For me, that’s what separates the best from the rest. Je ne sais quoi and all that.
I really loved Hell in the Pacific. It being such a sparse movie, very little dialog and only two characters, the music played an outsized role. A lesser composer could have single handedly sank this brilliant movie.
And @hecep I can’t seem to find my copy of Black Widow right now but I love his Jaws - his Quiet Village on the same record (Les Baxter exotica classic and Martin Denny staple) with the Fame guitar on it… well that I find a bit hard to listen to.
While looking I did find a compilation record - most wanted 1968-79 which had some great cuts on it like the Ape Shuffle (it’s where I heard that one). Here’s the liner notes from that:
I believe I have seen it on Casablanca records as a 12” and I may have owned it at one point. I’m sketchy on this. So while it may have been a quickie to fulfil a contract, it’s a high quality one with a classy band and it sure as hell sounds to me like they had a lot of fun and did good work.
Also: most people hum Mission Impossible wrong if you ask them. That’s what’s fun!
Oh geez, this could go in the Earworm thread, at least for me!
I love the full version, as well as other music done for the show.
And you know what happened to the jazz guys who lost work when rock-n-roll took over - they became tv-studio musicians! Listen to “I Dream of Jeannie”, “Bewtiched”, “The Munsters” - that one evolved into monster-surf-rock, didn’t it? The list goes on.
Oh, yeah. Just hearing the words “Kelly’s Heroes” immediately has me humming the Burning Bridges theme song. 
Love the movie, hate the song. Lalo Schiffrin, [CA Lt. Gov] Mike Curb, and director Brian Hutton were smart because they used a catchy ditty to help market the movie.
This one will be familiar to cafe patrons of a certain vintage (from More Mission Impossible):
First on my war-movie-song hate list is “Theme from The Green Berets”. “Burning Bridges” is second.
Schifrin was in the building working on stuff of his own while Smith and Nelson recorded their version, and he liked what he heard.
I used to be part of an online community about music and part of it was US members taking about what they’d thrifted for 10c s go that weekend and it would be like “five Jimmy Smith records” what were they like!? Jimmy Smith. They’re all great.
Indeed they are. There are not many artists that showed up in charity shops for nothing which you would buy without knowledge about that specific one. Jimmy Smith is that rarity.
Over here the shops would be full of James Last and Geoff Love (I have, of course, the essential raw funk oddities in both their oeuvres!) but the idea that Jimmy Smith was that ubiquitous in the US was so enticing. I worked hard and travelled to get records that my fellow members saw everyday for next to nothing.
Big yep on that.
The music in Patton, OTOH, is magnificent, and occasionally more than a little haunting - those distant echo-y horns.
“Bill could have had any multi million dollar celebrity TV News Anchor job in the industry…but he took a huge cut in pay and chose PBS…so that he could have more independence and freedom to express views beyond the Spin Headlines.
His decades of work are another example of why the precious airwaves of PBS should be protected and preserved.
There were so many Moyers moments in the halls of Thirteen I remember ….that were a testament to his journalistic power.
For example…one time, as I tried to pass an edit room, the little walk-in closet size ones on West 33rd…there was a huge crowd gathered at the doorway, mostly young AP’s, PA’s and interns. The crowd was so big, they couldn’t even see Bill, but they could hear him supervising the edit…and all were very quiet as they stretched their necks in sync to try to catch every word.
As I squeezed by, I stopped and glanced in.
Bill was relaxed, leaning back in the central producer chair, talking slowly with open arms, addressing everyone within earshot, explaining edit choices and messaging.
I saw a very special Being…living one of his true purposes.
We all know when we are in the presence of valuable, wisdom…and powerful leadership. The crowd was wise to gather.
His oration was that of a highly responsible, very experienced broadcast journalist. Also that of a benevolent professor…acclaimed host, producer, writer…with the compassion of a loving minister…holding court in the very best way.
I witnessed Bill Moyers taking the time to educate potential future journalists. That is huge for all of us.
May the journalistic bar remain high in the words to come from those that were present for his teachings.”
Single handedly responsible for introducing to my cohort the word dipstick as an insult
Saw him play in Oakland. Only 74. 
That article didn’t have a cause of death. He died from complications of Parkinson’s.
Huh, I thought I read that, but then I looked again and it read he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2012. I wonder why the AP didn’t list it as the cause of death?
He was a great all-around player and I was lucky to see him play IP during the 1989 season.
Because they couldn’t be bothered to conduct a 30 second Google search? I dunno. Journalism is dead.
I don’t think I ever saw him play in person, but I’m pretty sure I had a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball card of his back in the day.
I know this supposed to be for “celebrities” but…
Last week my friend James’ girlfriend texted me that he was dead. I went to the memorial yesterday. I knew going in I wouldn’t know anyone else there due to our unique situation. I first met James when he started working at Amazon BNA5 nightshift while I was managing logistics there. This was just before the Covid pandemic. We immediately hit it off. I’d never met anyone as deeply into the 80’s postpunk and early electronic sound as myself before. We traded instruments and files back and forth and collaborated remotely but whenever it came down to the weekend we were supposed to have a session together he would disappear. Like, he would send me a sad soul ballad and I’d remix it into an acid techno stomper and he’d say he loved it, but we never got to work together in real time. He’d call me and we’d talk about music and films and art and philosophy for hours, but in person never quite worked out. I guess he was keeping me distant because he was actually dying from stage 3 cirrhosis at the time and didn’t want people to know.
I feel like we had such instant simpatico and were so alike, despite a 15 year age difference, that if we had crossed paths years earlier we would have had a fruitful artistic collaboration, instead of just these missed connections.
Every person’s life touches so many others’ that the calculations are impossible…
I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Sorry. Anyway James was one of those “living legend” types that leaves an impression on everyone he meets so I was pleased to hear so many stories from people who knew him before I did talking about his generosity and compassion and integrity. I’ve met so many “big names” who are just entitled fucking assholes, but James was a GOOD person and a POSITIVE force in the universe and the world would be better if he were still in it.
