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Posted: |
Sep 15, 2013 - 6:36 AM
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By: |
MOVIEBUFF
(Member)
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WINDJAMMER A Review
I always had a love hate relationship with the LP soundtrack of WINDJAMMER, loved the lush orchestral music, but hated the sea shanties and source music, which had pride of place on the album. The huge contrast between tracks made for a rather unpleasant listening experience.
Well now after all those years SEPIA at last brings us the full score, 72 mins, and that’s just on the first of the two CDs in this set.
Lets begin this review by taking a look at the packaging, we have a ‘flipper’ booklet, you can choose the new artwork, or the original Lp design. The excellent 16 page colour booklet has a fascinating essay on the discovery of the original music tracks, and the restoration involved.
There are also notes on the film, Cinemiracle process, the music and of course composer Morton Gould.
Sound quality is very clear, with a slight stereo spread. We have the full score including Overture, Intermission and Exit music. Morton Gould has written a wonderful evocative seascape score, with massive orchestra producing a huge sound to match the size of the giant screen.
The second disc, is best treated as ‘extras’ you would be unlikely to play it very often, but still nice to have. The WINDJAMMER song is fun, also the rehearsal track fascinating. The ‘interview’ with Jack Shaindlin (conductor) is pretty poor, sort of a non interview type interview. To round things off we have the original LP tracks.
Worth adding to your collection, it’s a definite thumbs up from me. Well done SEPIA!
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Posted: |
Sep 15, 2013 - 7:39 AM
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By: |
joec
(Member)
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WINDJAMMER A Review
I always had a love hate relationship with the LP soundtrack of WINDJAMMER, loved the lush orchestral music, but hated the sea shanties and source music, which had pride of place on the album. The huge contrast between tracks made for a rather unpleasant listening experience.
Well now after all those years SEPIA at last brings us the full score, 72 mins, and that’s just on the first of the two CDs in this set.
Lets begin this review by taking a look at the packaging, we have a ‘flipper’ booklet, you can choose the new artwork, or the original Lp design. The excellent 16 page colour booklet has a fascinating essay on the discovery of the original music tracks, and the restoration involved.
There are also notes on the film, Cinemiracle process, the music and of course composer Morton Gould.
Sound quality is very clear, with a slight stereo spread. We have the full score including Overture, Intermission and Exit music. Morton Gould has written a wonderful evocative seascape score, with massive orchestra producing a huge sound to match the size of the giant screen.
The second disc, is best treated as ‘extras’ you would be unlikely to play it very often, but still nice to have. The WINDJAMMER song is fun, also the rehearsal track fascinating. The ‘interview’ with Jack Shaindlin (conductor) is pretty poor, sort of a non interview type interview. To round things off we have the original LP tracks.
Worth adding to your collection, it’s a definite thumbs up from me. Well done SEPIA!
What are the sources used for the LP tracks? Are they the original Columbia (now Sony) masters? Or, is this a vinyl to CD transfer?
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The Columbia LP program on Disc 2 is definitely from monaural vinyl (probably the European Philips LP the cover of which is on the flipside of the CD cover). What betrays the LP source is a loud digitally processed "click" about fifteen seconds into the LP track "Night Watch (Lullaby)," composed by Morton Gould, a defect that could have very easily been eliminated, had not Robin Cherry, who did the "restoration" for Sepia, inexcusably fallen asleep "on the night watch," so to speak.
The first three bonus tracks on side 2 (Prologue and Main Title, Entr'acte and The Windjammer Song) I suspect are from the new Windjammer Blu-Ray Smilebox release. Was The Windjammer Song composed by Terry Gilkyson? No background info is provided for this, nor are we told how any of the tracks on Disc 2 dovetail with those on the first disc.
Nevertheless, the Morton Gould score on Disc 1 is reason enough to purchase this CD set. Its source is a set of five 10-1/2-inch NAB-hub 1/4-inch tape reels that were preserved by Cinerama/Cinemiracle audio engineer Richard Pietchmann and which were presented by his sons to Dave Strohmaier, the Cinerama historian who is restoring the old Cinerama 3-strip films and who was the producer of the "Cinerama Adventure" documentary. Robert C. Weisberger, who is currently involved in the digital restoration of the "Cinerama Holiday" recording sessions (along with Widescreen Museum website curator Marty Hart), arranged to have the tapes sent to Audio Mechanics in Burbank for "baking" and digital resoration and archiving by John Polito. The Gould score is a delight to listen to and there are not many Morton Gould film score CDs out there, so Disc 1 is a true treasure. The Pietchmann tapes must have been personal safety copies preserved in mono -- very good mono, but still mono -- yet they currently remain the only surviving document of Gould's magical score.
Sepia Records will also be releasing the above-mentioned "Cinerama Holiday - The Recently Discovered Oyster Bay Sessions" along with a "digitally enhanced stereo version" of the original LP, plus "a true stereo remaster" of the "Seven Wonders Of The World" European LP. I suspect that issuing all of this material through Sepia Records is one way of circumventing proper copyright channels and allowing the music to be quickly released for the benefit of golden age film score aficionados still appreciative of these works but whose numbers are dwindling by attrition.
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Just got my WINDJAMMER stereo Columbia LP. Yep, everyone was right, the orchestral cuts are indeed in true stereo. It doesn't sound like it was close-miked, so you don't get really obvious left or right positioning of instruments most of the time, although there ARE noticeable moments when you do. It's mostly more of a large hall ambiance. Too bad Sepia couldn't have latched onto these for their CD.
I agree, but I think this CD came out the discovery of the Richard Pietchmann personal mono tapes and was released through Sepia Records for the reasons that I gave above.
The most recent TRUE GRIT and THE WHITE DAWN CDs were sourced respectively from Bernstein's and Mancini's personal mono tape copies, so the situation with WINDJAMMER is very similar, and the CD1 mastering is very good.
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I just meant that it was too bad Sepia didn't include the Columbia stereo tracks during the LP presentation on CD 2.
Yes, I doubt that they were even aware of the Columbia stereo tracks. Sadly.
A proper soundtrack label would have done its homework.
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