Suspense! - The DJ's notes...

Dave here with a few notes about November's Theme Time - SUSPENSE and the playlist for the CD.

It was a lot of fun to crash a cymbal during the "Jaws" theme for Pocahontas County, and an awesome night of music in general with the Sudden Lovelys and the Poor Nobodys. I have really enjoyed the Lovelys' triple albums which were released last year (and even wrote about them on the Hymie's blog here) but I've never seen them live. Seeing a performance of "Waxwing Bird" and "Venom" made the songs all the better for me. If you enjoyed their set as much as I did, you should check out their website (here).

I'd also like to say that the first piece the Poor Nobodys played was one of the best things I've seen and heard all year. I was literally, truly on the edge of my seat. It was from the score they did for the 1925 silent movie Battleship Potempkin by Sergei Eisenstein, which I saw during the several years I wasted in college studying things like weird old Russian movies. I wish I had seen their recent performance of it, and I think it would be really amazing to have them do it again - maybe at the Turf Club, even! The Poor Nobodys also have an awesome website (here) and some great music you can buy on CD. I listened to their newest disc today with my daughter and we both loved it, along with the new disc the Sudden Lovelys gave me last night.

Pocahontas County also has a fancy website, which is the result of a lot of work by the fellas, so you should check it out. Here's a link.

And here's this month's disc and the playlist:

1      I’m late I’m late (edit) – Stan Getz and Eddie Sauter

2      Mission: Impossible – Lalo Schifrin

3      The Blues – Henry Mancini

4      The Bad Guys – Andre Previn (from “The Fortune Cookie”)

5      Auric’s Factory- John Barry (from “Goldfinger”)

6      Bond Back in Action – John Barry (from “Goldfinger”)

7      Bilbao Song – Gil Evans and his Orchestra

8      The Earth Runs Red – Neil Hefti (from “Duel at Diablo”)

9      The Moving Shadows – United Future Organization

10   The Search – Stanley Wilson (from “The Mod Squad”)

11   Whipping Boy – Quincy Jones and his Orchestra,

featuring Roland Kirk (from “In the Heat of the Night”)

12   Hot Wind – Les Baxter (from “Hell’s Belles”)

13   Jim on the Move – Lalo Schifrin (from “Mission: Impossible”)

14   The Obelisk of Karnak – The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra (from “Chariot of the Gods?”)

15   The Cell Door – Sol Kaplan

(from “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold”)

16   Blood Count – Duke Ellington and his Orchestra

17   Transition – Sun Ra and his Arkestra

18   Perry Mason Theme – Mundell Lowe and his All Stars

19   Audition – Elmer Bernstein

(from “The Man with the Golden Arm”)

20   After Hours – Hank Crawford

21   Alone in ¾ Time – John Barry (from “The Ipcress File”)

22   Hero to Zero – Duke Ellington & his Orchestra

(from “Anatomy of a Murder”)

23   Robot Portrait – Quincy Jones and his Orchestra

24    Zelda Tempts Batman – Neil Hefti (from “Batman”)

 At first I was overwhelmed by this last theme - how do you find suspenseful music? One I decided most of it should come from movie soundtracks it was a lot of fun to pick songs. Most of the soundtracks sampled on this disc are awesome all the way through, and there are a lot more that I played last night that didn't get included on the disc.

A couple of notes of interest: "Blood Count" was the last piece of music Billy Strayhorn wrote, and Ellington and his Orchestra recorded it after he died for the tribute album, And his Mother Called him Bill in 1967. Strayhorn died after a long battle with cancer, and the title and the piece's mood suggest the feelings of anxiety and unease that people in such a situation face. Johnny Hodges plays the alto and I've always thought it was one of the best performances in his 70+ year career.

The Stan Getz/Eddie Sauter album Focus features spontaneous performances by Getz over arrangements by Sauter. Some of the songs were recorded live, with the strings and Getz performing together in the studio. The title "I'm Late, I'm Late" is presumably a reference to the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, which is one of the reasons I chose it to start the disc.

The last note I'll make is that In the Heat of the Night is not a conventional suspense movie but it's one of my all-time favorites. Quincy Jones' score is also a favorite of mine, and was for me an introduction to Roland Kirk when I first heard the album as a teenager - I went on to find and listen to every record on which Kirk played, more than fifty in all!