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Thanks for bringing this back, Jim. Missed it the first time around, especially like Bill Finn's contribution....he put very well what I was thinking about as I read through the thread.
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Before my time, but maybe the same reason hip hop scores are used for stories that have a crime background.
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Bumped for MR. JACK ( FILM MUSIC CLICHES)
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This point is accurate.
All those jazzy noir scores are in fact imitating John Barry's BODY HEAT!
The original's were never scored with jazz>
bruce marshall
Why does everyone assume Barry is the god behind everything here?! Look at 'Taxi-Briver' or 'Crime in the Streets' or 'Man With the Golden Arm' or 'Touch of Evil' .... or for that matter any of a dozen FSM jazz releases from the 50s/60s!!!!!!!
Barry used jazz musicians who could improvise. There is an authentic quality in his work that some others lack.
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A contemporary radio NOIR drama " Harry Nile..." uses the FAREWELL..LOVELY theme.
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Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront and the Johnny Mandell/Gerry Mulligan work on I Want to Live! were both highly influential benchmarks.
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Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront and the Johnny Mandell/Gerry Mulligan work on I Want to Live! were both highly influential benchmarks.
Wasnt STREETCAR before OTW?
I would rate that number one.
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Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront and the Johnny Mandell/Gerry Mulligan work on I Want to Live! were both highly influential benchmarks.
Wasnt STREETCAR before OTW?
I would rate that number one.
Yes, but John Barry's Body Heat predated both of those, so John Barry must have invented jazz noir.
The Onya Timeslip
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Miles Davis score to the terrific 1958 movie Elevator to the gallows.
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I love reading the mostly thoughtful opinions on this thread, The question is a great one. I think that the transition from Rozsa's classic orchestral noir scores to the smoky jazz combo approach was a very gradual one and I can't pinpoint any one score. Certainly Alex North's score was the first shot in using jazz flavors--especially solo sax and clarinet--followed by Elmer Bernstein, Johnny Mandel, Miles Davis, and Henry Mancini. Peter Gunn was huge. Using jazz elements to portray the American urban dark side was already well established by the time Barry's Bond scores came around. Suddenly, it seemed odd to hear jazz in a film score that was about urban decadence.
I also think Earle Hagen's Harlem Nocturne had a large influence, as well, along with some of the jazz arrangers working in the fifties.
When the 70s hit we got Chinatown, Farewell My Lovely, Taxi Driver, and Body Heat.
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I would also suggest that radio dramas from the 40s and 50s had some influence on this. Many of the detective shows had jazz-tinged scores - and the narrative style was very similar to Film Noir. Listen to an episode of "Night Beat" for example...
Good point!
Jack Webb was a huge jazz fan and produced and starred in many of those shows.
One was actually about a jazz trumpeter!
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Miles Davis score to the terrific 1958 movie Elevator to the gallows.
Good but not influential.
It's French.
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I think it had a lot to do with the shifting of the tides in the Hollywood studio system. The release dates of a lot of the films that are cited as beginning the jazzier trends in noir music (and more popular musical styles being incorporated into film scores in general) coincide with studio attempts to cater towards a new market that was being swayed into the world of television. On The Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Laura, I Want To Live, Man With The Golden Arm, Sweet Smell Of Success, Touch of Evil... all of these films were created by filmmakers who held the intention (some more adamant than others) of moving away from the established conventions of American filmmaking at that time. And, as I'm sure everyone here already knows, a big convention of American film is its music stylings.
Consider what the noir genre is about at its core -- a reflection of the turbulence and social upheavals that were beginning to rise in prominence in the American culture. You can just hear it in the music! And watching the movies -- heck, it wouldn't be until Watergate and the 70s social paranoia films that you could SEE the society and its collective conscious in the films that it watched. As such, noir was pretty much the bread and butter of studios at the time (as Westerns were before them, and as Superhero films are now); and saw a great many changes in creative direction through the lifespan of the genre (early 40s through to the late 50s). Try watching The Killers (1946), then The Killing (1956) back to back to see what we're talking about.
The change in noir music associations are pretty much 1 for 1 a reflection of this creative changing of the guards. New directors brought new composers to their films (North, Raksin, Mandel, Leith Stevens, both Bernsteins, etc...), and the established composers were asked to change their approach to the genre to fit with the change in approach towards direction (i.e. Crime In The Streets). The mid to late 50s and early 60s saw a lot of change in the industry, and pretty much all the golden age composers had by that time passed away, retired, become disillusioned, or had been forced out (McCarthyism). With a genre so rooted in the social and cultural environment it existed in; and with the torchbearers of the genre having left the game; it's hard to imagine a world where Jazz did not ingratiate its way into the music of these films. I mean heck... how could you even consider making a movie like Sweet Smell of Success, or Touch of Evil -- and not include Jazz in a prominent role?
Now granted, these films -- as with many of the noir films that began incorporating jazz into their scores -- came at the end of the genre's (American) lifespan. But it's worth noting that the release of these later films came at a time where media was much more accessible to a greater audience through Television; and so while there may be a hugely rich and varied history of noir music that exists completely separate from jazz, it's these later offerings, with their reruns, imitations and mutations that have been more ingrained in the collective consciousness of American society. TV crime and noir of the time is NOTORIOUS for its great jazz soundtracks -- and I suspect this is probably where the roots of the association of Jazz with Noir has the most ground. I mean, just listen to Miklos Rosza's score to The Naked City movie, then listen to George Duning's music for The Naked City TV show that came out ten years later. They're in two different worlds! A huge amount of people who didn't have access to films (and their scores) were now watching noir with jazz to it on their televisions; and the film studios had moved on from the genre in a desperate attempt to keep themselves relevant and avoid having their structure crumble around them.
It's also worth pointing out (as Gustavo already pointed towards with his mention of Elevator to the Gallows) that while it's easy to forget, American media certainly is not the only important factor in the history of the genre and its music. The films of the European New Wave collectively (French, British, Italian, etc.) played a HUGELY instrumental role in the direction that filmmakers around the globe made their films. The big example is Breathless -- but really, there are dozens -- if not hundreds -- of New Wave films that played an influential role in the creative direction directors and producers back in the States would take their films. And a big part of that was the music. A lot of influential and established American jazz musicians left the country during the 50s (McCarthyism and Bebop being the two big culprits) to play their music in Europe; where it just so happened that a bunch of new filmmakers were looking to make some films like no one had ever seen before. And part of making of film like no one had ever seen before involves using music that isn't generally associated with film. So you've got American jazz legends like Duke Ellington (Paris Blues), Miles Davis (Elevator to the Gallows), Sidney Bechet (Serie Noire), etc. writing incredible jazz music for films that have been heavily influenced by the American noir films of the decade prior. On top of that, you've got European jazz musicians and composers (Michel Legrand of course is the big one, but there are quite a few whose names I don't have off the top of my head) writing jazz music for the films that would come to influence the American New Wave in the 60s and early 70s.
Honestly I could go on and on, but I hope that answers the question and helps everyone with a little bit of context!
For anyone interested in listening to all this (and more!), I'd highly suggest checking out:
a) the many great releases by all the various labels here that document the sounds of film noir in the 40s and 50s -- Rozsa, Herrmann, Friedhofer, etc. all have incredible stuff. I know its out of print, but Intrada's Film Noir at Paramount release is just wonderful and gives a great primer on the different noir styling of the day. If you can find it, it's highly worth your time.
b) Moochin About's Box Set series Jazz on Film. They're a British label, but I got pretty much every single one of their releases on Amazon for very reasonable prices -- and they're incredibly comprehensive. Huge 5-7 disc box sets for all this stuff -- numerous sets dedicated to the noteworthy American scores from the 50s plus scores I'd have never known about otherwise; two sets entirely dedicated to scores of the various European countries' respectable New Wave films (an entire set just for Czech New Wave scores -- incredible!), a set dedicated to American television jazz from the 50s... just mountains and mountains of gold that even after years of listening, I STILL find things that surprise and delight me. Might overlap with one or two scores released previously if you're an avid collector, but absolutely worth it regardless. Highly recommend every single one of these releases!
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Can someone please summarize the above post for me?
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