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July 15, 2013:

A PLACE IN THE SUN

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry for I must be up at six in the morning to announce our new title, which is the world premiere release of Franz Waxman’s gloriously glorious iconic score to A Place in the Sun – it’s only taken sixty years, but all the surviving tracks are now available, sounding as good as they’re ever going to sound, almost fifty-two minutes of incredible film music doing what film music is supposed to do.  The theme is one of the greatest ever written for film.  I cannot recommend this release highly enough, and the hope is it’s going to be popular with the populace.  Here is the beautiful cover.  It will be available for pre-order at Kritzerland at six in the morning.

KL_Place_Sun_Cov72

They had faces then, didn’t they?  I can’t tell one of today’s actors from another, frankly.  The journey on releasing this score is an incredible one – the tapes first came to me over a year ago.  When I heard them my heart sank, because they were in such awful shape.  At the time, I thought maybe we could salvage about ten minutes of the music on them.  There had been a bootleg of the score, but with terrible sound and many of the tracks taken from a music and sound effects track – unlistenable.  At one point while preparing our Waxman release of Elephant Walk/Botany Bay/Stalag 17 we toyed with the idea of including those ten usable minutes, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  But this fellow who’s been doing some of our audio restoration work, Chris Malone, had managed to take some iffy cues and make them sound really good for a few of our releases – really amazing work.  So, I began to think again about A Place in the Sun and on a whim I sent him the Paramount material and asked him to take the worst sounding track and see what he could do.  He said he would and a few days later he sent me an mp3 of the result.  I could not believe my ears – what had been a horrible aural experience suddenly sounded really good – I don’t know what alchemy he worked and I really don’t want to know, but whatever it was it was a miracle.  So, I told him to proceed apace and see what he could do and how much could be salvaged.  I cautiously told Waxman’s son that we might have some good news.

A couple of weeks later I heard the result of Chris’s labors – an amazing fifty-two minutes of the most gorgeous film music, sounding really great – I just could not believe the miracle that had been performed.  I sent it to Waxman’s son and he couldn’t believe it either.  And so, something that a year ago we were all mourning over is now available for the first time.  It was full speed ahead and we got the packaging done and I wrote the liner notes and I have to tell you, from the time I sent it to Chris to now has been all of about six weeks.  I don’t know that anyone else could have pulled this off in that amount of time, but we’re all very proud that we did.

Yesterday was a perfectly okay day.  I got eight hours of blessed sleep, got up, but wasn’t in the mood to jog.  I had a few telephonic calls, did some work on the computer, and relaxed.  Then I moseyed on over to Mystery and Imagination Books for the George Clayton Johnson birthday party – I believe he’s turned eighty-four.  George wrote some classic Twilight Zone episodes and he’s a true character.  I paid my respects to him, chatted with some friends, and then took my leave.

I went to Jerry’s Deli and had some chicken tenders, which were great.  Then I came home, did some more work on the computer and then did a three-mile jog.  Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night it was my intention to watch a motion picture I’d TIVOd entitled Separate Tables.  That was my intention, only I conked out immediately and slept for about forty-five minutes.  By that time, it was too late to finish it, so instead I figured out the show order for the Kritzerland show, and then wrote the first two-thirds of the contextual commentary, so I can definitely finish that today and have it out of the way, which will be great.  That took up the rest of the evening.

Here’s the first of the Kritzer songs from Kritzer Time, the third and final Kritzer book, a book I loved writing, but one that was very difficult emotionally – those who’ve read it know why.  But writing about Benjamin’s discovery of his talent and theater and creativity was the most amazing thing to do – I just loved every minute of it.  It was, for me, a completely satisfying wrap up to what had started out as a one-off book and ended up a trilogy.  When I wrote the book’s final sixty pages I was not fit to be around – again those who’ve read it will understand why.  I was terse with everyone and I didn’t answer the phone or return e-mails for that entire week of doing those pages.  I just sat at my computer, so emotional that I literally could not speak.  While everything in the book is based on truth, one heightens things or adjusts them to make them work for the story, and in so doing one just falls in love with certain characters (again, based on real people, but heightened for the book) – well, I’ll stop there.  This was the first song on the Kritzer Time CD.

Pocketful of Miracles NEW MIX

I love that song and I love the film it is from.

Today, I will announce a new CD, I will hopefully print out a LOT of orders, I will do a jog, I will finish writing the commentary, I will hopefully pick up some packages and I will begin a new set of liner notes.

Tomorrow and the rest of the week is all meetings and meals, getting our next release prepped, and then getting ready for our big four days of recording Sandy Bainum’s new CD with a thirty-something piece orchestra.  If any of our LA dear readers would like to visit the studio to see how we do what we do, you are most welcome – the sessions are Saturday and Sunday and just drop me a line if you’d like to come for a little while.  We have a photographer and video crew so there will be lots of session photos and videos.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, announce a CD, hopefully print out a LOT of orders, do a jog, finish writing a commentary, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, write some liner notes, listen to a new master, and then relax.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all time favorite Frank Sinatra vocals?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall sleep to the strains of Mr. Waxman’s stunning A Place in the Sun.  And now for something completely different – here’s another What If clip – this one What if Stephen Sondheim had only written for the Yiddish Musical Theater?  And it goes something like this.

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