Sunday.”  Roland Shaw’s arrangement of the latter keeps it from being a pops number entirely.  Victor Young’s “Call of the Faraway Hills” is perhaps the only “light” pops sounding track.

The really big surprises that come on this disc is a new recording of music from Rear Window.  This is Christopher Palmer’s five-movement suite that once was available on an old San Diego Pops release conducted by Lalo Schifrin.  The suite receives a fabulous performance here whose jazzier moments have an earlier balance in the selections from Bernstein’s Walk on the Wild Side.  The other “premiere” to disc is a six-movement “suite” from Goldsmith’s Chinatown.  (No arranger is given so this may be a published version by the composer.)  The suite is a series of shorter cues bookended by the main and end titles music.  The piece gives a great flavor for this score in about 8 minutes.  The performances are again superb.

It is somewhat hard to follow what the “theme” of the disc is as there seems to be a blend of Western music with some film noir-like scoring moments and a few popular tunes.  But, that aside, this is one of the best orchestral film compilations to come along in quite a while and is easily the best film music release from the RPO.  Film music recordings that focus on the music as music and not pops fodder are rare and this is one of those times when things come together very well.  One side note is that the recording level is a bit lower which is not a problem for average stereo systems but might make it less of a drive CD (as it has a more classical recording approach).