Where did the month of August go?  We've been busy here getting ready for our cross-country relocation which has taken up more time than one would think.  It is kind of that in between time when it feels like I have one foot here and one foot where we are heading (well, most of the time it is more like a toe!).  There were lots of things here for review which meant that took precedent over additional writing here too, so I apologize for folks who stop by here regularly...but maybe you were all on vacation too!

There were a couple of older releases that stood out for me in August.  The first of these was the 2-disc set from Silva of Shore's music for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  These are arrangements of highlights of this monumental score working out to about an hour and a half of music.  Surprisingly, this is one of the Prague orchestra's better film music surveys hitting the highlights (how they could chose is anyone's guess) that really makes one want to go back and rehear the complete versions of this music.  But like many of the CDs I have of Silva, the sound quality allows for much easier listening while traveling in the car giving you just enough of the score to whet your appetite for more.

I was asked to write for the website Music 4 Games this past summer.  It was a bit of an honor, though I must admit that I am not much of a gamer.  I do appreciate well-written music and this genre has its share of really good composers that are doing a lot for the large-scale of interactive playing.  EMI recently released a compilation of music from a variety of games on their disc Video Games Live that is really worth checking out for a broad survey of older and newer scores.  The styles range from Wendy Carlos' Tron to Giacchino and a host of other great music recorded mostly live (though undetectibly so) in great sounding and exciting performances.

I spent a good deal of my August acquainting myself with two massive 3-disc sets of music by Laurie Johnson imported from Edsel in the UK.  Go here for a complete review of Volume 1 (http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/The%20Avengers.htm) and here for one of Volume 2 (http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/The%20Professionals.htm).  These are posted on Roger Hall's Film Music Review site which is worth bookmarking if you have not done so yet!

Roger and I got to visit for the first time this month and to also trade CDs we had reviewed and did not want (much to the chagrin of our spouses!).  So I owe to Roger the acquisition of David Newman's Galaxy Quest score.  This is one of my favorite "bad" movies and Newman's score is a lot of fun as it goes through a lot of Goldsmith-ian motions to infer the Star Trek parody which this film aspires to create.  There are great themes and wonderful orchestral writing on this composer promo available from specialty on-line sites.

Finally, Label X made a return to the near horizon with the re-release (occasionaly expanded) of some of their back catalogue.  A personal favorite, Schifrin's The Four Musketeers was sent here for review and it is a great score combining a late Renaissance, early Baroque sensibility with occasional 20th Century string writing and hints of the composer's jazz heritage.  For my complete review, go here:  http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/TheFourMusketeers.htm.

Lots of older score music this month, I know.  It was a pretty slow month in August as is often the case but we soon enter the season of Oscar-bait with many sleeper scores finding their way to our players by mid-September.

There were also announcemnets for a massive third Film Score Monthly Box set from MGM (which I managed to snag after much soul searching) and a complete 3-disc Shaft release from the same source. Blazing Saddles made it to CD finally increasing the number of John Morris scores available to 3 (?!) and I hope to comment on that here soon. 

It's that busy time of the month again where lots of other duties take over being able to write here, so I apologize for those who check regularly.  It's been a fairly slow release month, though what has been released has been remarkable (like the now sold out Goldsmith Baby score).  Coming up next month will be Aleph Records lates Dirty Harry score release, Sudden Impact.

An interesting side discovery as we hear each successive score for the Dirty Harry series is that it gives us a glimpse at the changing world of film music.  By the 1980s, there were plenty of options available to accompany a film score, with a tendency towards an increase in electronically-produced sounds or incorporation of modern pop rock songs.  The full orchestral score still had its place but it was harder to find an instrumental sound that could be original and contemporary.  This was the fourth of the five film series, the third one scored by Lalo Schifrin (The Dead Pool would also be scored by Schifrin five years later).  It also picks up where Jerry Fielding’s fascinating score for the previous Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer left off.   

Schifrin’s approach in Sudden Impact was to continue the funky rhythmic drive of earlier parts of the series but the orchestral writing, often a little jazzier with a prominent sax sound, is more dissonant and explores splashes of atonal writing for dramatic emphasis (both on display in “Too Much Sugar”).  Fielding had done the same in The Enforcer tending to borrow a sound found in music by the likes of Penderecki or Lutoslawsky.  In some respects, Sudden Impact is a more nocturnal score that hints at the darker inner drive of its characters motivation before occasionally exploding into a brief action cue. 

Effects are incorporated as well into parts of the score, beginning with the “Main Title” music.  And Schifrin revisits the sort of calliope music heard in Rollercoaster in “Remembering Terror.”  Thematic ideas for Dirty Harry and Sondra Locke’s murderous character, Jennifer Spencer, serve to connect the score together more as well.  The variety of musical styles explored here moves from avant-garde 20^th century styles, through an updated funk style, to lyric jazz thematic statements—a far more disturbing score for a darker film.  Schifrin integrates many of these styles within single tracks on this disc maintaining a dramatic continuity that is fascinating to hear since it seems almost effortless.  You can hear this especially in the “Remembering Terror” track where we move through a variety of musical styles in its near 7-minute playing time including a hard rock segment.  Schifrin uses electronic ideas as well in this score as a layered idea alongside the orchestral writing.  Some of the score is reminiscent of 1970s/1980s television crime dramas with a bit larger musical force.

As has been true of other historic Aleph releases, this one features a fine booklet essay.  The music has all been remixed and remastered from the original multi-track recordings.  Fans will realize that there are longer cue segments here that have been restored as well.   An alternate “Main Title” fills out the disc.  The disparate musical elements may not be appreciated by all listeners who wish a choice to be made between an orchestral or purely pop score, but this tension is precisely indicative of the period and Sudden Impact becomes a score that allows us to hear how great film composers were trying to solve this shift in music.  Oddly, though I enjoyed the Fielding score a lot more--perhaps a sign of my own growing frustration with the way much film music seemed headed in the mid-1980s than any reflection on this otherwise superb score.