Under appreciated composers

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Frodo
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Under appreciated composers

Post by Frodo »

Look-- I'm a strange person. I orchestrate a lot. I'm a Beatle fan and play the guitar and bass. I like AC/DC and ZZ Top. I like Dave Matthews. I like Soundgarten and Pearl Jam. I like Kings X. I like Lifehouse and Greenday. I like Oscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett. I like Earth-Wind & Fire, I like Tower/Power. I like Sly and the Family Stone. I like Eminem. I like Janet. I like Beatles. I like Stones. I like Phil Glass. I can't stomach Celine.

The list goes on.

But here's the deal-- I also love the work of Carl Stalling, the composer for so many Warner Brothers animated shorts. No less a genius is Milt Franklyn. If that name means nothing, then check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhq0N4ORYjM

You "older cusses" will get a kick out of this.

Milt was Carl's apprentice and assistant for many years, and he took over for Carl when Carl retired.

Okay.

But then there was Scott Bradley who did quite a bit of composing for animated cartoons. If this comes across as substandard or compromising, check out this quote:
His early style incorporated fragments of popular and traditional melodies, as was common practice in scores for animation. However, by the late 1940s, Bradley's compositions and orchestrations had become more original and complex, occasionally utilizing the twelve-tone technique devised by Arnold Schoenberg who, along with Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hindemith, influenced Bradley's approach. "Scott writes the most blank-blank-blank difficult fiddle music in Hollywood," concertmaster Lou Raderman was quoted (complaining good-naturedly) in Sight & Sound magazine. "He is going to break my fingers."
Okay. so Scott was cool.

I want to also submit the name Winston Sharples to this echelon. We're taking about the originals of Little Audrey, Casper, Popeye and so many other fully orchestrated animated shorts that way too many people take for granted.

I say this because I've done 11 orchestrations in the past three weeks, and no one's life has changed because of it. I've done probably 200 orchestrations in the past 18 months, and I have no proof that anyone was uplifted by all that effort.

These guys churned out way more music than I can ever imagine, and I'm finding it all to be masterful work (only in my old age) -- every note of it. In a nutshell, I suck by comparison --- and it's no photo finish by any stretch.

If you listen to these soundtracks, they are all masterpieces in their own rights.

I'm just saying that Winston, Carl, Milt, and Scott are four of THE most listened-to but most taken-for-granted and least appreciated composers who ever lived. The writing alone is as mind-boggling as the amount of it they did. Scott alone has over 800 screen credits.

Okay, so what goes on in orchestra world is not important to everyone. That's okay. I'll be back in guitar world in a few days.

But I'm just sayin'....

We've overlooked some important people....
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by bkshepard »

A few years ago, when I was still in my orchestral percussion days, we booked a show with the orchestra called Bugs Bunny on Broadway that featured a bunch of Stalling's music with video cartoon/animation. Anyway, the touring group was supposed to also include the xylophone player, who for some reason canceled on the gig at the last minute. I showed up at the rehearsal expecting to play a little triangle and sound effect stuff only to have that xylophone book put in front of me instead. In my 30 years as an orchestral percussionist, I have never played a show as difficult, or as fun! Man, that's great stuff!
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by Frodo »

bkshepard wrote:A few years ago, when I was still in my orchestral percussion days, we booked a show with the orchestra called Bugs Bunny on Broadway that featured a bunch of Stalling's music with video cartoon/animation. Anyway, the touring group was supposed to also include the xylophone player, who for some reason canceled on the gig at the last minute. I showed up at the rehearsal expecting to play a little triangle and sound effect stuff only to have that xylophone book put in front of me instead. In my 30 years as an orchestral percussionist, I have never played a show as difficult, or as fun! Man, that's great stuff!
Oh, yes. I know BBB very well-- was excited when they decided to do it-- what a great project.

The xylo player cancelled at the last minute "for some reason"... ha-ha! He probably took one look at the xylophone part and fainted! :lol:

No, there's nothing "kiddie" going on with that music-- it's seriously brilliant writing.
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by bkshepard »

Actually, there's a xylophone player that tours with the show and plays it all the time. For some reason, they just didn't show up at our gig! :shock:
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by bkshepard »

A couple of years before the BBB gig, a friend of mine loaned me a copy of the Carl Stalling Project CD. I made the mistake of listening to it in my car. For those of you unfamiliar with Carl Stalling and his music, it can be some of the most disjointed and schizophrenic stuff you'll ever hear because it accompanied cartoons. Unfortunately, it also tends to induce schizophrenia and road rage when I'm driving. That was scary!

It should come with one of those warning labels "Do not drive or operate heavy machinery while listening to this CD!" :lol:
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by kgdrum »

classic cartoon music is some of my favorite music all time :lol: it is so underrated ,try watching the cartoons without the music....................... :shock:
cartoons are imo an audio&visual medium...........WB.Looney,Fleischer,Hanna Barbara etc....music and sound effects were almost as important as the artwork.
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by Frodo »

kgdrum wrote:classic cartoon music is some of my favorite music all time :lol: it is so underrated ,try watching the cartoons without the music....................... :shock:
cartoons are imo an audio&visual medium...........WB.Looney,Fleischer,Hanna Barbara etc....music and sound effects were almost as important as the artwork.

I agree so much. When one says "cartoon music", the first thing that pops into the mind of the unsuspecting is that it's silly or easy or sophomoric. I'm just increasingly amazed by not only the scoring but the PLAYING. The playing is amazing because the players were given something to play-- and the best of their playing was needed for pulling off those parts.

We, the youthful viewers of the time, were the real beneficiaries.

And the sound effects! LOL!!

I'm watching The Flintstones now. The Jetsons start in 10 minutes. Popeye (Winston Sharples) begins right after that.

Of course, you folks know that there two volumes of the Carl Stalling Project in addition to Bugs on Broadway. Recently, I picked up "Tex Avery: Music from the Tex Avery Original Soundtracks by Scott Bradley". There's also "Tom and Jerry & Tex Avery Too! Volume 1: 1950s by Scott Bradley".

That means there's a volume 2 intended or floating around somewhere.

For those Flintstones lovers, there is a CD floating around called "Modern Stone Age Melodies". Great stuff.

On a whole other note, there were the animated films of the 60's and 70's. By then, studios had cut their budgets due to the economy. (Where have we heard that before recently?)

Anyway, the large orchestras were chiseled down to wind ensembles. "Whatever" about the music (I like it), but still, the playing blows me away.

Johnny Quest, The Herculoids, etc. Now we're getting into the work of another unappreciated genius--- HOYT CURTIN.

All of these guys deserved Emmy's for their work. I just don't know if they got the recognition they deserved for their boundless and selfless contributions to the art.

Hoyt was the music of The Flintstons, Top Cat, Scooby-Doo spin-offs through the mid 80's, among a host of other things. I wonder about Wally Gator, McGilla Gorilla, Yogi Bear, Chopper and Yakee, and---

heavens to mergatroyd...

frickin' Snagglepuss.

Who else? Secret Squirrel, Hokey Wolf (and his sidekick, Ding-a-ling), Atom Ant, Precious Pup, Hillbilly Bears, Huckleberry Hound, Wacky Races--- goodness, what else? Snooper and Blab, Quick-Draw and Bobba Louie....

I challenge anyone to transcribe a chart of The Flintstones theme with 100% accuracy-- vocal arrangement and all. David Newman did the film score in the mid 1990s, but even his re-adaptation of the theme (as close as it was) felt as if it missed something crucial form the original. For that matter, the Jetsons chart is a work of art as are all those amazing big band concepts for themes. The Top Cat theme-- jeez. I've transcribed them all and still am not sure whether I've gotten them right.

Studios were known to destroy scores as fast as they were created, so who knows. Newman was certainly "close enough" to be convincing-- but there was a certain spice in Hoyt Curtain's original that was never replicated.
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by bdr »

Love reading your comments and thoughts on the classic cartoon music composers Frodo. Not only were these guys great, they were QUICK!.

When I lived in LA a few years back I used to go to the ASMAC luncheons in the Valley and I was in heaven talking to all the great old TV guys.

One fellow who I got to know, not a composer but a giant as an orchestrator, was Irv Kostal. Orchestrated Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and many others, all beautifully. At his memorial service after he passed on his fellow arrangers talked about how he could have an overture fully arranged and orchestrated before lunch. They used to have competitions for who could do the most fully orchestrated number of bars the fastest.

Hearing about those days, and reading books like Andre Previn's on the old days of composers working in the studio system often makes me think that the whole outsourcing business has a hollowness to it.
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by Frodo »

bdr wrote:Love reading your comments and thoughts on the classic cartoon music composers Frodo. Not only were these guys great, they were QUICK!.

When I lived in LA a few years back I used to go to the ASMAC luncheons in the Valley and I was in heaven talking to all the great old TV guys.

One fellow who I got to know, not a composer but a giant as an orchestrator, was Irv Kostal. Orchestrated Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and many others, all beautifully. At his memorial service after he passed on his fellow arrangers talked about how he could have an overture fully arranged and orchestrated before lunch. They used to have competitions for who could do the most fully orchestrated number of bars the fastest.
You are THE MAN-- you got to chin-wag with Irv? OMG. See-- so many have never even heard of him-- but I'm one to sit quietly through the credits at the end of a film (craning my neck around the those walking out whose cinema-sized drinks were larger than they should have been).

That is brilliant that you got to even meet the guy. It's those like him who are the real unsung heroes and workhorses. I'm determined to meet Steve Bartek one of these days. He's among my most favorite living orchestrators. The man is pure excellence wielding a pencil.

And yes--- FAST--- we're talking first draft city all the way.
bdr wrote: Hearing about those days, and reading books like Andre Previn's on the old days of composers working in the studio system often makes me think that the whole outsourcing business has a hollowness to it.
André. Man. He toddled off to Europe before I got to meet him- but I still hope to before long. We corresponded for a while, and he sent me a manuscript (copy) of his piano concerto in hopes that it would be played. It's a truly masterful work... so well written for the piano, and dddiiifffiiicccuuulllttt---!!!

But that's part of stigma--- brilliance and mastery are so easily overlooked in Hollywood. Previn is, in many ways, still "living down" the older, archaic taint (if you will) of being a Hollywood person vs being a "serious" musician. But his all-embracing approach to musical excellence is a tribute to HIM, regardless of kind of music he's done.

Leonard Bernstein suffered from "West Side Story-itis"-- he himself said so towards the end of his life that for all he'd written, for all he'd done, for the legacy he left the world of music, he felt doomed by the success of what has to be among the top 5 best musicals ever written.

Oh, and then there was Mancini's scoring of The Pink Panther-- although I think way too much of that was recycled as the successful blend of more modern jazz and "cartoon character" was underestimated.

Vince Guaraldi and Charlie Brown.

Don't know if you got Mr Roger's Neighborhood in Australia, but it was a kiddie show here. Yet, there was a genius of a pianist who used to score that show for piano, sometimes celeste, upright bass, and drums--- Johnny Costa. The wild thing is that he always recorded the underscore on an UPRIGHT piano. It didn't matter because the playing was phenomenal. I didn't care much for the show as a kid, but I'd always sit through the opening and closing credits with rapt attention in awe of the music.

BDR-- so glad you're into this sort of thing. There are way too many geniuses who've blessed the world with their gifts and departed this world hardly known, hardly thanked, or even penniless.

I'm not sure Carl Stalling was *that* well-known by today's standards until well after his passing. I just think he was a most beloved soul and musician amongst his co-workers.

But people should know about this stuff.
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by Jim »

Ahem... Carl Stalling adapted the works of Raymond Scott. Did you even mention him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Scott
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by cuttime »

Anybody seen "The Boys:The Sherman Brothers' Story"? I am looking forward to seeing it, even though I know that it will be a boxoffice dud, especially this time of year. How can you fault the composers of "It's A Small World After All"?
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by bkshepard »

cuttime wrote:How can you fault the composers of "It's A Small World After All"?
Fault them...Nah. Wish you could have strangled them...Perhaps! :lol:
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by bdr »

Hey Frodo, I could go on for pages like a real old fart about all the older and unappreciated composers and arrangers I love. Not to mention the great songwriters. Harold Arlen is one that I don't think get the real kudos he deserves. Those old Russian Jews really knew how to write the blues :-).

The Sherman Bros...well, I can do without 'It's a Small World', but I'd rather think of them as the writers of something like 'Feed the Birds' from Mary Poppins, which I remember was played at Irv Kostal's memorial service. Didn't know there was a film about them.
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by cuttime »

bdr wrote: I'd rather think of them as the writers of something like 'Feed the Birds' from Mary Poppins, which I remember was played at Irv Kostal's memorial service. Didn't know there was a film about them.
Now you have discovered one of my guilty pleasures. "Mary Poppins" is probably the one Disney film I have seen that actually stands the test of time. All of the others become really creaky in retrospect. Not even "The Sound of Music", (which, I believe Kostal was also orchestrator ), comes close. More about Kostal:

http://legends.disney.go.com/legends/de ... win+Kostal

Feed The Birds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHrRxQVUFN4
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Re: Under appreciated composers

Post by Phil O »

One melody I'll never forget: Holiday For Strings - David Rose. But I guess you wouldn't consider him under appreciated.
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