Jrr film music ...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Alyn has requested suggestions for jazz related film music/jazz on film.

Chance to get some Barney Wilen played..."Laisons Dangereuses", Art Blakey 1959. Or Barney's "French Movie Themes", or just as hip French, Martial Solal's themes for "Breathless".

BN.

And who could forget Elmo Hope's cameo in "Carry on Camping." Great bit where Babs leans over the piano and whispers, "play Barfly dadio"

[PUSB]

Alyn has requested suggestions for jazz related film music/jazz on film.

Chance to get some Barney Wilen played..."Laisons Dangereuses", Art Blakey 1959. Or Barney's "French Movie Themes", or just as hip French, Martial Solal's themes for "Breathless".

BN.

And who could forget Elmo Hope's cameo in "Carry on Camping." Great bit where Babs leans over the piano and whispers, "play Barfly dadio"

Lift to the Scaffold is a great one.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Totally agree with that...Miles and Le Barney.

Others...."Who's Crazy"...Ornette Coleman.

"No place to hide"....Dizzy Reece

"Mutiny on the Buses IV"....Keith Jarrett.


BN.

And...Gene Krupa/Roy Eldridge, "Drum / 'Matchbox' Boogie" in "Ball of Fire" with Barbara Stanwych (1941)....corny as hell but just fkg glorious! Krupa, the original Jerry Lee Lewis!

[clive heath]

"Jazz on a Summer's Day" was mentioned recently a propos Anita O'Day but you've got Mahalia, "Train and the River" etc.

"Anatomy of a Murder" score from the Duke

....and more Newport Festival fun and games in "High Society"............"End of Story!"

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

beatnix

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Calum, a dire film of the dipsy beats, even The novel is nonsense, but with Art Pepper et Gerry Mulligan on the track? It's on Utube. One not to miss for the beat angst and laughs.

"I want to live"...great score by Mulligan. Two great albums worth.

"Paris Blues" ...Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and the Basie et Ellington bands? Rubbish film about junk, but 60s Paris is just gorgeous.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Herbie Hancock's music for Antonioni's 1966 "Blow Up" - longest track on the LP about 4 minutes, but some great playing from, Freddie Hubbard, Alan Skidmore and Joe Henderson among others - Ian Carr was called in but not featured on the movie - though the Yardbirds were.

Herbie was not happy with the use of his music - excerpts!! - until Antonioni advised him to see how it fitted the ambience. Maryon Park, in Charlton, where the "murder" takes place, is a sort of shrine to me: sadly the Victorian terraces with the corner antique shop are long gone; the "magic" game of tennis at the end is performed by the Lindsay Kemp Mime Troupe - must remember to check for David Bowie in that lot next time I watch my VCR.

[Jazzrook]

How about Ornette Coleman's beautiful 'Intersong' from the Howard Shore/Coleman soundtrack to David Cronenberg's film of William S. Burroughs' book 'The Naked Lunch'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEh-haqgd_k

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well a film jazz prog would be great eh?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Timing! Picked up the music from Spike Lee's,"Mo Better Blues" in my charity shop for 50p this morning! Branford Marsalis, Kirkland, Blanchard et al. Hope they paid Miles et Wayne well for the rip off.

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

terrific Miles & John Lee Hooker score on the Hot Spot

if only they played like that back in the Flamingo eh....

not to mention Sait-On Jamais and Odds Against Tomorrow two great scores by John Lewis for movies

have a hip heat wave jazbos

[Ian Thumwood]

One element that has only been touched upon is the success at combining musical scores with the film. As has been alluded to, I think that the films tend to fall in to two categories, namely films where the subject is about jazz (such as "Jazz on a summer's day" ) or atleast feature a scene with a jazz club and those films where there is a jazz score to a film about another subject. The prime example of the latter being the brilliant "Lift to the scaffold" - the plot of which seems amazingly ahead of it's time in it's sophistication. In many of the examples of the latter, there is a major gulf between the quality of the music and the film. Running through the examples, I would have to say that something like "The hot spot" would have been forgotten other than for the unusal pairing of John lee Hooker and Miles Davis - both way past their prime. I have seen "Mo' better Blues" for years but would guess that this probably hasn't aged too well. Curious to read Bluesnik's dismissal of Terrance Blanchard as the film scores I've heard him write are far better than the music he has produced in a more orthodox jazz vein. I'd love to see Robert Altman's "Kansas city" but have never encountered this film. The same goes for the HBO series "Broadwalk Empire" which is supposed to feature Vince Gordiano's Nighthawks playing big band charts from the 1920's. Another film I'd like to see for it's soundtrack is "Oh Brother were art thou" which includes a lot of blues from the 1930's. Surprised that no one has mentioned "Good night and good luck" as well as "L.A. Confidential."

As a rule, I am not too fussed by old films but there are some examples where I think the director has acheived something that has stood the test of time. From a jazz point of view, the obvious exmaple is "Some like it hot" which I think is terrific and has some excellent "in" jokes within in. I'm afraid that I wouldn't class the over-rated "Breathless" in this category - it's like a student film and the improvised nature of the film looks very dodgy after 60 years. French cinema has produced some far more original films (especially in the last ten years) but "Breathless" doesn't really stand up even if the music is pretty good. Basically, I think it's pretentious shite that looks like whatever script there was was produced by a monkey with a crayon. From this era, one of the best musical writer for films was Krystof Komeda whose name hasn't been mentioned and someone whose music also stands up on it's own merit away from the cinema. That said, I think his fellow country man Zbigniew Preisner's score for "Three colours:Blue" is probably the epitome of wiritng for film. The music is actually a character in this film albeit the score has nothing to do with jazz. Another very good example is Fritz lang's "Metropolis" which was recently re-united with the original score and that proved to be extremely powerful indeed. The other great example is "Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn which employed a score by Korngold. This is still the best Robin Hood film.

The other odd thing is how the usual suspects always get listed when this topic is introduced and whereas there are hundreds of examples where a snappy jazz number might appear in the most unexpected place in a film. Off the top of my head, I would have to include Pixar's "Monsters, Inc" and the amusing intro to "Hors de prix." You could also include the James Bond film "Live and let die" too.

Finally, I think that it is also worth noting just how many jazz musicians have written new scores for old, silent films. The two most obvious examples are Bill Frisell and Dave Douglas who was running a band called "Keystone" especially for this purpose. I've got a couple of their discs , the pick of them being "Spark of being" which was used in the re-working of the "Frankenstein" story - another frequently made film albeit one that is screaming out for a version that is faithful to the book. Some of Frisell's music has cropped up on specific discs too but I think his best album os "Quartet" which combines a few numbers written for silent films as well as a soundtrack for a film of Gsry Larssen's excellent "Far Side" cartoons. For me, this was one of the greatest albums of the 1990's and Frisell has never matched it. I love the mixture of contemporary and Adrian Rollini as well as the memorable themese. Worth checking out if it is still available.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

............... a bout de s ......

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

IAN, Godards Bout de Souffle is "student shitte"? Really, er not like it totally changed the how why, method, technique, production and style of how films are made? Hey stick to Carry on up the Kyber, your fkng comfort zone, Monkey Boy.

Mo Better Blues is a crock of racist idiot shit with a soundtrack to match. "Theolonious Monk, he's the Melodious Punk"...c. Branford Marsalis et al. Jazz for style wankers, hey, wonder who'ld really really like that around here?

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Seriously, I think it is extremely over-rated although I grant you that it was a marked difference to the unoriginal stuff produced by Hollywood. I don't really care for films which are too mainstream but just because the director is taking a risk, doesn't make the films masterpieces. I was hugely disappointed when I watched this. "Lift to the scaffold " is much better and even something like "La bete humaine" was more enjoyable. I can appreciate how it influenced the likes of Tarrantino but I don't rate his films either. As somone who loves French cinema, I don't rate Godard as a director anywhere nearly as much as someone like Agnes Jaoui who I think is a genius. This is probably a generation thing as I'm not too fussed about old films. ("Les goutes des autres" also includes repeated use of Pat Metheny's "Au lait." )

For me, a lot of the "Nouvelle vague" stuff is as much of it's time as John Wayne westerns. I'm not saying that they are all bad but "Breathless" did not live up to it's reputation as a piece of cinema. For what it is worth, not a fan of "Carry on" films even if I quite like comedies from time to time. Much prefer something like "Ted."