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Twilight Zone Jazz


Teasing the Korean

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  • 2 years later...

There was a great 1960s British horror film anthology that featured a short horror story about a jazz trumpet player who transcribed some sacred African melodies, and performed them in a club.The resultant piece is a bongo-filled, dissonant, wild cacophony that builds up to the leader of the tribe laying the hapless trumpet player to waste. I forget the name of the movie- maybe something like "Tales of Terror"(?).

Kenton might have done some stuff like that.

Lalo Schifrin's first Hollywood score (some 1966 crime movie with Ann- Margaret), ends with a wild piece like this.

David Raksin wrote some dissonant stuff for "Force of Evil" that might qualify.

i think there was some of this type of stuff in "Crime and Punishment, USA" (1962).

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There was a great 1960s British horror film anthology that featured a short horror story about a jazz trumpet player who transcribed some sacred African melodies, and performed them in a club.The resultant piece is a bongo-filled, dissonant, wild cacophony that builds up to the leader of the tribe laying the hapless trumpet player to waste. I forget the name of the movie- maybe something like "Tales of Terror"(?).

I think you are thinking of Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Amusingly for British viewers the trumpeter was played by Roy Castle, a light entertainer (and trumpeter) who presented a long-running children's series called Record Breakers. Tubby Hayes also makes an appearance.

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There was a great 1960s British horror film anthology that featured a short horror story about a jazz trumpet player who transcribed some sacred African melodies, and performed them in a club.The resultant piece is a bongo-filled, dissonant, wild cacophony that builds up to the leader of the tribe laying the hapless trumpet player to waste. I forget the name of the movie- maybe something like "Tales of Terror"(?).

I think you are thinking of Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Amusingly for British viewers the trumpeter was played by Roy Castle, a light entertainer (and trumpeter) who presented a long-running children's series called Record Breakers. Tubby Hayes also makes an appearance.

That's the one. RC was a pisser!

I saw another 60s British horror flick the other day called "Corruption", with Peter Cushing wildly overacting the old 'mad surgeon trying to restore his wife's beautiful face by using the skin of other beautiful women' role (in other words, a rip-off of "Eyes Without a Face").

There's some wonderfully demented 'Twilight Zone Jazz' in the scene when Cushing and his wife are chasing the beatnik chick across the beach for what seems like an hour.

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  • 1 year later...

There was a great 1960s British horror film anthology that featured a short horror story about a jazz trumpet player who transcribed some sacred African melodies, and performed them in a club.The resultant piece is a bongo-filled, dissonant, wild cacophony that builds up to the leader of the tribe laying the hapless trumpet player to waste. I forget the name of the movie- maybe something like "Tales of Terror"(?).

I think you are thinking of Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Amusingly for British viewers the trumpeter was played by Roy Castle, a light entertainer (and trumpeter) who presented a long-running children's series called Record Breakers. Tubby Hayes also makes an appearance.

That's the one. RC was a pisser!

I saw another 60s British horror flick the other day called "Corruption", with Peter Cushing wildly overacting the old 'mad surgeon trying to restore his wife's beautiful face by using the skin of other beautiful women' role (in other words, a rip-off of "Eyes Without a Face").

There's some wonderfully demented 'Twilight Zone Jazz' in the scene when Cushing and his wife are chasing the beatnik chick across the beach for what seems like an hour.

Doctor Terror's House Of Horrors was one of my favorite horror anthology flicks when I was a kid. Loved all those Amicus productions.

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Jazz Theme #3 by Rene Garriguenc. I think it also goes under the title "Street Moods in Jazz." It was not composed for a particular episode; It either was composed as a generic piece for the CBS library or it somehow ended up there. It was available on one of the TZ LPs, the single-disc Twilight Zone CD, and the sadly out-of-print TZ 40th Anniversary CD set. Here it is:

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Thanks, good to know, and I have no idea who this guy is/was. Pretty interesting.

I'm pretty heavily into soundtracks circa mid-1950s to mid/late 1970s, and I've never encountered his name anyplace except for this one theme.

What odd careers that so many musicians have. Here is a guy who is utterly unknown in the U.S., yet everyone remembers that one piece of music from the Twilight Zone.

While we are on the subject, here are some of Jerry Goldsmith's Twilight Zone "jazz" scores. Jerry claimed in interviews that he did not like jazz very much. If this is true, I find these pieces to be all the more fascinating. There is something about "serious" composers who try to "do jazz." They often get it all wrong on certain levels, but can come up with things that are at least as compelling as any of the best jazz, IMO. I think these pieces are more successful than a lot of the Third Stream stuff I've heard. (And I admit to not having heard some key Third Stream works.)

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