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Kritzerland is proud to present the world premiere release of the complete soundtracks to two classic Twentieth Century Fox movies on a great 2-CD set: SUN VALLEY SERENADE and ORCHESTRA WIVES Musical Direction by Alfred Newman and Emil Newman Featuring The Glenn Miller Orchestra Songs by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon It’s funny how music can define an entire era, and Glenn Miller’s unique sound did just that. It was no surprise when Twentieth Century Fox snapped up Miller and his band for the movies. He only did two but they were perfect vehicles. They were cleverly built around him, and he was surrounded by excellent actors, singers, and dancers. The stories were simple, they didn’t overstay their welcome, and the music was superb. Sun Valley Serenade (1941), featured Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie, John Payne, Milton Berle, Lynn Bari, Joan Davis, Dorothy Dandridge, the amazing The Nicholas Brothers, and, of course, Glenn Miller and his orchestra, along with The Modernaires. In addition to some Miller classics (“Moonlight Serenade,” “In the Mood”), the movie also featured a few great songs by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, including a song that would become one of Miller’s biggest hits, “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” which, in the film, is a spectacular production number with Dandridge and The Nicholas Brothers. Another great new song, “At Last,” was also recorded for the film, but wasn’t used, except as background music for several scenes. The song itself would end up in the next Miller film, because Sun Valley Serenade proved to be so popular, that Fox immediately put another Glenn Miller vehicle before the camera, this one entitled Orchestra Wives. Orchestra Wives was a bit more serious than the light and airy Sun Valley Serenade. This time the cast included George Montgomery, Ann Rutherford, Lynn Bari, Cesar Romero, Marion Hutton (sister of Betty), The Modernaires, and, of course, The Nicholas Brothers. We also get some wonderful Harry Warren and Mack Gordon songs, including “At Last” (the castoff from Sun Valley Serenade), “Serenade in Blue,” “People Like You and Me,” and the instant classic, “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.” The latter was, like “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” nominated for an Oscar for Best Song. This is the first time Sun Valley Serenade and Orchestra Wives are being released complete, each CD close to eighty minutes in length. Previous LP and CD releases didn’t have particularly good sound, but for this release the sound has been lovingly restored by Mike Matessino from the Fox vault elements – it’s safe to say, you’ve never heard these scores sounding like this. It should be noted that while the films were given a synthesized stereo treatment in the early 1990s for home video, all of the original music elements are, in fact, mono. Yet they remain as clear and vibrant as the day they were recorded. All the songs, the incidental scoring, and some amazing bonus material is all here. While some of the bonus material had made it onto CD, it was taken directly from the films themselves and sounded horrible. And there are quite a few never-before-released tracks. Sun Valley Serenade/Orchestra Wives is limited to 1000 copies only and is priced at $29.98, plus shipping. CDs will ship by the first week of May, but we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com. ATTENTION INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTORS: FOR THIS RELEASE – IF YOU WANT TO OPT-OUT OF RECEIVING IT YOU WILL NEED TO SEND US AN E-MAIL OPTING OUT PRIOR TO THE DATE IT SHIPS – SEND TO kritzerland@gmail.com. IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE IT, YOU DON”T NEED TO DO ANYTHING. IF YOU ARE NOT AN INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTOR, ORDER AS YOU NORMALLY WOULD. THANK YOU.
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This is great, congratulations! I´ll buy it definitely.
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OMG wow. Some of my favorite music -- and I never thought we'd have a release like this. Absolutely spectacular.
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Let the flaming begin. I worked with Bart Pierce from Fox video on the stereo remixes of these two films for Laserdisc. They were NOT synthesized stereo. For many songs we had two tracks for the band, a separate track for any chorus and separate tracks for each individual singer. It was not synthesized in any way, but the same early optical stereo that was used on such scores as Captain from Castille, Ghost and Mrs. Muir etc. Somehow I'll take Mike's word and expertise
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Joe, you may recall that I was around at the time too. Initially I thought, as you did, that this was the case, but upon evaluating the original elements and finding no legitimate dual perspective material, I back-traced the project to the early '90s with what is now Deluxe Audio and discovered that technically this was a Chace Stereo project. As you know, it was relatively new at the time, and this was simply an example of Fox trying it out. Yes there are separate overlays and separate vocals -- for SOME but not ALL of the songs -- which allowed, for example, for the orchestra to be stereo-ized while the vocals are basically kept mono. And, yes there are occasional instances where passages between verses have distant orchestra on the vocal track, which could have been utilized to enhance things into a stereo image, but that's it. Any discerning ear can tell what's going on by listening to the track from those videos. Only where we have genuine dual perspective "push-pull" elements does it make sense to create stereo for a CD soundtrack release and that was not the case here (occasionally I'll stereo-ize a mono track if it has to blend with true stereo material around it). We have not actually had those push/pull elements for titles as early as this. It's the late '40s through '53 that we find them. The most obvious evidence in this case is that the orchestral material was not slated with two numbers (11 & 12, 81 & 82, etc.) as they would be if they were recorded in dual perspective. Could it have been synthetically stereo-ized? Sure, but that would not have been responsible preservation. The documentation and the elements are clear, even if memories are not. Mike M.
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I'm just going to say this once and then be quiet. Joe, you have been responsible for more misinformation about Fox and other things on the Internet having to do with stuff like this than anyone in history. It's really unbelievable. Mike has explained to you everything and he is a lot more expert in these matters than you or the gentleman you reference and the less said about that the better.
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