ON THE ROAD AGAIN - VOLUME 48

BLUES MAGOOS Debut Album

Original released on LP Mercury SR 61096

(US, November 1966)

The Blues Magoos sound less like psychedelic visionaries than a solid garage band with a taste for the blues on their debut album, "Psychedelic Lollipop", though the lysergic reference of the title certainly put them ahead of the curve in 1966, when LSD was still obscure enough to be legal in much of the United States. The album leads off with the group's first and only major hit single, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet," and unlike most albums released by one-hit wonders of the mid-'60s, the single isn't the most exciting song here. That honor goes to the Magoos' cover of J.D. Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" (which Lenny Kaye selected for his iconic garage rock compilation Nuggets), featuring some gutsy guitar work from Mike Esposito and Emil "Peppy" Thielhelm and impressive organ swells from Ralph Scala as the tune leans into a major rave-up midway through. Outside of that, "Psychedelic Lollipop" rarely sounds like a classic, but it's solid stuff - the covers are chosen and played well (including a committed take on James Brown's "I'll Go Crazy"), the originals show the band knew their way around rock & roll, R&B, and blues with no small aplomb, and the band could stretch out on numbers like "Sometimes I Think About," "Worried Life Blues," and "Tobacco Road", while generating excitement and not losing the plot. "Psychedelic Lollipop" doesn't sound like the work of a great band, but certainly like one who were better than average, and considering how many bands who cranked out a single like "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet" ended up making albums clogged with filler, it says a lot that even the weakest tracks here show this group had talent, ideas, and the know-how to make them work in the studio. 

(Mark Deming in AllMusic)

THE WHO 2nd Album

Original released on LP Reaction 593 002 (mono)

(UK 1966, December 3)

The Who's second album is a less impressive outing than their debut, primarily because, at the urging of their managers, all four members penned original material (though Pete Townshend wrote more than anyone else). The pure adrenaline of "My Generation" also subsided somewhat as the band began to grapple with more complex melodic and lyrical themes, especially on the erratic mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away." Still, there's some great madness on Keith Moon's instrumental "Cobwebs and Strange," and Townshend delivered some solid mod pop with "Run Run Run" and "So Sad About Us." John Entwistle was also revealed to be a writer of considerable talent (and a morbid bent) on "Whiskey Man" and "Boris the Spider." (Richie Unterberger in AllMusic)

MAURICE JARRE / "GRAND PRIX"

Maurice Jarre, falecido em Los Angeles, aos 84 anos (madrugada de domingo, dia 29 de Março de 2009), significou sempre um sinónimo de Cinema para mim, tantos foram os filmes que tiveram a sua inconfundível assinatura. Foi francês por nascimento (em Lyon, a 13 de Setembro de 1924) mas internacionalizou-se através das mais de 160 partituras que compôs ao longo da sua vida para grandes realizadores: Alfred Hitchcock, Luchino Visconti, John Huston ou David Lean, por exemplo. A colaboração com este último resultaria na obtenção de 3 Oscars da Academia pelos filmes “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) e “A Passage to India” (1984). Seria nomeado ainda por mais 6 vezes, a última das quais em 1990 pelo filme “Ghost”.

Muitos outros prémios lhe iriam parar às mãos, em variadissimas partes do mundo. Tem uma estrela na calçada da fama em Hollywood e, para além do cinema, compôs ainda ballets, concertos, óperas e cantatas. Recebeu também o Urso de Ouro, um prémio honorífico do Festival de Cinema de Berlim, destacando-o como um dos compositores "mais importantes e ao mesmo tempo mais populares" da história da sétima arte: «Os compositores dos filmes estão freqüentemente à sombra de grandes realizadoress e actores. É diferente com Maurice Jarre. A música de "Doutor Zhivago", como grande parte de sua obra, é famosa no mundo todo e permanece na lembrança da história do cinema», afirmou o diretor do festival, Dieter Kosslick.

Da sua extensa e impressionante filmografia é meu desejo partilhar aqui a banda sonora do filme “Grand Prix” que Jarre compôs para John Frankenheimer em 1966 (gravações efectuadas nos MGM Studios Scoring Stage, Culver City, California, entre 25 de Novembro e 14 de Dezembro de 1966). Trata-se de uma edição especial, limitada a 3000 cópias, e que contém toda a música do filme, a maior parte da qual não usada no album editado na altura da estreia, em Dezembro de 1966. Quem quiser escutar o alinhamento original basta programar o leitor de CD’s com a sequência 1 – 22 – 23 – 24 – 7 – 13 – 26 – 27 – 4 – 29. De referir que nas faixas 13 e 29 foi eliminado o barulho dos escapes dos carros, constantes na versão original.

“Grand Prix” fez as minhas delícias de adolescente, quando o vi pela primeira vez em Johannesburg, a 19 de Agosto de 1967, um sábado à noite. Tinha sido o filme escolhido para inauguração de uma nova sala de cinema chamada Royal Cinerama, especializada na passagem de flmes naquele formato (écran semi-circular com tripla projeção simultânea). Ao longo dos anos revi o filme dezenas de vezes, mas a memória daquela 1ª sessão nunca mais me abandonou. Recordo ainda o foyer do cinema todo ele engalanado com artefactos relacionados com o filme, onde nem sequer faltavam dois ou três prototipos dos bólides de Fórmula 1 da altura. E que lindos que eram esses carros...

Transcreve-se de seguida parte das notas que constavam da edição original do album (MGM) com a banda sonora, que na altura se resumia apenas a 10 faixas:

Grand Prix is the story of four drivers, the women behind them, the cars beneath them. These four daredevils dice with death across the race tracks of the globe. Each has his eyes and heart on the world championship. Only one can win. They are:

The American…Peter Aron (James Garner). Aron, a restless, abrasive personality, lives for driving. Starting the season with Jordan - BRM he is fired after a multiple crash at Monaco, rejected by the autocratic Manetta-Ferrari owner (Adolfo Celi), finally ends up in partnership with Japan’s ambitious Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune). Both badly want the world championship. Yamura for his cars. Aron for himself.

The Corsican…Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand). At an age when most top drivers have retired to the grandstands, he aims one last fling at the world title…and a win that could give him the elusive hat trick. An added tension to his bid is his blossoming love affair with fashion editor Louise Fredrickson (Eva Marie Saint). And at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour, tension spells trouble.

The Britisher…Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford). A talented young Jordan-BRM driver, whose marriage and racing suffer from the shadow of his dead brother Roger, a former world champ whose personality still haunts the circuits in general and the Stoddard family home in particular. And then there is his wife, Pat (Jessica Walter). Pat is a problem - a bored ex-model, failed actress, indifferent wife and troublesome mistress to Stoddard’s archrival and ex-colleague Pete Aron.

The Sicilian…Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato). A wild young driver played by a wild young actor. Barlini lives and dreams cars, motorbikes and girls. One of the girls is Lisa (Françoise Hardy), an enigmatic beauty who emerges from a Riviera discotheque to follow the racing season…and Barlini.Of the quartet, one will raise his hand in victory, another will die. Not one of them or their women will ever be the same.

Maurice Jarre was born in Lyon, France. He studied composition and percussion at the Conservatoire with Jacques de la Presle, Louis Aubert and Arthur Honegger. In 1944 he was called up by the Navy and saw active service in World War II. When Jean Louis Berrault formed his own theatre company, he asked Jarre to become orchestral conductor and arranger. Jarre stayed with the Barrault company for four years. In 1951, he joined Jean Vilar, who had started a national theatre company. For the first time Jarre composed music for a wide range of plays: Shakespeare, Moliere, O’Neill, Eliot and Victor Hugo. In 1955 Jarre was awarded the Zurich prize for a symphony and violin concerto. That same year he won the Italian Opera Radiofoniche prize for a radio opera, "Ruiselle". In 1962 he again received the Radiofoniche prize, this time for a TV opera, "Les Filles du Feu". The composer has written concert music for the festivals at Aix-en-Provence and Strasbourg; ballets for the Paris Opera Comique and London’s Sadler’s Wells. Jarre started writing music for films in 1952. His first feature film assignment was Franju’s "La tête contre les murs". In addition to "Grand Prix" he has done scores for 38 other foreign and American films, including "The Longest Day", "The Collector", "Is Paris Burning?", "Night of the Generals", "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago". He won the coveted Motion Picture Academy Oscar in 1962 for "Lawrence of Arabia" and again in 1965 for "Doctor Zhivago".

The Music

The relationship of the main characters in this film is a very close and personal one. Jarre expresses this musically, by intermingling the main characters’ identifying themes.

Side 1

1. Overture - The Overture contains substantial portions of the three Main Themes from the film: 1) Theme From Grand Prix – relates to all the drivers. 2) Sarti’s Love Theme – is generally used in connection with the Frenchman’s (Yves Montand) adventurous and romantic schemes; 3) Scott’s Theme – serves as background music for scenes featuring the British Jordan BRM driver, Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford). (4:35)

2. Scott & Pat – Sarti & Louise Unrequited love and fulfilled love. Mr. Jarre skillfully contrasts the Scott and Sarti themes. (2:20)

3. Theme From Grand Prix - This version of the theme is heard at the finish of the Brands Hatch race. (1:55)

4. Sarti’s Love Theme (Bossa Nova) - Employed by Jarre to underline portions of the racing sequences. (2:25)

5. The Zandvoort Race (Scott’s Comeback) - The crippled Scott painfully lowers himself into his dead brother’s racing car and triumphantly roars away. The engine’s blast signals the start of the Zandvoort Race – and a glorious comeback for the determined Britisher. (5:21)

Side 2

1. The Clermont Race - Unusual multi-camera shots – almost kaleidoscopic in effect. Sarti is driving but his mind is on Louise. Photographically and musically the Clermont Race has the quality of a racing car “ballet.” (2:15)

2. Scott’s Theme (Bossa Nova) - Heard over the loudspeakers while the Clermont Race is in progress. (2:15)

3. Sarti’s Love Theme - The scene is Sarti’s apartment at the Sports Club; Sarti and Louise first realize that they are deeply in love. (4:15)

4. In the Garden - A tender scene between Sarti and Louise. Music is heard coming from Barlini’s victory party which they have just left. (3:00)

5. The Lonely Race - Track it is the end of the film. The grandstands are empty. Pete (James Garner), deep in thought, is seen walking down the empty track reliving in his mind the races and events we have just seen. Sarti’s Theme comes first, then the roar of the invisible racing cars, followed by another version of the stirring Theme From Grand Prix, a dedication to all racing drivers. (2:26)

Produção: Edward Lewis
Realização: John Frankenheimer
Argumento: Robert Alan Aurthur e William Hanley
Música Original: Maurice Jarre
Montagem: Henry Berman, Stewart Linder e Frank Santillo
Estreia nos EUA: 1966, Dezembro 21

CAST:
James Garner - Pete Aron
Yves Montand - Jean-Pierre Sarti
Eva Marie Saint - Louise Frederickson
Brian Bedford - Scott Stoddard
Toshiro Mifune - Izo Yamura
Jessica Walter - Pat Stoddard
Antonio Sabato - Nino Barlini
Françoise Hardy - Lisa
Adolfo Celi - Agostini Manetta
Claude Dauphin - Hugo Simon
Geneviève Page - Monique Delvaux-Sarti
Enzo Fiermonte - Guido
Jack Watson - Jeff Jordan
etc.

(VER COMENTÁRIO SOBRE O FILME AQUI)

Os NIGHT STARS e Outros Conjuntos Moçambicanos (1965 >>> 1972)

THE BRASS RING: "Lara's Theme"

Original released on LP Dunhill DS 50012

(US, September 1966)

Less than four months after releasing the Brass Ring's debut album, "Love Theme from the Flight of the Phoenix" (1966), Phil Bodner's New York-based instrumental ensemble issued their follow-up, this "Lara's Theme". As their first long player merely bubbled beneath the Top 100, the question as to why they were so eager to issue a second volume can be traced back to Dunhill Records' desire to create a catalog of product as efficiently as possible. As was the occasional custom of the day, producers chose to recycle the title track from "Lara's Theme" directly off of their first LP - not even going so far as to re-record it. Unlike anything that was attempted on their previous effort, Bodner and company make an initial venture into the concurrent pop charts for inspiration. Not surprisingly, the Mamas & the Papas' - who just happened to also be on Dunhill Records - Top Five smash "California Dreamin'" is among the project's hipper entries. Similarly, Pete Seeger's translation of "Guantanamera" would have been another melody familiar to listeners as the Sandpipers had a hit with it just a few months earlier. The sassy interpretation of Pérez Prado's "Patricia" and the Dick Hyman-penned "Uncle Jose" lean heavily on the Brass Ring's West Coast contemporaries, the Herb Alpert-led Tijuana Brass. The style has an obvious effect on Bodner's own "Bahama Shuffle," which also recalls the bandleaders days as a mainstay in Enoch Light's late-'50s Provocative Percussion-era recordings. In 2007, Collectors' Choice Music compiled "Lara's Theme" with its long-playing predecessor "Love Theme from the Flight of the Phoenix" onto a single compact disc.

THE BRASS RING: "The Flight Of The Phoenix"

Original released on LP Dunhill DS 50008

(US, 1966)

Although once considered the height of sophistication, by the mid-'60s, instrumental pop - known to some as "space-age bachelor pad music," "space age pop," "beautiful music," and/or "elevator music" - had all but met its match on the charts and radio airwaves. The rise of rock and folk initially complemented combos such as the Brass Ring - a group of studio professionals led by the incomparable Phil Bodner. His career boasted stints with Benny Goodman and as a co-founder of the Metropolitan Jazz Quartet. However, it was his contributions to Enoch Light's "Persuasive Percussion" platters that became the impetus for a modernized version that blended concurrent songs with a lighter and non-threatening sensibility. Bodner chose selections inspired by or lifted from tunes on the silver screen for the Brass Ring's debut long-player "Love Theme from the Flight of the Phoenix". The two non-cinematic exceptions being the midtempo bossa nova vibe that flavors the pop standard "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" and a saxophone-led reading of "My Foolish Heart" that is set to a steady doo wop backbeat. Hammond B-3 enthusiasts will revel in "Secret Love" and the solos on "Moment to Moment" as they capture the almost obligatory "mod" mid-60s sound. The interpretations of "Unchained Melody" and Henry Mancini's classic "Moon River" are particularly notable for their seemingly incongruent upbeat arrangements. This emerging "inspiration"quickly became one of the Brass Ring's primary assets. While the album landed just shy of the Top 100 (number 109) chart, the "Phoenix Love Theme (Senza Fine)" would be the Brass Ring's highest scoring single, topping out at number 32 in April of 1966. (Lindsay Planer in AllMusic)

GEORGIE FAME: "20 Beat Classics"

Original released on LP RSO SPELP 45

(UK, 1980)

The Sweet Things Of GEORGIE FAME

Original released on LP Columbia (EMI) SX 6043

(UK, May 1966)

Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames' third album very much follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, a punchy R&B stomper that could (even should) have been recorded live, so high is the energy, and so abandoned the backing of the Blue Flames. This is especially apparent on side two of the original vinyl, as the band all-but replicate the closing run of a hot and sweaty club gig, pounding through an electrifyingly note-perfect "My Girl," a rattling "The Whole World's Shaking" and a truly incredible version of "The In Crowd," all honking horns and smooth-flowing Hammond. Don Covay's "See Saw" is another jewel, but for sheer audacity, the highlight has to be calypso king Lord Kitchener's gleefully risqué "Dr Kitch," a percussively swaying romp that only grows more delightful as it becomes apparent that Fame himself is having trouble delivering the lyric straight-faced - the story of a doctor attempting to administer an injection to a nervous young lady, after all, is so rife with double meaning that it is virtually a sex act in its own right. Not quite up to the standard of the group's debut (which, of course, was recorded live), "Sweet Things" is nevertheless one of the finest British R&B albums of the mid-'60s, and one of the last to illustrate just how many possibilities were still open to the U.K. scene at that time. The journey from soft soul to rude calypso, via every musical shade in between, was not one that many performers were willing to take, after all. Fame and co, on the other hand, make the journey in record time. (Dave Thompson in AllMusic)

THE SHAKE SPEARS Album

Original released on LP Philips 625.276 QL

(NETHERLANDS, 1966)

The Shake Spears arrived in Belgium in December 1964 from South Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Before that happened they were successful in their own country, playing as the Dynamics. In 1963 they established their own night club The Club Dynamique, which quickly became the favourite haunt of television and theatrical personalities. At this time fans, friends and well-wishers advised the group that the rest of the world was entitled to an opportunity to enjoy their musical skills, too. «Summertime and the living is easy fish are jumping and the cotton is high»; «Baby I'm begging please and I'm down here on my knees». I am delighted with the Shake Spears - old romantics present old time romantic rock and rolls that sound so deliciously antique now. «Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues». Love and music are a good cure.

CHER: The Second Album (in mono)

Original released on LP Liberty LP 12301

(US, February 1966)

On Cher's second solo record, 1966's "The Sonny Side of Cher", Sonny Bono tinkers with the folk-rock formula that had made her previous album such a delight and ruins everything, leaving the album as nothing more than a chuckle-inducing curiosity, just the kind of silly record casual listeners might expect from the duo. While there are still good covers of Dylan ("Like a Rolling Stone") and a couple of Bob Lind tunes ("Elusive Butterfly" and "Come to Your Window"), for some reason Bono thought it would be a good idea to graft his Spectorized folk-rock sound onto MOR pop tunes like "It's Not Unusual," "Our Day Will Come," and "The Girl from Ipanema." Cher sounds game but uncommitted, the arrangements are over the top (check "Old Man River" for the best example), and it just doesn't work. The only track that has any real zest is the Bono-written novelty "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)," the kind of dramatic song Cher could knock out in her sleep but also a song with no real heart. The album is doomed by its lack of heart and inability to rise above the formulaic. (Tim Sendra in AllMusic)

CHRISTOPHE: EP "J'ai Entendu La Mer"

Original released on EP Disc AZ 1055

(FRANCE, 1966)