Jazz on Screen: ZigZag & The Super Cops

Zigzag / Oliver Nelson
The Super Cops / Jerry Fielding

Film Score Monthly can't be accused of playing it safe. After all, Zigzag and The Super Cops aren't exactly "classic films," and I'd bet that the only people who'll buy it will be a) fans of obscure crime jazz scores and/or b) fans of Oliver Nelson and/or Jerry Fielding. In other words, freaks like me. ;-)

Zigzag, starring George Kennedy, actually had a LP release at the time of the film's release in '70. Nelson's cachet with jazz audiences (who know him best for the landmark Impulse recording Blues and the Abstract Truth, '61) must have encouraged the release. But Zigzag isn't a straight jazz score. Nelson, who held degrees in theory and composition, brought a sophisticated ear to the film, providing both propulsive Latin jazz and meditative modernist string passages, often blending the two. The action-oriented passages will remind some listeners of '70s shows like The Six Million Dollar Man, which should come as no surprise since Nelson composed for that show shortly before he died at the age of 43. FSM includes not only the original score but also the album program, which features an unrelated song called "Zigzag" sung by Roy Orbison. There are songs sung by Bobby Hatfield as well.

Closing out the first disc are Anita O'Day jazz vocal tracks from Zigzag and the hard-boiled crime movie The Outfit ('73). The latter film previously served an FSM release featuring Fielding's score. What is at first a seemingly random inclusion becomes an odd transition into Fielding's score for The Super Cops on Disc Two.

The Super Cops isn't among Fielding's better known scores (such as The Wild Bunch), in part because the film is fairly obscure. It's based on a true story of two New York cops who are more super-dedicated to fighting crime than "super" in the comic book sense. Fielding busts out the funky crime jazz with hard blowing brass, wah-wah guitar and an almost blaxploitation vibe. Still, one wouldn't mistake Fielding for J.J. Johnson, Isaac Hayes or Curtis Mayfield. He works a groove well enough, but like Lalo Schifrin he tends to infuse his compositions with a broader spectrum of tonal color. Still, it's very much an action score with interesting references to militarism and the Old West (the latter of which was a strong suit for him).

Disc Two closes out with selections from Fielding's scores for the short-lived folksy attorney show Hawkins, starring James Stewart (think of it as a prototype for Matlock). These cues are by turns abstract and dramatic ("Life for a Life") and pure pastiche ("Harmonica Source"). The CD also contains Fielding's country western and jazzy pop source cues for the cafe scene in The Outfit.

All in all, it's a worthwhile diversion and very well packaged with thorough liner notes.

Originally published at http://www.scorebaby.com/

Jazz Soundtracks — Part 9

The following are excerpts from the book Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979 (McFarland, 2008) by Kristopher Spencer, founder of Scorebaby.com.

When considering European sexploitation, Great Britain probably isn’t the first country that comes to mind (except for The Benny Hill Show, a saucy variety comedy hour that premiered in ’69 and ran for 20 years). Compared to relatively liberated countries like Denmark and Sweden, Great Britain hasn’t been a particularly productive sexploitation film exporter. But there are several independent and mainstream British films of the ’60s that reflect in the influence of the sexual revolution...

One British film that deals with sex and the single man is Alfie (’66) that uses frank sexual content to examine the foibles of a promiscuous bachelor. Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David contributed the theme song, but much of the score belongs to Sonny Rollins and his conductor Oliver Nelson. The soundtrack release does not contain the Bacharach tune.

Rollin’s “Alfie’s Theme” captures the main character’s beguiling ways with women through its jaunty tempo and minor key. It’s the sort of theme that winds its way through the listener’s brain long after hearing it. Rollins’ nine-piece band includes such veteran jazz greats as Kenny Burrell (guitar), J.J. Johnson (trombone) and Jimmy Cleveland (trombone). Heard within the film, this jazz score reinforces the sense that Michael Caine’s incorrigible philanderer is constantly improvising his way in and out of trouble. Heard on its own, one might think that Alfie is a merely a wonderful but not especially cinematic jazz record of the ’60s.