Movie Scores

So i was visiting my house today and my mom decided to put on a movie she saw on t.v. entitled " Nighthawks", a cheesy white man black man cop movie starring Silvester Stallon and Billy Dee Williams, and i must say i was a little interested from the start to see how a 80's movie starring Rocky and Lando would ultimetly play out, but during the beginning credits i was awstruck to see " Music by Keith Emerson"! Well i couldn't quite finish the movie.. but it was very interesting hearing Emerson step in to that field, there are many parts that you can clearly hear him rippin' it up on the organ and piano. I would just like to know if this has happened to anyone here? I am curious to hear other scores by proggers, as i found this quite ammusing myself. Others i can remember were Stanley Clarke on Undercover Brother, and Roll Bounce ( Perhaps the worst movie of the year), and of course scores by Vangelis. Please give me some feedback! 

A recurring post this one. Other examples:

- Mike Oldfield 'The Killing Fields'. David Bedford did the choral arrangements in this one, as well as in 'The Mission' and he compose the score for Sally Potter's 'Orlando'

- Not a movie score, but it usually mentioned 'Buffalo 66', which features some Yes, ELP and Crimson songs.

- Trevor Rabin has been very active since the 90s. He is pal with Hans Zimmer, whose music production company, 'Mediaventures' is like a factory of film composers. Rabin most famous scores are 'Armaggedon', 'Con Air' and 'National Treasure', among many other blockbusters.

- Tony Banks made some scores in the 80s: 'The Shout', 'The Wicked Lady', 'Quicksilver (that one featured a song sung by Fish I think) and another one I can't remember now.

- Of course, let's not forget Phil Collins song for 'Tarzan' and 'Brother Bear'.

- More Genesis: Peter Gabriel did a rather boring soundtrack for Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ'. And Anthony Phillips has done music for documentaries and a couple of TV Movies.

- Pink Floyd made 'Zabriskie Point' and a couple more I can't remember.

- I almost forget Rick Wakeman, who made 'Crimes of Passion' and 'Lizstomania' by Ken Russell and 'The Burning' and the soundtrack to a couple of sports movies, 'G'olé' and 'White Rock'. By the way, one of the most proggish 80's techno artists also made a very Wakeman-like soundtrack for Russell in the very strange film 'Gothic'.

I'm sure there are some more examples I can't recall now.

 

Dragon Phoenix wrote: Paco Fox wrote: Peter Gabriel did a rather boring soundtrack for Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ'. Boring in your opinion.

Yes, I used to have that on tape when it first came out and I listened to it a lot. It was very good, particularly as background music for reading a book to. I much prefer that soundtrack to Gabriel's commercial songs.

CAN - Soundtracks

RoyalJelly wrote:      There are more interesting soundtracks by real filmcomposers than those from proggers. Jerry Goldsmith had some amazing scores, especially for the original "Planet of the Apes", which is a very Straviskyan, raucous affair, and provides far more alien ambience than the cheesy sets. Some of Danny Elfman's scores for Tim Burton are also magical, like "Edward Scissorhands", better than the film, also "To Die For". My favorite new score is the one for "The Constant Gardener" by Alberto Iglesias (no relation to Julio), who also composes for Almodovar...it's a very progressive mix of African rhythms & classical strings, gorgeous. Also, all of Bernard Hermann's work, Alex North, Leonard Rosenmann...

Soundtrack music, although can put off many listener because most of the time verges into incidental music that only makes sense with the film itself can be of interest for proggers. Now that you mention it, I realise it's strange that not that much proggers are into this genre too and vice versa. Of my prog friends, just one and myself are into film soundtracks, and just a bit. And of my film soundtrack fanatic friends (and I mean fanatic: Two of them are even coordinating a film music festival in Spain), I just know one who likes Mike Oldfield.

Anyway, soundtrack music is just so varied that most of proggers could give it a try. Avant garde or RIO fans really should listen to RoyalJelly recommendation, The Planet of the Apes. Dave Grusin has some very good jazz influenced soundtracks for those into jazz-prog. And so on...

If anyone wants to start in film music, some key authors of the genre:

- Sergei Prokofiev, specially Alexander Newsky

- Erich Wolfgang Korngold, specially The Adventures of Robin Hood

- Fank Wazman, specially 'The Bride of Frankenstein'

- Max Steiner, maybe with 'King Kong' or 'Gone with the Wind'

- Dimitri Tiomkin, specially... mmm... The Alamo

- Jerome Moross, specially The Big Country (covered by Yes in 'No opportunity...)

- Ennio Morricone, specially the works for Sergio Leone (covered by some prog groups now and then).(( By the way, I forgot another prog group doing soundtracks: Goblin, who made several Dario Argento films and an horde of very bad italian Z-grade movies.))

- Bernard Herrman, specially... really difficult here... Vertigo or Citizen Kane... or Psycho

- Elmer Bernstein, specially The Man with the golden arm

- George Deleure, specially Jules et Jim

- Jerry Goldsmith, specially 'Planet of the Apes' or, if you're not in the mood for music THAT difficult,

- Maurice Jarre, specially Lawrence of Arabia

- John Williams, specially Star Wars.

- Danny Elfman, specially Edward Scissorhands

- Hans Zimmer, specially Gladiator.

Of course, there are lots more (and some classic composers I forgot, like Alfred Newman), but I think these are the most representative of the various film music tendences through the decades.

Some other prog (or related) soundtrack work:

• Vangelis - many soundtrack credits, Blade Runner is outstanding
• Tangerine Dream - again, many soundtrack credits. Chris Franke has apparently done a lot of soundtrack work for TV since he left.
• Irmin Schmidt (Can) - issued a 3 cd set of his soundtrack work - uneven, but CD 2 has some excellent material
• Popol Vuh - soundtracks to several Werner Herzog films
• Christian Vander (Magma) - Wurdah Itah was the soundtrack to a film version of Tristan et Iseult

chopper wrote: Paco Fox wrote: Anthony Phillips has done music for documentaries and a couple of TV Movies. He released the "Tarka" album, which did not get used as the film soundtrack in the end but is an excellent album nevertheless. You can just imagine the film whilst listening to it.

Some prog artist could do really amazing soundtrack work if they were given the chance. I specially thing Phillips and Andy Latimer coud be great. Sadly, most of the directors seem to be pop fans.

Ah! And another film composer I forgot that comes from prog is Richard Harvey. He was in Gryphon, and has made some very, very fine work in several english films.

 

Starette wrote: QUESTION! QUESTION! What's this Phil Collins 'Buster' that everyone keeps talking about??

SHHHHHH!!

First rule of prog club - we do NOT discuss 'Buster'