"You ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?"
Once again I have just created two mixes in rapid succession. While the most recent, Alone In the Night: The Babylon Project was a completely new project, in this case I was revisiting a compilation I had considered successful. This new assembly is very similar to the old one, but with some minor revisions and alterations in program material.
29 Tracks • 81:31
side one
1. “main title” from the taking of pelham one two three 2:17
composed and conducted by david shire
2. “junkie chase” from superfly · album version 1:33
composed by curtis mayfield
arranged by johnny pate
3. “popeye’s montage” from french connection II 1:58
composed and conducted by don ellis
4. “opening” from brother on the run 4:42
composed and conducted by johnny pate
5. “big stick” from report to the commissioner 2:56
composed and conducted by elmer bernstein
6. “copstail” from the french connection 4:00
composed and conducted by don ellis
7. “ice pick mike” from bullitt 2:54
composed and conducted by lalo schifrin
8. “fat caz” from the taking of pelham one two three 1:24
composed and conducted by david shire
9. “stampede along the thames” from brannigan 1:59
composed and conducted by dominic frontiere
performed by the london symphony orchestra
10. “‘T’ stands for trouble” from trouble man 4:38
composed by marvin gaye
arranged by j.j. johnson
11. “rehabilitation” from french connection II 1:21
composed and conducted by don ellis
12. “fat poppadaddy” from they call me mister tibbs 3:14
composed and conducted by quincy jones
13. “the getaway” from the mack 1:43
composed and conducted by willie hutch
14. “dirty laundry” and “fooled” from McQ 4:07
composed and conducted by elmer bernstein
15.“the money express” from the taking of pelham one two three 3:55
composed and conducted by david shire
side two
16. “main title” from bullitt 2:02
composed and conducted by lalo schifrin
17. “subway” from the french connection 3:09
composed and conducted by don ellis
18. “chase” from foxy brown 2:28
composed and conducted by willie hutch
19. “closing” from brother on the run 2:09
composed and conducted by johnny pate
20. “call me mister tibbs” from they call me mister tibbs 2:08
composed and conducted by quincy jones
21. “stick chase” from report to the commissioner 3:12
composed and conducted by elmer bernstein
22. “frog one” from the french connection 1:50
composed and conducted by don ellis
23. “main squeeze” from the last man 2:41
composed and conducted by quincy jones
24. “knock, knock” from brannigan 2:24
composed and conducted by dominic frontiere
performed by the london symphony orchestra
25. “big chase” from french connection II 2:31
composed and conducted by don ellis
26. “on the way to san mateo” from bullitt 2:23
composed and conducted by lalo schifrin
27. “fill your hand” from death wish 4:25
composed and conducted by herbie hancock
28. “junkie chase” from superfly · film version 4:11
composed by curtis mayfield
arranged by johnny pate
29. “end title” from the taking of pelham one two three 2:59
composed and conducted by david shire
From my original entry:The waning of the 60s and the onset of the 70s was one of the most interesting in the history of film. Stripped of the innocence of earlier eras and freed from the restrictive shackles of the Hayes Commission, cinema instead concentrated on harder, grittier material. The result was a cycle of movies that dealt with dark issues, harsh characterizations and social unrest. The urban thriller was at the vanguard of this new era, and the music needed to reflect the contemporary era. For a brief period of time, these films were scored with a strange fusion of genres that was never before seen and rarely since, and then only in pastiche. Jazz, funk and rock idioms mixed with more traditional dramatic scoring, but also with sophisticated 20th Century musical techniques.
I originally had created Urban Danger in September of 2005. At the time, only two of the five Dirty Harry scores were available, and I incorporated them into the mix. Over the interim period, Lalo Schifrin's Aleph label has released the remaining scores (including Jerry Fielding's The Enforcer), making a dedicated Dirty Harry disc possible. Additional music from various urban thrillers also became available as well, and there were a few moments here and there on that album that I hoped to fix. As a result, I decided that I wanted to go back to the well and revisit this disc. I kept the same overall structure, preserving sequences that I thought worked and changing what I felt didn't. The original version had a sort of unofficial 'side one' and' side two;' this version makes that format explicit, and in a move that seems to be increasingly common, I have dropped the subtitle of the original on the new version.
David Shire's score for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three frames this album. The relentless twelve tone funk title music, representing New York in general and the Lexington Avenue Local (6 train) in particular, opening and closing the disc. Side one also closes with an action setting of this theme in the exciting "The Money Express," and I recreated the same edit that graced the original Urban Danger of the cues "Dolowitz Takes A Look" and "Dolowitz Killed" to create the jazzy "Fat Caz." Lalo Schifrin's music from Bullitt is icily cool, just like the film's protagonist/star. I sourced the music from the original album instead of his newer recording for Aleph because I've always preferred that performance and like the hard panning inherent in the 1968 recording. The score is represented here with three tracks, the suspenseful "Ice Pick Mike" and two variations on the main theme featuring nifty solos for Les Paul guitar.
John Wayne turned down the title role of Dirty Harry, but after the success of that film he made two of his own 'tough cop' movies, McQ and Brannigan. Both films featured scores that combined jazz elements with more traditional scoring techniques; the former by Elmer Bernstein ("Dirty Laundry/Fooled"), the latter by Dominic Frontiere ("Stampede Across the Thames" and "Knock, Knock"). Bernstein also appears in two tracks from the procedural Report To the Commissioner, "Big Stick" and "Stick Chase," both of which present a hard, funky theme for the Stick character.
Herbie Hancock provided the challenging music for the original Death Wish. "Fill Your Hand" is a jazz breakdown featuring wailing saxophone solos that isn't so far from the experimental sound Miles Davis pioneered with such albums as Bitches Brew. The original assembly of Urban Danger also featured an excerpt from "Revenge," but I felt that track slowed the pace of the compilation down, and so it was dropped from this version. Don Ellis' music for the two French Connection movies is also experimental, although one of the main interests I had in revising the original version was to better represent the scores in general. Reprised from the original compilation are the jazzy "Copstail" and "Subway" from the first film and the intense "Big Chase" from the second ("Revenge" from the second film has been dropped from this revision). New to this mix are "Frog One," a combination of three cues from The French Connection, "Charnier" part 1, "Charnier" part 2 (they were a single track consisting of two cues on the FSM release) and "Au Revoir," which presents the theme for Fernando Rey's character, and a lighter side of French Connection II is heard in "Popeye's Montage" and "Rehabilitation."
Curtis Mayfield's album for Superfly is a classic of its genre, working beautifully both as score and as a stand-alone musical work. Two versions of his instrumental "Junkie Chase" appear as part of the framing sequence on this album, the shorter album edit and the full-length cue as heard in the film. The main theme from Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man score also features the saxophone and synthesizers. Johnny Pate worked on Superfly and many other scores of the era; he brought his considerable talents to composing his own blistering score for Brother On the Run. He would eventually score both Shaft In Africa and the Shaft telefilm series (represented on my Just Talkin' About Shaft compilation). Willie Hutch was another singer/composer who scored black exploitation films, The Mack and Foxy Brown being particularly prominent in the genre, the former with its strident guitars and the latter with its silky strings and flutes.
I actually have to admit that I was surprised at myself that when I compiled the original version I didn't include any tracks from the great and powerful Quincy Jones. This has been rectified with the rocking "Main Squeeze" from the caper film "The Last Man" and two tracks from They Call Me MISTER Tibbs, the much more urban follow-up to In the Heat of the Night which was set in the big city that the iconic Virgil Tubbs (Sidney Poitier) originally hailed from.
