This is THE releaes of the year! And MV Gerhard just posted this in the LLL questions thread:
Would love to do more QM sets if we can MV
Patrick Williams did a great score for Quinn Martin's 1971 TV movie Incident in San Francisco
This was what introduced me to Pat Williams - it's a great TV movie (it was actually a backdoor pilot for the Chris Connolly character) and his score is fantastic. When we were doing our Pat releases and I was in contact with him, I must have asked him twenty times if he had tapes for it, but he barely even remembered doing it and said he didn't. Someone put the movie out on a homegrown DVD - not great quality, but I watch it twice a year.
This was what introduced me to Pat Williams - it's a great TV movie (it was actually a backdoor pilot for the Chris Connolly character) and his score is fantastic. When we were doing our Pat releases and I was in contact with him, I must have asked him twenty times if he had tapes for it, but he barely even remembered doing it and said he didn't. Someone put the movie out on a homegrown DVD - not great quality, but I watch it twice a year.
Perhaps this score is part of the re-discovered tapes LLL uses for their great Quinn Martin releases.
That INCIDENT IN SAN FRANCISCO theme is great. I remember taping it onto cassette (zzzzzz) direct from the telly and thinking that it MUST be David Shire. I was making an association in my brain between it and...a track in FAREWELL MY LOVELY (?) Is there a track in FAREWELL MY LOVELY which is cut from the same cloth?
My copy is still in its shrink wrap. It arrived last week with War Of The Worlds and some other titles. Really looking forward to taking it for a spin. I love Pat Williams and 70s TV scoring.
I remember having a chat with Graham 'Watto' Too Much Wattage-Watt about ones listening habits for these TV Omnibus style release jobbies and how, in general, he plays almost everything in 15-20 minute bite-sized chunks. I think this is certainly the ideal technique when it comes to this 'bebeh'. The first 20 tracks, comprising the lengthy pilot episode and similarly scored 'Thirty Year Pin' ep (33 minutes of In-Yer-Face cop/jazz shenanigans) had me exhausted from all that funky 70s jazz and chocka-whocka gee-tar. Thankfully, from track 21 (Tower Beyond Tragedy) Pat Williams creates a whole 'nother style and mood for the episode, which takes things off in another direction. That's when I realised I need to play these scores as little mini works for their particular episodes' mood and style, and get to know them, separately, that way (which way?)...bite-size. Also...snares/bongos/tom-toms...would there have BEEN 70s TV scoring without them?
They're all pretty good, BOAJ. The Main Theme is so off-kilter and disparate, it's amazing how it sticks in your brain like it does, but that's the genius of Patrick Williams, I guess. I love the 'thing' Williams does in the second half of track 22 on Disc 2 (Rolling/Bus Fuss) with a weird detuned (?) piano sound. So cool. There's loads of little moments like that which just make me smile for their sheer ingenuity and quality. The timings are a bit out on the back cover of the CD, when compared the the individual track times within the booklet (the suite total track times are way under, when you add up the actual track times from the booklet), but obviously that's no biggie and it means you're actually getting more bangs for your buck than you think you are, from first outside glance. Strangely, I still haven't listened to A Man Called Sloane yet, but this is a great grab-bag release, with loads of cool stuff, especially if you 'dig' 70s orchestral/groove scoring. I wonder who was the first composer to score cop dramas (urban jungles) with bongos/tom-toms etc (jungle rhythms) in the first place?
Ke V McG:. They're all pretty good, BOAJ. The Main Theme is so off-kilter and disparate, it's amazing how it sticks in your brain like it does, but that's the genius of Patrick Williams, I guess.
The Main Title is stuck in my head because I listened to it every Sunday night at a tender young age. It also turns out to be a great piece of music.
I wasn't aware of the later variations, as my viewership fell off in later seasons. I'm glad to hear they're all good. My copy arrives shortly.
Loving this set. Got it on sale and I’ve been listening to it non-stop. Can definitely hear shades of his Columbo writing in the episode “Tower Beyond Tragedy”
Great stuff. Also can’t get enough of “The Biggie/North Beach”
I sought out the episode and it was really cool watching them run through that newly constructed subway station. Really cool scene.
I used to watch the show when I was young, I loved the location, great actors with Malden and Douglas.
This release is a gem. Thank you La La Land Records and The Film Music Society for putting so much effort in this production and everyone else involved. Things like these makes us fans happy worldwide.
The Main Theme Williams wrote is one of the best in the history of television scoring maybe besides the theme for Hotel from Henry Mancini. But I was really astonished when finishing listening to the entire cds about the quality of Patrick Williams compositions: continuously highly entertaining music with listenable themes and ideas. Superb 70s music, gosh I love this decade, am a huge fan of the seventies.
The combination of jazz with sometimes big band approach and a small orchestra is stunning.
Yes, the Tower Beyond Tragedy score arrives at just the right time of CD1 to change the mood and style of the music that has come before it. And agreed, parts of it do sound like a Columbo episode, via that cool little classical piano theme.
