Crap. LLL's usual crazy-fast shipping got the disc across the country in two days, but because I sent it to my work, I have to wait until Tuesday to get it. Idiot...
I only got around to listening to The Firm samples today - that piano somehow gets to be a jack of all trades. The sound and clarity was very good. I'm sorely tempted to go for it.
The Firm is wonderful, though you do have to be able to enjoy a piano solo album extended with some inside-the-piano effects and some occasional electronic processing, mostly very subtle, and I think ALL derived from the piano.
I had expected this to be more of the blues/jazz effect of the original album, only because I haven't seen the film for decades. But this has a much broader palette - jazz, blues, atmosphere, some almost new-age effects (good new-age), and some darker thriller music as we get to the final act. It's a well rounded listen that even when it starts-and-stops for sudden scene changes plays more like extended music than most film scores. By the way, on disc 1, Confession Blues is a jazz combo - so there's one piece with more than piano. (Sounds like the lead is a sampler pretending to be a Hammond organ.)
Plus, for crying out loud, it's a Dave Grusin solo album! (ooh, and I got an autograph, never expected to have an autograph from Mr. Grusin!)
Maybe even more to the point for this community, it plays as a Southern companion to his brilliant Yakuza. Much the same feel in the album overall, I find.
YOU say! When did putting source music in-line with the score proper become the new way? Especially when it wasn't even used in the movie. It sticks out like a sore thumb. [puts on Junior iTunes Album Producer cap, fixes Goldwassering]
My copy will arrive next week. Still not listen samples for Disc 1 (forgive me - I listen album version only on YouTube). And as I enjoy album versions of Grusin's tracks, I hope that actual score will not disappoint me.
The album and film versions are not really THAT different. "Mud Island Chase" sounds a little too hot on the film side, which makes it a tough listen on both headphones and speakers.
Got and listened to this yesterday. Very good release to a score that I had enjoyed back when it came out but hadn't listened to in years. Thanks for this one MV and they gang at LaLa!
Here's what I've noticed after more than a decade of reading positive and negative soundtrack reviews on this board.
I learn something from positive reviews that give me a sense of why the music is appealing to the listener, what there is in the music that draws attention. This can apply even to music that I'm not that partial to, and has helped me expand my horizons here.
But by and large I don't learn anything useful from negative reviews, because most of the substance of the review is an intensely personal dislike about something the reviewer disagrees with - the choice of composer, the kind of music they write, the arrangement of the album, etc. If my taste does not exactly match the reviewer's own, what they say doesn't matter to me at all, and if our taste does match, then I'm just in lock-step agreement - finally, someone who gets it! Not useful.
[This is very different from reading negative reviews of books, movies, etc. - those are often as useful to me as positive reviews. For me, music is in a very different category, and I find this to be true about all genres.]
I wasn't feigning slumber. I was just expressing my boredom at the endless parade of quibbles that don't make a lick of difference to me. I like the cue in the middle, you don't, who cares?
Thought of it too late, but here's what I really meant to post.
