Fans of Lalo Schifrin’s music will be delighted to hear that Aleph Records will be releasing his score for Enter the Dragon.  Released in 1973 at the height of the composer’s most popular scores, the film is most noted for being martial arts expert Bruce Lee’s final film as well as the first film of its type produced by Americans.  The score has always been a highly sought after item and at one point was available in a special collector’s edition through Warner Home Video.  Now, the score is being issued on its own.  Though more recent listeners are familiar with Schifrin’s Rush Hour scores, this first exploration of Chinese motifs by the composer was the first and is an iconic, and cult music, favorite.

The variety of percussion instruments creates the perfect atmosphere for the opening “Prologue—The First Fight”.  What makes the score such a great example of the period is that the elements of faux-Asian music is set alongside the sort of big brass action music (“Su-Lin”) that Schifrin was using in films like Bullitt and this “cool” urban atmosphere is what takes over the “Main Titles” so deliciously (an alternate main title closes off the disc as well).  The 1970s’ style of action scoring is thus set against Schifrin’s thematic ideas as the score unfolds.  The striking Asian music ideas, like those that open “Han’s Island” or “The Banquet”, might be otherwise overlooked if it were not for how unique they were in American cinema at the time and that Schifrin captures this sound while also incorporating urban and jazz musical backdrops (“Headset Jazz”), and his personal action music style further reminds the listener as to why this is such a fan favorite.  There are also some interesting effects (as in “Goodbye Oharra”) that add further eeriness to the music.

The Aleph CD uses the same order that appeared in that earlier CD, but adds and additional track, “Theme from Enter the Dragon”—adding another 2 minutes to the earlier releases playing time.  It also reprints Jon Burlingame’s essay, though with bigger print and spread over a few more pages, though these feature few movie stills.  The sound is excellent in what looks like a repressing of the 1996 remastering.

July was a bit of a slow month in some respects but managed to allow some catching up time with great music.  I'd like to just point out 5 new releases that arrived last month that are worth your attention.

Two of the recommendations will be reviewed in the next couple of weeks.  The first of these is a new Naxos CD of Borodin's three symphonies.  Borodin's second symphony is a really good work.  My first exposure to it was on one of those old Ernst Ansermet LPs and was a personal favorite.  The first symphony has a few great melodies as well and will be interesting to fans of the 19th century symphony.  The performances are with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony who have been making a real impressive return to CDs after the dissapearance of Delos and their amazing American music series.  The review is forthcoming.

Having returned to the Midwest, it has been a reminder of the superior quality of wind band music.  There are many concert wind ensembles around with high schools and community colleges filling in even more with great music making in this tradition.  I will be highlighting next week a new release from the Altissimo label (received in July) called The Golden Age of the Concert Band.  This is a must have release for anyone who ever played in a wind ensemble.  The performances are from the Langley USAF Heritage of America band and features a classic repertoire of classical transcriptions, marches, and solo works in the closest you can get to recreating a band concert.  There are European and American marches, the most familiar being "Americans We" by Henry Fillmore.  Regular readers will recall the three-day American music overview last month, and this disc will give you a window on early 20th Century band music.  My bet is that most people will have played about a third of these selections at least.  Our military performance groups are simply some of the best ensembles you will likely hear and this one is fantastic.

In a completely different vein, there were two score releases of 1970s music to appreciate last month as well.  The first of these is from 1971 featuring a score by Lalo Schifrin, Pretty Maids All in a Row.  The Film Score Monthly Release is another of their fine remasterings with great booklet commentary.  The music is like discovering a lost Schifrin pop album similar to the ones he worked on in the 1960s due to the amount of source music in the score.  There is also a relatively awful song, "Chilly Winds," that some may remember from a recording made by The Osmonds!  The film was the first film feature written and produced by Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) and the result is a film that seems way out of its time with its sexual thrust helmed by Roger Vadim (Barbarella).  The music though will likely be a guilty pleasure to Schifrin fans.  This is a limited edition of 1500 copies (available through www.intrada.com or www.screenarchives.com).

The other score is from 1976.  The Moneychangers was an Alex Hailey novel that the author hoped to sell as a feature film.  Instead, after the success of other mini-series on TV, it was turned into a multi-episode movie.  The score is by Henry Mancini and the music was essentially thought lost until Intrada, the producer of the release, connected inadvertently with one of the session musicians who had recordings of the sessions.  The result is an amazing two-disc set of mid-1970s Mancini which allows for some of that carryover instrumental pop and more serious dramatic cues.  It may not quite be The Thorn Birds in terms of the catchiness of its melodic content, but its plays quite well on its own here.  Mancini fans may recall that the theme for the series appeared on one of Mancini's 1970s albums of TV/Film music.   The Intrada release is also a limited edition worth tracking down.

Finally, I don't get many Kritzerland releases, a label devoted to classic Broadway and sometimes more esoteric film music.  For a while, they were releasing MGM discs as single re-issues that had earlier appeared in sold out limited FSM box set.  But there are always plenty of fascinating surprises.  One of these is a recent limited edition of two 1950s scores:  The Pride and the Passion and Kings Go Forth.  The former is by George Antheil and is worth the price of the disc alone.  Antheil grabbed the attention of the American musical public in the 1920s with his avant-garde musical style that incorporated everyday sounds (like police sirens) into non-traditional sounding music with jazz-like syncopations.  His film music comes from much later in his life and is woefully underrepresented (as is his other symphonic music in a more Neo-Romantic style).  The Pride and the Passion appeared as a Capitol records release at the time of the film.  The score has great themes, and plenty of interesting writing that recalls Antheil's personal harmonic style within the context of 1950s Hollywood dramatic writing.  The music has a Spanish flavor (recalling scores like Captain from Castile) especially in a wonderful "Bolero." It overshadows another fine score by Elmer Bernstein, Kings Go Forth.  Bernstein's score comes at a particularly productive time for him and this score for a military drama still has the 1950s dramatic style of Newman about it coupled with a few jazz sequences that make it a rather unusual score.  Both scores appeared in the UK as separate releases.  Kritzerland recordings are available at the above links.  Honestly, this is the one CD that spent most of the month in my CD player when it arrived.  It's a limited edition so with luck you can still pick up a copy.