DAVID AMRAM - David Amram’s Classic American Film Scores 1956-2016
Moochin' Aboiut MOOCHIN 09
This is a five CD collection box from the multi-instrumentalist, composer and author David Amram which brings together tracks from seven of his film scores and two Broadway plays covering sixty years. The accompanying hundred-page booklet has been written by Amram and is full of anecdotes and reminiscences from his career. It covers the scores from ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (Frank Sinatra/Lawrence Harvey) featuring Harold Land and Paul Horn. ‘The Young Savages’ (Burt Lancaster/Shelly Winters) again features Harold Land on tenor sax. Elia Kazan’s ‘The Arrangement’ (Kirk Douglas/ Faye Dunaway/ Deborah Kerr) that score features Thad Jones and Jerry Dodgion. You have the Buster Bailey Dixieland tracks from ‘Splendor in The Grass’ (Warren Beatty/Natalie Wood) as well as a superb solo from George Barrow who worked with Mingus.
One legendary film from Amram’s past is ‘Pull My Daisy’. This was a wild indie Avant Garde film that Amram put together with ‘On the Road’ author Jack Kerouac. The soundtrack presents Kerouac’s readings in his laid back mellifluous voice. The cast includes Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and painter Larry Rivers. Amram plays Mezz McGillicuddy a mad French horn player. If you see the film, and you can on Vimeo or YouTube, you will struggle to make sense of it. It probably makes even less sense just having the soundtrack. The great saxophone playing is by Sahib Shihab. And that does make sense.
The two stage play scores are Budd Schulberg’s ‘On The Waterfront’ featuring Jerry Dodgion and Arthur Miller’s ‘After The Fall’ which features Pepper Adams and Candido.
One bonus is the soundtrack for Amram’s first film. It was also Cecil Taylor’s first recording a six minutes documentary ‘Echo of An Era’. Amram makes the point that he started with indie (independent) filming. He did have the taste and perception to employ Taylor when everyone was looking askance at the young pianist.
The final film in the box is another indie: ‘Isn‘t It Delicious’ (Kathleen Chalfant, Keir Dullea) was released last year which features Paquito d’Rivera on alto sax.
It helps that many of the films that Amram has worked on are classics; ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ seems more relevant today than it did when it first appeared. ‘Splendor in the Grass’ captures an era in a unique way. ‘The Arrangement’ illustrates the immigrant experience. Miller’s ‘After the Fall’ is still controversial dealing as it does, with the marriage of Miller and Marilyn Monroe.
The variety of musical styles on the discs is staggering. I defy you to listen to Funeral March without thinking of ‘Sketches of Spain’. Other music is what you would expect from film music. Some of the tracks invite you, as Amram suggests, to create a film in your head. Listen to ‘Ancestral Dreams’ from ‘The Arrangement’ and marvel at Amram’s range.
You cannot judge a box of CDs like this as you would judge the usual discs that pass through our hands. The music by its very nature is discontinuous and it is divorced from its real context. Nevertheless, there are great moments.
This well produced box is a rich source for those who are interested the way that jazz and music is used in film and also for those students of film and soundtracks. Kerouac students will value hearing the voice of the author on the film’s soundtrack that was not available for many years. Above all, the whole box is a tribute to a life-enhancing man who has ignored the barriers between musics and has carried on throughout his rich, unique, innovatory, long, life, merging jazz, film, plays poetry and European music.
Reviewed by Jack Kenny
Moochin' Aboiut MOOCHIN 09
This is a five CD collection box from the multi-instrumentalist, composer and author David Amram which brings together tracks from seven of his film scores and two Broadway plays covering sixty years. The accompanying hundred-page booklet has been written by Amram and is full of anecdotes and reminiscences from his career. It covers the scores from ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (Frank Sinatra/Lawrence Harvey) featuring Harold Land and Paul Horn. ‘The Young Savages’ (Burt Lancaster/Shelly Winters) again features Harold Land on tenor sax. Elia Kazan’s ‘The Arrangement’ (Kirk Douglas/ Faye Dunaway/ Deborah Kerr) that score features Thad Jones and Jerry Dodgion. You have the Buster Bailey Dixieland tracks from ‘Splendor in The Grass’ (Warren Beatty/Natalie Wood) as well as a superb solo from George Barrow who worked with Mingus.
One legendary film from Amram’s past is ‘Pull My Daisy’. This was a wild indie Avant Garde film that Amram put together with ‘On the Road’ author Jack Kerouac. The soundtrack presents Kerouac’s readings in his laid back mellifluous voice. The cast includes Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and painter Larry Rivers. Amram plays Mezz McGillicuddy a mad French horn player. If you see the film, and you can on Vimeo or YouTube, you will struggle to make sense of it. It probably makes even less sense just having the soundtrack. The great saxophone playing is by Sahib Shihab. And that does make sense.
The two stage play scores are Budd Schulberg’s ‘On The Waterfront’ featuring Jerry Dodgion and Arthur Miller’s ‘After The Fall’ which features Pepper Adams and Candido.
One bonus is the soundtrack for Amram’s first film. It was also Cecil Taylor’s first recording a six minutes documentary ‘Echo of An Era’. Amram makes the point that he started with indie (independent) filming. He did have the taste and perception to employ Taylor when everyone was looking askance at the young pianist.
The final film in the box is another indie: ‘Isn‘t It Delicious’ (Kathleen Chalfant, Keir Dullea) was released last year which features Paquito d’Rivera on alto sax.
It helps that many of the films that Amram has worked on are classics; ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ seems more relevant today than it did when it first appeared. ‘Splendor in the Grass’ captures an era in a unique way. ‘The Arrangement’ illustrates the immigrant experience. Miller’s ‘After the Fall’ is still controversial dealing as it does, with the marriage of Miller and Marilyn Monroe.
The variety of musical styles on the discs is staggering. I defy you to listen to Funeral March without thinking of ‘Sketches of Spain’. Other music is what you would expect from film music. Some of the tracks invite you, as Amram suggests, to create a film in your head. Listen to ‘Ancestral Dreams’ from ‘The Arrangement’ and marvel at Amram’s range.
You cannot judge a box of CDs like this as you would judge the usual discs that pass through our hands. The music by its very nature is discontinuous and it is divorced from its real context. Nevertheless, there are great moments.
This well produced box is a rich source for those who are interested the way that jazz and music is used in film and also for those students of film and soundtracks. Kerouac students will value hearing the voice of the author on the film’s soundtrack that was not available for many years. Above all, the whole box is a tribute to a life-enhancing man who has ignored the barriers between musics and has carried on throughout his rich, unique, innovatory, long, life, merging jazz, film, plays poetry and European music.
Reviewed by Jack Kenny
