Teasing the Korean

Bud Shank - Magical Mystery - World Pacific (stereo) Jazz guys trying to get hip to the sounds of today! Beatles side has mini psych freakouts between each track. "Fool on the Hill" sounds like Morricone circa 1969!

Recently: Jimmy McGriff - The Mean Machine (GM) Jimmy McGriff - Red Beans (GM) Hugh Masakela - I am Not Afraid (Blue Thumb) Don Sebeskey and the Jazz Rock Syndrome (Verve, stereo) The Zimbo Trio - The Brazilian Sound, Retrained Excitement (Pacific Jazz, stereo) Oscar Brown, Jr. - In a New Mood (Columbia, two eye mono)

Ah! Nice one. Morricone wrote lots of film scores, people are used to consider his works after Leone's westerns, but lesser known and lesser successfull movies have great music too, often better then the movies itself. I especially love Morricone's late 60s-early 70s scores for giallo films and also what I can describe only as "groovy Euro films." Love the juxtapositions of Bacharach-esque chord progressions, breathy wordless female vocals, fake rock elements and dissonant orchestral mayhem that sometimes show up within a single soundtrack. Porcy, I want to visit Rome but I'm scared it won't look like it does in early 70s films and Guido Crepax cartoons! Please tell me the women still wear maxi-skirts and the guys are wearing turtlenecks with flared pants, and everyone is driving around in minis!

Morricone - Metti una Sera a Cena (Dagored)

Paul Winter and Carlos Lyra - Columbia (stereo)

Tell me about his proto-exotica tunes.

Just listened to a rare one: Edward M. Zajda - Independent Electronic Music Composer (Ars Nova Ars Antiqua) Which noun is the adjective "electronic" modifying? Gotta love any album that samples both the Apollo moon landing and "Let's Hang On" by the Four Seasons!

Porcy, you of all orgsters should be able to answer my question...

Just played: Morton Subotnick - Touch (Columbia) A really nice one. Lots of percussive segments that almost sound like boo bams or kalimba, alternating with more static ambient sections. Lots of surprises, including a sustained high-pitched squeal near the end of side 2!

I was under the impression that there is also another date in the 50s during which mono LPs changed somehow, resulting in three phases of mono microgroove records. Is this true?

Last night: Sonny Rollins - Twofer compilation on Prestige. Music is from early 50s sessions. Cover image is from his Taxi Driver photo shoot.

Ah...I'd love to own that one. Shouldn't be too tough to find. The remastered CD, BTW, contains all sorts of music that didn't make it to the original LP.

While I'm not an audiophile, I can detect good vs. crappy digital sound, and I've heard some recent mp3s that sound surprisingly good. I imagine the technology keeps improving.

This may be obvious, but the Blue Note Rare Groove and Blue Break Beats compilations often show up for short dough. These may help to provide a direction.

John Barry - Diamonds are Forever - UA

Wayne Shorter - Wayning Moments - VJ (stereo) Love VJ's stereo mixes on jazz records from this period. Rhythm instruments in the middle, horns off to one side or another.

With regards to cartoons, the bluesy middle section of Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" was used in a number of Carl Stalling scores to WB cartoons. There are two collections of "The Carl Stalling Project" available on CD, and I'm sure you'd find a certain amount of bluesy stuff in there. These are fascinating to listen to without the visual images, but I can listen only in small doses at a time. They're a pretty wild ride.

Allen, while I'm no expert, I do know a fair amount about jazz and its influence related to film scores. "Streetcar" is often cited as the earliest example of a Hollywood orchestral underscore with a jazz element, and by "jazz" in the case I mean with a decidedly bluesy feel. There are others with distinctively bluesy feel, but they fall outside your timeframe. The track "Floozie" from North's "The Rose Tattoo" (1955) and most of Kenyon Hopkins's excellent score for the adaptation of Tennessee Williams's "Baby Doll" (1956) are two examples. That latter was on Columbia and is out on a Legacy CD; the former was re-recorded (with the same arrangement) on North's album "North of Hollywood." The track is also available on one of the Rhino "Crime Jazz" CD collections.

I wasn't being critical.

Seriously, you don't know what I mean? The word "modern" is frequently misused.

I was simply making the distinction between uses of the word "modern."

I'm assuming you mean "current/contemporary" and not "modern" in the strict sense.

That's Leith Stevens. Yeah, both great scores.

No, Rollins scored the film, though the LP was likely a re-record, and probably an opportunity to expand on the music.