Elmer Bernstein Albums (34)
'Sweet Smell of Success'
Release Date 8/4/2008
Tracks 20
Label Fresh Sound
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What The Critics Say
The themes from the film Sweet Smell of Success (originally issued on the Decca label) surround the seedy side of Broadway/New York City social life. The plot involves syndicated gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (played by Burt Lancaster) and talent press agent Sidney Falco (portrayed by the brilliant young Tony Curtis), and their underhanded attempts to fabricate stories that touted or smeared certain clientele. Together they set up a highly publicized incestuous love affair including Hunsecker's sister and a jazz guitarist, much to the demise of all concerned. While the music is typical '50s film noir dark and passionately hued, it is also indicative of the jazz-oriented West Side Story style of intrigue that fit with the raconteur/mafia/gangster motif of earlier times. Elmer Bernstein's orchestra plays the principal music on this, his fourth movie soundtrack, with Chico Hamilton's groundbreaking quintet playing a handful of other tracks (also included on the Fresh Sound label Complete Studio Recordings) and participating onscreen during select scenes. Hamilton's sextet, and his cellist Fred Katz leading his own band complemented by other Los Angeles musicians expanded to an orchestra, provide the rest of the sounds. The Bernstein Orchestra, organized by Bobby Helfer, features such notable West Coast jazz stars as Pete Candoli and Conte Candoli, Ted Nash, Herb Geller, Bob Cooper, Bill Holman, Dave Pell, Shelly Manne, Milt Holland, and a 16-piece string section with lead cellist Armand Kaproff. They play image-provoking music like the investigative Elliott Ness-flavored main theme "The Street," jump, jive, and wailin' "Hot Dogs and Juice," lovers' interlude "Sidney and Susie," slinky and sexy "Nite Spot Rock," Benny Goodman cum Duke Ellington "Ain't Necessarily So"-styled ballad "Goodbye Baby Blues," and calypso-infused "Tropical Island Mood." Parallel three-note phrases from the classic West Side Story theme "Maria" can be heard during the dark death dirge waltz "Hunsecker's Price," a "Mood Indigo"-based string thing "The Smear," and the bluesy "Toots Shor's Blues." Whether foreshadowing impending dramatic revelation, setting up tension and release, or preluding shock and awe, the big band plays short themes that fit the plot lines well, like all good jazz storytelling should. Hamilton's ensemble takes a different tack, more melodramatic than overt, suggesting calm-before-the-storm motifs on the dour, sorrowful "Goodbye Baby" and drawing similarities to "Motherless Child," while "Cheek to Chico" and "Sidney's Theme" are modern bop numbers with a chamber music flair accented by Paul Horn's flute, the cello of Katz, Carson Smith's lithe bass, the quick-witted guitar of John Pisano, and Hamilton's flashy brush work. The Katz-led twelvetet does "Night Beat," an exotic, sensual prelude featuring Dominic Fera's suggestive clarinet, while Hamilton's sextet, minus Horn and Katz plus Conte Candoli, pianist Ernie Hughes, and trombonist Frank Rosolino, plays the "C-Jam Blues"-based hard bopper "Jam." Certainly this is a period piece, belonging to a different place and time, standing tall as a prelude to Duke Ellington's Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Stan Kenton's West Side Story (1961). ~ Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
'Three Amigos'
Release Date 10/10/2006
Tracks 17
Label Collectors' Choice Music
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'Bernard Hermann Film Scores'
Release Date 7/19/2005
Tracks 11
Label Editions Milan
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What The Critics Say
Legendary composer/conductor Elmer Bernstein provided scores for some of Hollywood's greatest dramas (Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven) but he was equally at home playing the straight man to comedy classics like Animal House, Airplane, and Ghostbusters. In 1980 he took on the Ivan Reitman military spoof Stripes with the utmost seriousness, crafting a rousing Patton-esque march that registered as one of his more memorable cues. The composer used his work on the Steve McQueen classic The Great Escape as a template for Stripes. The film was a huge success, launching the careers of Bill Murray and John Candy, but Bernstein's terrific soundtrack was never made available. In 2005, Varese Sarabande released the full remastered score to coincide with the release of the newly expanded DVD. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Saddle the Wind is a most unusual soundtrack CD, not only for resurrecting a music score to a relatively modest western movie from 36-years-earlier, but also for giving us a chance to hear an earlier music score that was ultimately displaced. Elmer Bernstein wrote the music that was ultimately used, and his score is a surprisingly upbeat western-flavored piece that utilizes the same Copland-like elements that he used in flavoring this subsequent work on The Magnificent Seven. The darker, moodier elements of the music -- which would include Julie London's version of the title song -- is where the score, as music, just tends to lie down, as Bernstein loses momentum probing the psychology of the tale and the players; it's the richer, sweeping passages that energize the music. The music by Jeff Alexander, which was ultimately unused because the movie went through a large amount of post-production retakes and re-shooting, is more successful as a psychologically oriented score -- he lacks Bernstein's big themes, but he is more adept at integrating action and internal motivation into his music, and his love theme is exceptionally beautiful even by Hollywood standards. Alexander never achieved the kind of success that Bernstein enjoyed -- there was no Magnificent Seven score in his future, or any Great Escape, but he did work for another 20 years in movies and television. The audio quality is amazingly good, considering that none of the music that we hear was ever intended to be presented as free-standing audio -- the tapes have held up extremely well, and the annotation, though a bit skimpy on Alexander and his work, is very thorough in its account of the movie's convoluted history. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
'The Magnificent Seven'
Release Date 3/30/2004
Tracks 23
Label Varese
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What The Critics Say
Varese Sarabande's reissue of Elmer Bernstein's original score recording for The Magnificent Seven is virtually identical to Rykodisc's 1998-vintage CD, except that it lacks the HDCD logo and includes fresh annotation that gives a fuller, more accurate account of the evolution of the movie and the score. The disc is still extremely impressive sonically, with a healthy, close, loud sound, with an astonishingly vivid guitar in the mix, and nicely dimensional stereo separation as well. Considering that it was never supposed to be heard fully exposed this way, and that the recordings were misplaced for more than three decades, the CD holds up well as a free-standing release and would probably please fans of Aaron Copland's music as well as movie music enthusiasts. Bernstein always considered Copland his mentor and regarded the music for this movie as very much as "collaboration" in spirit with the older composer, and the nuances revealed on the fully exposed recording only bear this out further. It must be pointed out, however, that as good as this material is, some listeners may prefer the James Sedares recording with the Phoenix Symphony on Koch, which is more finely nuanced and a completely modern recording balanced down to the last detail for contemporary listeners (and also has, as a bonus, Bernstein's overture and title music for The Hallelujah Trail). But for those who want the original, in all of its fiery glory, this is a perfectly fine CD release that also explains a lot of history behind the movie and its makers and its score. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Elmer Bernstein's music for John Sturges' movie The Great Escape proved to be one of the most enduring of all action film soundtracks, rivaling his earlier work on Sturges' The Magnificent Seven in quality if not popularity. The main title theme was never used in a cigarette ad campaign the way The Magnificent Seven's was, but it was one of the most memorable and widely heard marches written for a movie, and was so familiar (and so closely attached to the film in the minds of even casual listeners and viewers) that it became an essential ingredient of a Monty Python sketch a decade or so later. The rest of the score is surprisingly rich in both musical and dramatic content, beautifully capturing elements of the action and the characters -- Bernstein devised leitmotifs associated with characters such as Ives the Mole and Blythe the Forger that vividly recall them for the listener who has seen the movie, and it is easy to listen to this music on two levels at once, as superb music in its own right and also as evocative of the panorama of the film itself. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
'View from Pompey's Head/Blue Denim'
Release Date 9/20/2003
Tracks 31
Label Film Score Monthly
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What The Critics Say
This CD contains scores by Elmer Bernstein and Bernard Herrmann, from 1955 and 1959, respectively. The Bernstein score for The View from Pompey's Head marked the composer's first venture into the writing of a romantic soundtrack with a big string sound -- listening to it 50 years on, it seems to anticipate Bernstein's late-career work on Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven in mood and texture (and, to a degree, subject matter). This was also Bernstein's first opportunity to venture into the writing of a score evoking traditional Americana -- beginning with track five, "Homecoming," and even more so with track six, "On the Road to Tamburlaine," he takes the first tentative steps toward the authorship of The Magnificent Seven score, crossing into Aaron Copland territory for the first time, although in this instance it isn't the Copland of "Rodeo" or "Billy the Kid" so much as the Copland of Our Town. The music is amazingly fresh and bold, and holds up wonderfully as a free-standing composition; listening to this CD makes one wonder why there never was a soundtrack LP at the time of the movie's release. The second-half of the CD is made up of one of Bernard Herrmann's more obscure scores, for the then-controversial movie Blue Denim (1959), which dealt with teenage pregnancy at a time when the latter word couldn't even be mentioned onscreen in American movies. Herrmann started work on this score the same day that he finished recording the soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and it displays the same boldness in the writing -- especially for the strings -- that his work of this period typically demonstrated. There are several unused (and, thus, previously unheard) cues in the assembly of this material, which range from Herrmann-lite depicting the antics of the three teenaged friends at the center of the story, to some of his more romantic writing of the period. Rather than underscoring the action, at time Herrmann overscores it, as with the optimistic final section, but in the main this is one of his better, more alluring romantic scores depicting young love -- at moments, as in track 20, "The Letter," his work does recall the scoring of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), which was arguably the high point of Herrmann's Hollywood career. The CD sound is excellent, the source tapes apparently in fine condition and well transferred here (in stereo), and the annotation is superb -- in any collection, this is a bargain just in the having. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
'World of Henry Orient'
Release Date 9/20/2003
Tracks 18
Label Film Score Monthly
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What The Critics Say
Written in the wake of his landmark The Magnificent Seven, Elmer Bernstein's score to the 1964 madcap fantasy The World of Henry Orient is 180 degrees removed from its predecessor. A charmingly sweet and lighthearted evocation of adolescent pluck, it captures an innocence rare among the composer's work. Bernstein treats the larger-than-life escapades of the film's young heroines with admirable sensitivity, penning a series of whimsical themes that never belittle their teen spirit. Peter Sellers' titular pianist is not so lucky, however, with composer Kenneth Lauber contributing a vicious lampoon of avant-garde sensibilities. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
As an aging John Wayne transitioned from Westerns to crime thrillers, he brought with him Elmer Bernstein, and even if the composer didn't redefine the urban sprawl of contemporary America with the same larger-than-life majesty he brought to the sand and sagebrush of the old west, 1974's McQ nevertheless reaffirms the Duke's tougher-than-leather stature via Bernstein's trademark melodic bombast and orchestral bluster. Love 'em or hate 'em, Bernstein's two-fisted themes perfectly communicate Wayne's no-nonsense screen persona. McQ makes few concessions to subtlety or nuance, instead favoring widescreen action and relentless pacing galvanized by exaggerated symphonics, brash percussion, and explosions of brass. Film Score Monthly's limited-edition reissue is typically top-notch, with detailed liner notes and superlative fidelity. Recommended, assuming the above review reads more like a compliment than a criticism. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
