Something about which I am really jazzed:
34 years ago, in a High Fidelity Magazine article on film music and a side story on the collecting of film music soundtracks, composer Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Magnificent Seven, et. al.) announced he would begin recording much-wanted/requested film scores for his "Film Score Collection" club. Membership would require you to buy two LPs a year ($8 plus s/h).
Bernstein recorded 13 albums, and released a 14th of a score by Jerry Fielding. Among the Bernstein-conducted titles were "Helen of Troy," "To Kill A Mockingbird," "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "Thief of Baghdad" and "Wuthering Heights." Before his death, Bernstein returned to the podium on a new recording initiative, and this time he recorded his most-requested score, "Kings of the Sun." That recording makes its debut in this boxed set (as FMC-15) and easily lives up to the standards Bernstein instilled in his Film Music Collection some 30 years ago.
While the recordings were good (some even superb), the pressings were a bit on the noisy side.
This past week, however, 34 years after that announcement, these recordings -- except for the Jerry Fielding score (which BK issued on one of his 3 Jerry Fielding CD albums on Bay Cities) -- made their debut on CD in a stunning boxed set. The Bernstein-conducted material was beautifully remastered and the results are, to my ears, startlingly good. I've been mesmerized by the sound quality and by the extraordinary detail Bernstein captured in the recordings.
At any rate...it's a modern blast from a distant past. I can't say that anything has pleased me as much in recent years as this boxed set of CDs.
