The Best of Cinema Music 2011

The Isle of Wight Festival 2011 was the tenth revived Isle of Wight Festival held at Seaclose Park in Newport on the Isle of Wight. The event ran from 9–12 June 2011…

Born John Barry Prendergast to a father who owned a cinema and a mother who played piano, all the elements were in place for John to develop his career as he did. Even when he had to do national service, he managed to secure a job as an army bandsman, so he managed to use that period to hone his craft. John first came to prominence via his recording of Hit and miss, which became the theme to the TV show Jukebox jury. Famous as his TV theme became, John's most famous hit is the James Bond theme. This particular compilation, as its title suggests, focuses on John's recordings for EMI. Many of these recordings date from the early to mid sixties, but there are a few from the nineties too. Most of the tracks are instrumentals, but there are also three Shirley Bassey tracks (Goldfinger, Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Diamonds are forever) and a Matt Monro track (Born free) in which John was involved. Two of the Shirley Bassey tracks are famous, but I'd not heard the other one before buying this CD. It was apparently intended as the theme for Thunderball but was dropped in favor of the Tom Jones song Thunderball. There are 25 tracks altogether and the CD comes with a nice booklet. By no means a definitive John Barry compilation, this does at least contain all those early sixties tracks that I particularly wanted and showcases John's versatility as a composer and arranger. Sadly, John died early in 2011 but his legacy in the history of cinematic music is assured.

In 1977, Sir Lew Grade and acclaimed Italian director Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo And Juliet, the wonderful Mel Gibson Hamlet) were in the midst of finishing their sprawling six-hour miniseries about the life of Christ when they turned to veteran composer Maurice Jarre for the musical chores. While Jarre apparently had his reservations about doing work for television, in this case his fears turned out to be unjustified. With an all-star cast, exotic locations that spanned the globe, and most importantly the type of budget that could afford the kind of epic score Jarre had in mind, many still consider Jesus Of Nazareth to be one of the definitive filmic depictions of the J-man to date. Quite a feat, considering that the Guinness Book Of World Records calls Jesus the single most portrayed character in the history of cinema.

The Jazz in Paris: Jazz and Cinema series of Verve CD reissues examines jazz recorded for French film soundtracks in the late '50s and early '60s. This third compilation is the least successful of the first three, as few of the tracks stand on their own merit away from the movies they accompanied. Written for the film Les Loups Dans la Bergerie, the compositions of Serge Gainsbourg might be labeled cool, though they are rarely given time to develop and feature no major soloists in Alan Gouraguer's arrangements. Less successful are Andre Hodeir's somewhat boppish charts for Les Tripe au Soleil, which have extremely distracting scat vocals by Christiane Legrand that frequently seem off-key. The best of the lot is a remake of four songs composed by Freddie Redd for The Connection, which began life as a play…

The film was a sensation and audiences all over the world were entranced. It was hugely influential and ushered in a whole era of Comedy, Italian Style. Aiding and abetting the mischievous fun was the wonderful score by Carlo Rustichelli. Rustichelli, born in 1916, had begun working in film in 1939 and by 1962 had become a hugely popular composer for Italian films. His first film for Pietro Germi was Lost Youth in 1948 and thus began one of the longest and most fruitful director/composer collaborations ever, with Rustichelli composing scores for all but the first of Germi’s films – eighteen in total. He also worked with other directors such as Billy Wilder, Mario Bava, Gillo Pontecorvo, Luigi Comencini, and provided scores for countless sword and sandal films, spaghetti westerns, crime films, and just about every genre imaginable. He was a superb melodist, and Divorce, Italian Style is rife with great themes, which all serve the film perfectly. In fact, the film would be unthinkable without Rustichelli’s wonderful and tuneful score.