5/17/2022

Bernard Herrmann excitement! Following on our continuing series of successful re-recordings of film music with Maestro William T. Stromberg on the podium and myself tapping him on the shoulder every time we want more French horns in bar 27, we’re readying the scores and parts to two incredible scores Herrmann scored in the fifties: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and On Dangerous Ground (1951). Only a brief portion of the Hitchcock score has been previously recorded, Now listeners will finally have all of the music Herrmann composed, including four minutes of music never-before-heard that was scored but then dropped from the finished film! And that “Prelude” is one of his most exciting with brass and tympani getting center spotlight. Some of the quieter cues with James Stewart searching for his kidnapped son are extraordinary as well. On Dangerous Ground of course features the ferocious “Death Hunt” which we’ll be doing replete with eight horns, six trumpets and trombones and two tubas! In balance are the numerous lovely passages for solo viola d’amore and strings. All-in-all an incredible array of Herrmann music. We’ll post the official Kickstarter goal and launch here in just a few days as we complete the session line-up requirements for this extraordinary recording event. We’ve got a nice track record with this series, thanks to the support from all of you!

5/10/222

Yes, this one is a John Williams favorite of mine… and the rest of the gang here. SpaceCamp from 1986 has been available on Intrada before in its original 14-track album form but now arrives fully restored from new elements to its entire glory. And glory it is with one magnificent moment after another, culminating in one of the composer’s most exhilarating endings of an entire career of incomparable masterpieces. Yeah, I love those big endings! And fans of the original album can enjoy that program on a second CD. Mike Matessino has done Williams proud with the new masters and flipper cover art wraps everything up in a nice bow! In stock and yours to order this weekend!

5/4/2022

It’s really satisfying to have so many orders come in for Jumanji, immediately upon our release of the soundtrack yesterday. We’ve expanded it from the original 1995 album to include previously unreleased music and included on a second CD the original album for anyone interested in retaining the slightly altered and edited selections chosen by composer James Horner. It was a fantastic album I played a lot when it was first released by Epic and I’m admittedly thrilled to see it now attached to an Intrada release. I’m thankful to Sony Entertainment for that honor. It’s cool to get the opportunity to expand a classic soundtrack and also present the original alongside it for new listeners discovering the excitement of Horner’s music. Given the success of the Jumanji franchise, there are likely quite a few fans now making that discovery!

Our next new release, on deck in just two weeks, is pretty exciting too. Composed in the previous decade, I anticipate it’ll get plenty of playtime too!

Speaking of playtime, I took a break from work (or sleep) and watched two totally random movies from the Warner Archive Collection on Blu-ray this morning, back-to-back. They were both short and sweet and actually, albeit random in choice, certainly happen to share a lot in common… namely low budget “B” science fiction movie creds. Even some of the same props, sets, plot ideas, script lines, what have you. I watched Queen Of Outer Space (1958) and then World Without End (1956) and it was kind of like seeing the same movie twice. Well, sort of. Anyway, Marlin Skiles writes the score for the former, Leith Stevens does the latter. I used to see Skiles name on lots of credits to low budget movies I would watch on tv when I was in my youth, albeit a couple of them like Quantrill’s Raiders and The Young Guns from 1956 which featured a really young Russ Tamblyn always grabbed my attention. Ok, funny tidbit. World Without End featured a really young Rod Taylor doing a time travel tale… before he became a star doing another more famous time travel movie some four years later. Russ Tamblyn kind of did the same forward-projecting thing in his future West Side Story success since his young guns tale featured juvenile delinquents, albeit sporting six-guns instead of switchblades. Ahhh… the simple joys of watching “B” movies. Now, I’ll get back to work.

5/2/2022

Start off the month of May with rousing musical adventure and excitement courtesy James Horner and his rich orchestral accompaniment to Joe Johnston’s wildly successful 1995 franchise-beginner, Jumanji, starring Robin Williams. Expanded 2-CD set available to own starting tomorrow!

View more at our INTRADA SOUNDTRACK FORUM