Film Score Friday 10/23/98

by Lukas Kendall

Tomorrow at Creatures Features in Burbank is a publishing party for a new book by Stephen Cox on the Addams Family, titled The Addams Chronicles, and composer Vic Mizzy will be among the guests. Also scheduled are Lisa Loring (the original Wednesday Addams) and Felix Silla (original Cousin Itt). They plan on hooking up a keyboard for Vic to play on. Stop by from 1 to 3PM - Creature Features, 1802 W Olive Ave, Burbank; 818-842-9382. (Next week, on Halloween, 12 to 2PM, Christopher Lee will make a rare personal appearance to sign copies of his latest CD, Devils, Rogues & Other Villains, on which he sings classic opera and other musical numbers.)

About the Goldsmith concert at Carnegie Hall, Gary Radovich reports that Newsday did give the concert a good review: "This newspaper has run a series of soundtrack reviews in recent months and was the only New York daily paper to even review the concert, that I know of."

The World Series is now over (already - as an non-rooting observer, how boring), but composer Larry Groupe contributed the arrangement of the national anthem which Trisha Yearwood performed (with the San Diego Symphony) to open game three.

Superman City

Man, we're getting more and more reactions to the new Superman recording by Varese. We'll print more letters on Monday.

To conclude the discussion on the "other" John Williamses out there, a few people wrote in to echo the following, in response to yesterday's column:

From: Scott Hanson <srh@shore.net>

The Johnny Williams that Robert Berens referred to as drummer for the Raymond Scott Quintette in the late 1930's, is John Williams the film composer's father. His name was John F. Williams so John Towner (our composer) is not actually "Jr". It's interesting to note that John F.'s other sons Donald and Jerry are also drummers and play in just about every session for their brother John. This and other JW family history and info in various places on the site.

It may also be interesting to point out that the classical guitarist John Williams has a John Williams the film composer piece performed on one of his albums. It's the Schindler's List Theme on "John Williams Plays the Movies", and pretty nicely played too.

As far as all the Superman responses, you are welcome to read (and use on the site if you're interested) the article I've written up on my site about everything that's been happening with the Superman score in the past eight months as well as look at Mark Leneker's in-depth review for the new recording.

Check out Scott's site at http://www.classicalrecordings.com/johnwilliams

Also, a few people are having problems finding this new album:

From: Robert Baum, cnm@pond.com

I have gone to a few stores and found that the new recording of Superman is not on their shelves. Perhaps it is only available in some parts of the country. Could someone please tell me its availability? Does anyone know of any suburban Philadelphia, PA stores where it might be avilable? I checked a local Tower Records and was told it was not available.

This is weird, but so is record distribution. I remember when the 4CD box set to the Star Wars Trilogy came out in November 1993, and the biggest comment about it online was "Where can I buy it?" Remember, you can always try the specialty stores.

Need a Book

From: karen kocher <kkocher@swbell.net>

I am teaching a class in editing video at UT Austin. I am looking for an article or book that could guide students on how to work with composers to score films and videos. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

I am looking for written material or even an article that would tell first time filmmakers either documentary or narrative how to talk to and or work with a composer i.e.-the best languaage to use in communicating with a musician AND also, in terms of editing the music into the finished piece, aesthetic guidelines for doing this.

This is a course for people who are not beginners, but who are doing their first substantial piece of work.

Karen and I exchanged emails and I was unable to think of a book exactly to suit her needs. If anyone can pin this down, please write her, or me. There are so many books about film music now, but I couldn't think of one exactly for this purpose. Thanks!

Who Reads FSM?

From: Bill Cleveland <clevelan@roanoke.infi.net>

I doubt that you can answer this (due to rights of privacy), but maybe you can! Do you have anyone famous as a subscriber to FSM, and if so, who are they? AW, c'mon! Well, if you can't tell us that, at least tell us what the current circulation is!

Not only can I tell you the circulation, but under postal regulations (we mail periodicals rate), I have to! There's one of those "Statement of Ownerships" in the upcoming Oct/Nov (combined) issue - you know, like the things that used to take up a corner of the "letters page" of comic books once a year. The gist of it is that we've been printing 6,000 copies of each issue lately, and next issue, we're actually printing 8,000, which is a lot for us.

Famous people? Offhand I don't think so. We do have a lot of composers who subscribe, and people at studios. Maybe some writers, directors, etc. I don't know who buys it at newsstands who might be famous. Sorry!

Those Short CDs

From: KBusby2256@aol.com

Hello. I have a question regarding The Edge by Jerry Goldsmith. Do you know how much of the score didn't make the CD release, and how much we actually got out of it? I ask, because I really love the music from the first intro at the very start of the film, and it's not included on the CD. I know since the film itself wasn't very popular, there's little hope for any future CD release but, I am interested to know.

I do not know how long the complete score is, but I suppose one could just watch the movie with a stopwatch and make a list. There probably is not a chance for a longer CD, but I find the CD a great representation of the music in the movie.

From: Greg Krewet <gregland@sat.net>

I have been reading the debates about the 30 min. Varese recordings with interest. I was wondering if the current reuse fees prevent Varese from issuing 2fer recordings. For example a new Goldsmith score coupled with an older previously issued score such as City Hall, or combining 2 older scores like Angie and Mr Baseball on one disc. i believe that doing this Varese might have a better chance of subsidizing some of their less commercial scores. What difficulties would a setup like this involve with the current reuse fees structure?

Unfortunately, it wouldn't work. This would only make the albums cost twice as much, and they would not be that much more attractive to collectors.

Ransom

From: "Koch, Lutz" <koch@csd.de>

I have a movie poster calendar hanging on the wall of my office, and last week's poster was from Ron Howard's RANSOM. It was exactly the poster I remembered seeing when the movie came out, with one small difference: It mentions Howard Shore as the score's composer. I'm quite surprised since I was under the impression that James Horner had been associated with the movie from an early stage. But if they actually printed posters with Howard Shore's name on them, that would mean that he had been the original composer and was replaced by Horner on rather short notice. Have you ever heard anything about this?

Howard Shore originally scored the film, but his music was replaced by a score by James Horner only a few weeks before the movie opened.

Foreign Material...

From: Kombiz Lavasany, klavasan@ucsd.edu

I wanted to let you know that you web site is truly one of the few joys I have left being a full time student... Every day I'm in the school library reading anything new, and rereading anything old. I would like to ask for one thing though, if at all possible knowing time restraints, as well as the fact that American films tend to garner the most curiosity. I would like to see a list of foreign composers, whose work is stunningly vivid. I remember going to the Palm Springs Film festival and watching half a dozen films and being amazed at the range of some foreign composers, Vladimir Godar's music for Orbis Pictus, struck me as beautifully rich, as well as ery playful. His score for the Garden, also a Czech film from the year before, was more brilliant. Somewhere in this talent pool is a future Nino Rota. I would like to see a special anyday on a list of foreign talent.

Okay, but it would be hard. We will continue to try (and probably fail miserably) at covering foreign composers, but you're absolutely right it should be done. Doug Adams just interviewed Czech composer Elia Cmiral on his score for Ronin, admittedly a Hollywood production. (This will be in the December FSM.)

Poll Site

Brian Donohue has started a new web site at http://www.angelfire.com/md/filmscorefan/index.html which is going to be all polls and surveys and fun stuff. Check it out.

Thanks to all the people who contributed to the "Which is your favorite decade for film music" poll now running on our home page. The answers are interesting. The winner so far: the 1970s! It's probably my favorite, because it has great (relatively early) works by Goldsmith, Morricone, Barry, Jarre, etc. (the '60s newcomers) plus the best late '70s blockbuster scores mainly by Williams... not to mention that Herrmann (Taxi Driver) and Rozsa (Time After Time) were still around, and it has all those blaxploitation soundtracks that I love.

Finally, see soundtrack.net today for a special look at the scoring session by Alf Clausen to the Simpsons Halloween Special, which airs this Sunday on Fox.

Have a nice autumn weekend, and set those clocks back (I think!).

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