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I just received a phone call from Gil Melle's art dealer and publicist informing me that Gil passed away suddenly of a heart attack on Thursday, 28 October 2004. He was very active until the end and had recently finished a new music album which he was editing in his home studio in Malibu, California.
He had planned to come to New York next month for the holidays with his wife Denise and wanted to get together with me for a couple of days. He also wanted to discuss putting out the music on Blue Note records.
Ever since I've first interviewed him via telephone in 2002, we always had at least a monthly chat lasting anywhere between one to two hours. Fortunately, I tended to scribble down most of what we discussed and sent him some old videotapes and DVD copies of films he had scored (KILLDOZER, CYBORG: THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN pilot, and THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR) for his input.
As a lasting memorial, his wife asked me to make sure the article I wrote is published in Film Score Monthly, and I know Tim Curran has been waiting patiently for this -- considering all of the tragedies this year has been for film composers.
Gil has always been hypercritical of his own work and always wanted to do the best he could under his own terms, which sometimes caused conflicts with people such as Steven Spielberg and the late head of Universal Music Stanley Wilson. Sid Sheinberg once yelled across the Universal parking lot that he "was the best composer Universal had." Producer Jack Laird thought Gil was the perfect composer for NIGHT GALLERY due to his electronic avant-garde techniques.
Anyway, Gil's publicist is writing a more detailed obituary and will send it to me. I will then post it on all the music messageboards and websites.
Anyone interested in more information can email me at:
JAPhillips219@msn.com
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In film music circles, 2004 will be remembered as a year of loss. My sincere condolences.
The first Gil Melle scored movie I ever watched was The Andromeda Strain, many years ago. Never forgot this inventive electronic score and the name Gil Melle.
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I've known Gil since 1980....
He was a kind and honest human being...
And a good friend...
Rest in peace..
Ford A. Thaxton
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That is another great loss for the film score world.
His soundtrack catalogue is not opened to the public. There're TV scores that people must know:
"Rod Serling's Night Gallery" (1970-1971): Mellé created the original main theme and a second one, plus scores.
"The Psychiatrist" (1971): This is Steven Spielberg's last series that he considered as the best he ever did!
"Columbo" (1971-1972)
"The Astronaut" (1972): a proto-"Capricorn One".
"The Chill Factor" (1973)
"The Six Million Dollar Man" (1973): the original pessimistic pilot that introduce weird electronic and funk-jazz.
"Savage" (1973): Spielberg's last TV movie with the Landaus.
"The Questor Tapes" (1974)
"Kolchak" (1974): Mellé created the theme music and many scores.
To conclude, we need both "Night Gallery" and "Kolchak, The Night Stalker" which represent Mellé at his best!
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I was lucky to have spent an afternoon with Gil at his home in Malibu last January, as part of preparing James Phillips' article for FSM, Gil was a big, powerful, confident guy---but friendly and warm, as well. He was an artist in more ways than one.
Of course, he had a remarkable run as a jazz musician, having broken into the business while still in his teens. He was still dashing off to NYC for the occasional recording gigs. But his home was brimming with primitive art, masks, modern sculpture, and his own paintings. He was a prolific painter, all the more so since he'd switched to the digital medium. The other surprise was that he was a pilot, and a huge flying enthusiast. His billiard room was packed with air memorabilia, including pictures of his old plane.
Y'know, we film score fans often imagine button-holing a composer and talking endlessly about their old music, but the reality is that scoing is just one part of their lives and sometimes not the most important and favorite part. Gil was most excited to talk about flying (and himself, but it a charmingly self-assured way), I hope will bring a little of that out in the profile that James wrote in one of the next issues of FSM.
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Indeed, his work should've had more exposure.
R.I.P. Mr.Melle.
Condelences to family and friends.
2004 is a very dark year.
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Wow, such sad news. This year has been terrible. I'll echo the above comments by saying that, yes, Gil Mellé was indeed an amazing composer, but there was much more to him than that. A truly unique artist in every sense, and perhaps my personal favourite composer of all time. So original. He has an extra-special place in my heart. I love Goldsmith, adore John Williams etc etc, but Gil Mellé just seemed to connect with me in a way no other person could.
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Melle was one case of a composer Ito appreciate a lot of his other work, and his first season scores for "Columbo" were never bettered by anyone else who did that show.
I JUST finished an article for FSM on the music for COLUMBO! Melle was one the few composers who wrote avant-garde, experimental music that was enjoyable.
He will be missed.
Bruce Marshall
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The music of Gil Mellé has accompanied me in a special way during the last 30 years or so. I first noticed his name back in about 1974 on the credits of FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY, and thereafter on frequent credits for TV Movies and series. Even if the films and programmes themselves were mostly run-of-the-mill (or downright bad), I gradually began to notice a very distinctive voice on display, an eccentricity of character let's say. I'd already become accustomed to traditional scoring techniques, but even when Gil Mellé was using a seemingly standard approach, there was something radically different here - it was as if this music was coming from a different direction altogether. The touches of electronics, the jazz combinations used almost symphonically, the long-held brass chords, the obsessive repetition of phrases, the presence of solo instrumental lines on sax or guitar, the often beautiful yet vaguely strange exotic quality of the melodies...Gil Mellé covered a lot of ground musically, and evolved more than most throughout his lifetime, but he never lost that instantly recognizable individuality which made him so fascinating to me.
Before the days of the Internet, doing any kind of investigation was laborious in the extreme, but I gradually learned snippets of information from browsing film books and jazz encyclopedias at public libraries and in bookshops. I didn't much care for some of his 80s synth work for TV, but it was consistent with the restless, innovative spirit of the artist. Here was someone who was forging ahead, and I get the impression that Gil Mellé wasn't really given to bouts of nostalgia. He didn't seem to even live the day - he lived the future.
A whole new world opened up when I got connected to the Internet. An official Gil Mellé site? The title ("Gil Mellé - Occupation: Genius") may be indicative of the artist's ego, but I don't think it's far off the mark after all. From first sitting up and taking notice at the age of thirteen during a screening of FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY to the later revelations about microscope collections, paintings with light-bulbs behind them, and flying around the world backwards without a seatbelt on - all of that has been consistent with an original vision of the world heard in his music - it has been a fascinating path. The man and his music were absolutely unique, irreplaceable. Thank you, Gil Mellé, for accompanying ME on an inspiring, constantly surprising 30-year journey.
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If any one period was responsible for my love of film music, it would have to be the early 1970s. I was given a tape recorder for the first time, and I spent hours recording movie themes off the TV. It was a great period for me, one in which I began to discover Jerry Goldsmith's 1960s scores (I had been too young to see them in the cinema when first released). Our small mono TV was a treasure trove of past scores - but also of an exciting new kind of music. It was at this time that British TV began broadcasting a seemingly endless supply of American TV movies. Each week I was being introduced to new and unfamiliar names - Billy Goldenberg, John Cacavas, Pete Rugolo, Dick De Benedictus, Luchi de Jesus, Morton Stevens, Robert Prince ... and Gil Melle. Melle's music was all over my rapidly growing tape collection. His was a voice I could instantly recognise, like Goldsmith, Schifrin, Grusin, Fielding, Goldenberg. Those tapes are long gone, but I can still hear Gil's music in my head, vivid and strange and wonderful ... THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR ... THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE ... THE QUESTOR TAPES ... FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY ... THE PRESIDENT'S PLANE IS MISSING ... THE JUDGE AND JAKE WYLER ... COLUMBO ... THE ORGANISATION ... LT. SCHUSTER'S WIFE ... KILLDOZER ... PERILOUS VOYAGE ... and on and on.
Many of those voices I came to recognise and love are no longer with us, but their music abides. Perhaps justice will be done some day soon, and some of these scores by Gil and his contemporaries will finally see preservation on CD.
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