Disc of the day
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
Features Disc of the day
Chico Hamilton Quintet/Elmer Bernstein
Sweet Smell Of Success
(reissued El/Cherry Red, 2008)
Double noir delights from jazz and orchestral giants!
Although it died a death at the box-office Alexander Mackendrick's acid showbiz noir stands as one of the greatest films of the 1950s, a twisted, venal trawl through a sordid twilight world of amoral press agents, power-hungry gossip columnists and fat, bent cops. It features two geniuses at the helm - Mackendrick directing the actors and cinematographer James Wong Howe setting up the luminous shots - and two star actors - Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster - turning in lifetime performances as the demonic master-and-servant double-act. It's therefore somehow appropriate that it also features two of the best soundtracks ever recorded in that decade. Chico Hamilton's 1957 Quintet provided the nervy and sad music for the club scenes while Elmer Bernstein turns in the quintessential late noir score for the grand dramas of death, redemption and defeat, utilising a suite of weeping violins and mourning cellos to a veritable main street of sleazy, swaggering, hectoring horns.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 23/06/2009
Further Listening
Duke Ellington - Anatomy of a Murder (Columbia, 1959)
Elmer Bernstein - The Man With The Golden Arm (Decca, 1956)
Previous Disc of the day
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Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Magnificent late-'50s singles round-up that keeps on giving.
6:00 AM GMT 20/11/2009
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-
Isley Brothers - The Brothers: Isley
The Cincinnati siblings bed into their heavy period.
6:00 AM GMT 18/11/2009
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Lee Morgan - Search For The New Land
The trumpeter's most soulful excursion entrances MOJO messageboarder.
6:00 AM GMT 16/11/2009
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