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French Movie Soundtrack reissues


The Mule

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Has anyone else discovered the Universal/EmArcy French film soundtrack series? I recently picked up Jimmy Smith improvising to the Pierre Granier-Deferre film LA METAMORPHOSE DES CLOPORTES and Martial Solal's amazing work on Jean-Luc Godard's A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (aka: BREATHLESS). The Smith is very interesting as well because he pretty much wings it. It's the most spontaneous improvising I've ever heard from Smith and he often veers into Larry Young territory on this.

These discs are loaded with extra tracks. The Smith disc includes Jimmy's versions of the themes to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, GOLDFINGER, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM and others. The Solal is a real gem and includes his work on other films, including Orson Welles' THE TRIAL.

The packaging on these is very nice as well. The booklets are downright handsome with high-quality paper and beautiful b&w photo reproduction. Each includes a catalogue of the other titles in the series (28 so far).

I am currently on the hunt for MORT D'UN POURRI which features Stan Getz. I found these in the soundtrack section of Tower Records, but have also seen them available via Dusty Groove.

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Another worthy soundtrack that seems to have been reissued here

(by Universal) is the Fontana CD of the music to the 1959 film by

Roger Vadim 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses'. The CD has the music by

the Jazz Messengers (with Lee Morgan, Barney Wilen, Bobby Timmons,

Jymie Merrit and Blakey). I have seen new copies on a budget edition.

Excellent music.

Wish somebody would also issue the music that Thelonious Monk and his

quartet (Rouse, Sam Jones, Art Taylor) recorded for the same film.

The film is currently playing on one of the French cable film channel.

The Blakey Messengers music (which was mainly composed by Duke Jordan

under the Jack Maray alias) is heard briefly in the film.

Small aside. The Messengers music starts near the end of the film

with a great solo by Lee Morgan as background to a wild party that opens with

a closeup of Kenny Dorham (who is seen playing - but not heard - along with

Kenny Clarke, Barney Wilen, Duke Jordan and French bass player Paul Rovere).

The Monk music is all over the film and contains brilliant pieces

(there's a great 'Crepuscule with Nelly' solo in the opening

sequence). The Monk music has never been released anywhere.

The film stinks.

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Anyone here who remembers Jean-Luc Godard's "Alphaville" from 1965? I remember that when catching the film from TV one late night ten years ago, the score made a strong impression on me. I made some attempts at finding it on LP or CD back then, but I never succeeded.

Edited by Daniel A
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'Alphaville' is not my favorite Godard film (a surrealistic sciencefiction tale with

Eddie Constantine in his Lemmy Caution silhouette and Godard's companion Anna

Karina sharing the main parts). It plays off and on on French films channels.

The score by Paul Misraki is pretty impressive. Much better than the usual

Misraki film scores.

This must have been issued at the time as an EP. Not sure it has been reissued

and doubt you will find it nowadays.

But the film should be available as a DVD.

Good luck!

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Yes, ALPHAVILLE is available on DVD via The Criterion Collection--no extras on the disc, but it does feature a nicely cleaned-up print of the film.

Also available in this soundtrack series is Georges Delerue's magnificent score for Godard's LE MEPRIS (aka CONTEMPT). It's not jazz, but it's great music.

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Couple more interesting French movie sountracks:

- the Modern Jazz Quartet Atlantic album 'One Never Knows' is the

sountrack to the 1957 Roger Vadim film 'Sait-On Jamais' (another

Vadim stinker which was set in Venice),

- the Kenny Dorham-Barney Wilen soundtrack to the 1959 film 'Un Temoin

dans la Ville' (directed by Edouard Molinaro, a French black - as in film noir -

film). The film is nothing to rave about but the music is great with Kenny

Dorham, Barney Wilen, Duke Jordan, Paul Rovere and Kenny Clarke.

The same people that are seen - but do not perform - in Vadim's 'Les

Liaisons Dangereuses'

The music to 'Un Temoin dans la Ville' has been reissued on CD but am not

sure it is available right now.

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...music to "Les Ennemis" (1961) by Martial Solal & Fernandez Gonzalo.... and one song to the film "Le procès (The trial)" (1964) by Martial Solal.

So there's a slight overlap between some of the cuts on JAZZ ET CINEMA VOL. 4 and the Solal A BOUT DE SOUFFLE soundtrack I mentioned in the first post.

Both LE PROCES (Orson Welles' THE TRIAL) and LES ENNEMIS are also on the A BOUT DE SOUFFLE as extra tracks.

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  • 1 year later...

Up... after almost two years.

Discovered this soundtrack album

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000...1986037-1113707

The sadly missed Pepper Adams is featured in the soundtrack of the forgettable 1976 film 'Nous Irons Tous au Paradis'. He played as part of a group called 'the Sax Brothers'. The other featured soloist was Tony Coe. Also involved in the band that performed the easy-listening music by Vladimir Cosma were pianist Maurice Vander and drummer Sam Woodyard.

Coe, Vander and Woodyard also took part in the Vladimir Cosma music for the other film 'Un Elephant Ca Trompe Enormement.

The soundtracks are part of a series produced by Sony France.

Edited by brownie
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Don't know if they still have them, but the JAZZ ET CINEMA volumes were available as part of Dusty Groove's JAZZ IN PARIS blowout sale for either $4.99 or $5.99:

Jazz in Paris sale

It looks as if three of the four volumes are still listed in stock. My, we've certainly picked that sale clean though, haven't we?

Edited by ghost of miles
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Guest akanalog

what's up with the music to the polanski film "repulsion". i think that is the name of the film.

saw it a few weeks ago and the music was great i think it was chico hamilton's quartet.

this hasn't been released on CD, has it?

i saw "breathless" last night and the music was great too. didn't realize this was solal.

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I did pick up the Smith at Dusty Groove. Not sure about the others, but am considering one or two. One of the CDs available is the soundtrack to Tati's Traffic. Any thoughts on that one? The film is definitely not his best, but I don't recall the soundtrack offhand.

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Guest akanalog

i saw a solal soundtrack the other day to, it looked like, a french racing movie. seemed to be from the late sixties or early seventies. it looked like trio music with e-piano. i was interested but it looked really short-like half an hour-and it was like 18 bucks. anyone know about this one?

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i saw a solal soundtrack the other day to, it looked like, a french racing movie. seemed to be from the late sixties or early seventies. it looked like trio music with e-piano. i was interested but it looked really short-like half an hour-and it was like 18 bucks. anyone know about this one?

You mean 'Locomotion'? That one:

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000...1986037-1113707

For Solal completists only. It's not really a soundtrack from a film. This was part of a series of music to be used to accompany TV features!

Solal met the challenge but the result is an oddity in his discography!

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  • 1 year later...

Recently released is this CD

B000G759V2.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V60283831_.jpg

It has 19 jazz tracks from film music composed by Vladimir Cosma. Some surprises are included in the compilation. Chet Baker, Don Byas, Toots Thielemans, Philippe Catherine, PepperAdams, Martial Solal are among the musicians that show up in the film soundtracks.

Did not realize until I got this disc that Don Byas was heard on the soundtrack of 'Alexandre le Bienheureux', a minor hit by Yves Robert (Byas is magnificient on the two cuts) or that Martial Solal played on the soundtrack of 'La Course A l'Echalotte', a forgettable comedy by Claude Zidi.

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