All In Good Time: Final Brubeck Quartet Concert Arrives From Legacy

Time has been very good to Dave Brubeck.  The legendary jazz pianist and composer, 90 years young,  has both a Kennedy Center Honor and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award under his belt, and his 1959 Time Out remains one of the biggest-selling albums jazz of all time, not to mention the genre’s first million seller. Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond’s sinuous, sophisticated “Take Five” became a signature song for the Dave Brubeck Quartet and one of the most recognizable pieces of music, anywhere.  The Quartet followed Time Out with a number of “sequels” including Countdown: Time in Outer Space, Time Further Out, Time Changes and Time In.  But all good things must come to an end.  On December 26, 1967, Brubeck, Desmond, Joe Morello (drums) and Eugene Wright (bass) formally disbanded The Dave Brubeck Quartet with a performance in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Though commercially unreleased for all of the years that ensued, Columbia and Legacy are finally making that crucial turning point in jazz available.  On November 1, The Last Time Out – December 26, 1967 arrived in stores, celebrating that one moment in time.

Speaking of time, was there ever a watershed year in jazz like 1959?  Brubeck’s Time Out was joined by Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um, John Coltrane’s Giant Steps and Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come!  Remarkably, the classic Brubeck Quartet lineup had solidified just a year or so prior to the release of the seminal LP, after a number of drummers and bassists had entered and exited.  Though Brubeck continues to lead a Quartet to this day, no unit has scaled quite the same heights as those four gentlemen did between 1958 and 1967.

Hit the jump for more on this exciting new addition to the Quartet catalogue!

“Gremlins” Are Loose! FSM Bows Long-Awaited Complete Score

Here is one of the most exciting sentences we could ever type for soundtrack fans on The Second Disc: Jerry Goldsmith’s score to Gremlins is coming to CD from Film Score Monthly.

“Cute. Cuddly. Mischevious. Intelligent. Dangerous.” Those five words roped audiences into one of the most exciting horror-comedies of the 1980s, Joe Dante’s Gremlins. The tale of a storybook American small town rocked by wacky creatures with razor-sharp claws on Christmas Eve was a perfect marriage of humor and macabre cinema. Director Dante – who got his start building scares on the cheap for Roger Corman on flicks like Piranha (1978) – writer Chris Columbus and producer Steven Spielberg were the perfect team to get the right mix of E.T.-like cuddliness and The Blob-esque shock horror, and audiences responded in kind (at least, when they weren’t protesting a spat of scares that inadvertently helped create the PG-13 rating in America).

One of the many feathers in Gremlins‘ cap is the delightful score by Jerry Goldsmith, who threw his skills at writing for horror, action and romantic moments into a blender and created one of the most earworm-ridden scores of his career. The synth-heavy “Gremlin Rag,” a mischievous motif for the titular hellraisers, is pure candy for soundtrack fans, as is a wistful song for the innocent creature Gizmo. Add a dollop of traditional holiday arrangements and you’ve got a perennial favorite – albeit one that was only partially serviced when it came time for a soundtrack release.

The original LP was a short one, split between 16 minutes of score and a couple of pop tunes by the likes of Quarterflash, Michael Sembello and Peter Gabriel (his tune, the Nile Rodgers-produced “Out Out,” remained incredibly rare for years). It was given a belated release on CD in the 1990s, and that was that for years, with mounting legal clearances hindering a proper reissue for a long time. But now, FSM save one of the best for one of their last, crafting a two-disc set of both the complete score with alternate cues (lovingly remastered by original supervising engineer Bruce Botnick) and that original soundtrack LP on CD.

If you love Gremlins as much as this writer, it’s all here and it’s all available now, released as a non-limited title. This is by far one of the best Christmas gifts you can get for a film music fan (especially if that fan is you) – just make sure to keep the discs away from sunlight…

Full details are after the jump! (Note: the servers at FSM and Screen Archives have been crawling since the announcement, so have faith. The set is unlimited, so you’re not going to miss out.)

German Is The Loving Tongue: “Pure Dylan” Import Anthology Offers New-to-CD Tracks

Though Bob Dylan has disowned the phrase, his Never-Ending Tour is as strong as ever.  Dylan and his band are currently canvassing Europe, with eight of those gigs taking place in Germany.  The German stand began on October 23 and concludes next week, on November 7.  A total of over 100,000 German spectators will have attended Dylan’s concerts, performed with special guest (and past Dylan collaborator) Mark Knopfler.  In conjunction with the German leg of the tour, Sony Music Germany has released a new compilation that’s sure to raise the eyebrows of Dylan collectors around the world.

Pure: An Intimate Look at Bob Dylan offers a 17-track, 78-minute selection of career highlights, but these aren’t of the “greatest hits” variety.  You won’t find “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Tangled Up in Blue” or “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” here.  The mission was to collect rarely heard songs not available on the other “best-of” compilations, and to that end, the compilers have succeeded.  “Trouble in Mind,” with Knopfler on guitar, first appeared as the B-side of 1979’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” single, and makes its first authorized appearance on CD.  The solo piano version of “Spanish is the Loving Tongue” initially graced the flipside of 1971’s “Watching the River Flow” and is also scarcely available on disc.

Hit the jump for more, including the complete track listing with discographical annotation!

New Diana Ross Compilation “Coming Out” in the U.K.

Miss Diana Ross – arguably the Queen of Motown both with The Supremes and on her own, varied solo ventures – easily has one hit for every one of her 67 years on Earth. A new U.K. compilation, The Greatest, packs 44 tracks onto two discs, providing the market with a new way to discover her.

The Greatest brings together just about all the facets of Ross’ career: ten tracks from The Supremes, the Motown label’s white-hot girl group supreme, a healthy helping of tracks from Diana’s solo years on Motown from 1970 to 1981, a group of choice cuts from her time on RCA throughout the ’80s, and even tracks from her triumphant return to Motown in the 1990s. There’s soundtrack songs aplenty, from the obvious hits (themes to Mahogany and the classic duet “Endless Love” with Lionel Richie) to the fan favorites (1980’s “It’s My Turn,” “If We Hold On Together,” from 1988’s The Land Before Time). And there are a few choice late period duets with Ray Charles and Rod Stewart.

While some might balk at the non-chronological set list and the serious lack of major Supremes hits (“Back in My Arms Again,” “Someday We’ll Be Together”), few compilations span as much breadth as this one. If you’re a new fan interested in adding a Diana-centric import to your collection, this might be the one to pick.

The Greatest is out November 7 and can be ordered from Amazon U.K. after the jump.