Lunch date in London

Howard Shore Concert Review

by Nick Joy

What do you get if you cross a Canadian composer, a legendary jazz combo, a British orchestra and a cult movie? The logical answer would be "an eclectic mess" but when you realize that acclaimed composer Howard Shore is the man behind the baton, and the movie is Naked Lunch, this sort of avant-garde mix-and-matching is just par for the course, and as the movieís tagline warns us: "Everything is permitted."

Shore conducted a concert of his Naked Lunch score at the Barbican in London this April as part of the Only Connect season. However, this was a concert with a difference, because it was a live accompaniment to a screening of the 1991 Cronenberg movie; an enhanced projection of the film, if you like. And instead of relying on the Barbican's resident orchestra, the world-famous LSO, he made use of the lesser-known BBC Concert Orchestra. But arguably the strongest ingredient in the mix was the return of The Ornette Coleman Trio, fulfilling the duties they performed on the original soundtrack.

The organizers of this curious venture took comfort in knowing that it was a tested formula, as it was premiered last year at the Belfast Festival, Queens 2000, where the symphonic music was handled by the Ulster Orchestra. But this performance was arguably playing to a more discerning crowd, who fell into three distinct factions: The Shore/ Cronenberg groupies; the jazz club aficionados; and the William S. Burroughs/ beatnik addicts. Three very different audiences, so could all of their needs be satisfied within one concert performance?

In keeping with the "alternative" theme of the evening, Shore strode on to the concert stage in a tailored frock coat more akin to a wedding than the traditional composer's tailcoat. He was interviewed by movie critic Jonathon Romney, who asked him about the inspiration for the music. Shore's replies were spirited and insightful, although he apologized for being jetlagged due to his recent return from New Zealand. The Tolkien fans immediately picked up this oblique reference to the composer's involvement in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but sadly Shore wasn't giving anything else away that night.

He explained how he was treating the music as an archive piece, thus avoiding the temptation to update it. He admitted that performing music in front of a projected image, but where the music took priority over dialogue, was every film composer's dream, and that Cronenberg expressed his concerns over the film being augmented in this way. When asked about his influences for the music, Shore explained his research technique, which took him from Benedetti's recordings of Charlie Parker, to Ornette Coleman's performances with the Master Musicians of Joujouka in the mountains outside of Tangier. This ancient tribal group performed music that Cronenberg deemed fit to be the national anthem of Interzone, the fictional Moroccan state (of mind) where much of the film is set.

After this brief introduction to the conceptual ideas behind the concert, Shore welcomed the Ornette Coleman Trio onto the stage. Elder statesman Ornette handled the alto sax, while son Denardo played the drums and Charnett Moffett (son of jazz great Charlie) managed the double bass. The BBC Concert Orchestra then filed into position in a concert that would give them a greater profile than their usual TV work. The lights dimmed, the credits rolled, and the strings and sax made their mark.

Coleman's initial contribution during the main titles was relatively too loud, drowning out the orchestra. The music for the credits is, admittedly, a sax-heavy piece, and his performance later in the movie was less imposing, but this is the concession that must be made for live music. The mix on the soundtrack album is more balanced, with Coleman's contribution slightly muted by comparison.

The musicians accompany the film at the points where incidental music was originally used. Understandably, the music has a greater presence live than in the pre-recorded mix used in the theatrical print (that's why people came to the concert). To compensate for the louder music, subtitles appeared on the screen whenever the dialogue was drowned out by the orchestra.

One thing that hits you during the performance is the sheer volume of non-Jazz music that was used in the film. The soundtrack album contains all of the Coleman compositions, but the purely symphonic tracks are short by comparison, and quite repetitive, suggesting (wrongly) that Shore's work was monothematic. Of course, it made good business sense to include all the Coleman work on the disc so that it appealed to the crossover market of jazz fans. And rightly so, because Coleman's melancholy sax, supported by the bombastic double bass, make for an exhilarating compliment to the orchestra's soulful adagios. At times, Coleman plays more readily into the music, weaving in and out, rather than in opposition to the main flow.

The greatest compliment that can be afforded to the performance is that you easily forget to watch the musicians and readily concentrate on the film, which only goes to prove how well the soundtrack serves the movie. But this is also a shame, because your attention is diverted from the accomplished stage performance to the subversive on-screen antics. However, after a rousing applause from the crowd, Shore repeated a section of the score, but without the movie in the background, and the full impact could still be appreciated. The movie itself is worth re-visiting, as I'd forgotten just how outrageous and subversive it was, particularly Chris Walas' erotic prosthetic creatures. Ultimately, I'd guess that all three factions of the audience were satisfied. Technically, the performances were faultless and the concept worked well in practice.

So, in summary, Shore's multi-layered experiment is an uncompromising piece of audio cinema that for many is appreciated rather than enjoyed. Watching it in concert gives it an extra dimension (literally), and while it cannot compete with The Fly and Dead Ringers for sheer symphonic verve, Shore's score is the perfect side dish to accompany Cronenberg's overcooked Lunch. At times it's in danger of becoming too aimless and lacking in form, but the orchestra and jazz players synthesize their individual contributions into a holistic whole, and deliver an opera of melancholy and foreboding.

Personally, I'm still waiting for an encore of the 2-hour film retrospective concert that Shore played at the Seville Film Music Festival. But in the meantime, we'll just have to be content with the small matter of the Rings trilogy. The Naked Lunch concert, like the movie, is an acquired taste, but if you dig soundtracks that cross the line, Shore's ode to Sax, drugs and Bill Burroughs is still the best legal high this side of Interzone.
 
 
 

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