Peter Thomas' Spy '60s Crime Jazz

Jerry Cotton — FBI's Top Man
Peter Thomas
All Score Media / Chris' Soundtrack Corner

Anyone who was around for the first round of retro spy soundtrack reissues in the late '90s will tell you that one of the best releases was Crippled Dick Hot Wax's collection of Jerry Cotton music, simply titled 100% Cotton. It's a 2CD kaleidoscope of Peter Thomas' eccentric crime jazz — swinging big band numbers peppered with scat vocals, wailing organ and crash-bam-boom sound effects.

So, what the heck is Jerry Cotton — FBI's Top Man? Well, with 100% Cotton out of print, All Score Media and Chris' Soundtrack Corner have seen fit to put "FBI's Top Man" back in action with a 28-track single CD sampler. It borrows cover art from one of the original LP releases from the '60s and adds some rarities to sweeten the deal.

Who is this G-man — Jerry Cotton? Like Hollywood's Derek Flint and Matt Helm, this German creation was an opportunistic response to the spy craze sparked by James Bond. There were eight Jerry Cotton movies made in five short years ('65-'69). Frankly, they weren't up to the standards of the 007 series or even the Flint and Helm flicks, and have rarely been seen since outside of Germany.

But these barely b-movies have great jazz scores by Peter Thomas, who also scored the Edgar Wallace "krimi" potboilers, the sci-fi TV show Space Patrol (aka Raumpatrouille) and later paranormal cult classic Chariots of the Gods? and sexploitation flicks.

Thomas' Cotton soundtracks tend to have more in common with Henry Mancini's swinging crime jazz scores for The Pink Panther movies than John Barry's bombastic 007 scores, but that generalization hardly does them justice. They're completely unique, bizarre, amusing and infectiously hummable. Thomas' giddy hustle-bustle arrangements call to mind an era of relative innocence when a blend of brassy instrumentation and early rock 'n' roll energy made crime-busting sound like carnival thrill-ride.

Interestingly, this reissue appears to be timed to take advantage of a new German-made Jerry Cotton movie (see fourth video below) that seems to poke fun at the original series while delivering the sort of sexy, violent high-octane thrills that modern movie audiences expect these days.

Review originally published at http://www.scorebaby.com/

Tune in Saturday for some Sexy Movie Grooves

Kristopher Spencer, author of Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979, and JazzWrap contributor, will discuss jazzy sexploitation soundtracks with Scott Greenberg, host of WGWG radio's "Debts No Honest Man Can Pay". They'll play selections by John Barry, Gato Barbieri, Piero Umiliani and more.

The show starts @ 10am EST.
The interrogation begins @ 11am EST.

Listen online @ www.wgwg.org.

Michel Magne -- OSS 117

It seems a few years late for the retro spy revival, but who's complaining? Here is the long-awaited compilation of OSS 117 soundtracks by French soundtrack chameleon Michel Magne.

OSS 117 is the code name for Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, a free-lancing American secret agent of French origin. The character originated in paperback novels during the '50s, but didn't receive a successful film translation until the early '60s when spy fever swept the globe. In fact, the actor who provided the voice (but not the physical embodiment) of OSS 117 (Jean-Pierre Duclos) also provided the voice for the French dubbed Bond films. In terms of cinematic thrills, the OSS 117 films fall somewhere between Cubby Broccoli's big budget 007 films and the fly-by-night copy-cat spoofs made in Italy.

Four films were released between '63 and '66 and all featured Michel Magne's playfully imaginative scores befitting such settings as Thailand, Japan and Brazil. Along the way there are trad crime jazz cues, pop vamps with scat vocals, brassy big band jams, cacophonous carnival numbers, furious samba dances and stately oriental overtures. Plus, there's a remix by Roudoudou featuring sitar.

The OSS 117 scores aren't likely to remind anyone of John Barry's 007 work or Jerry Goldsmith's Flint scores. They're more in keeping with the comical Italian spy sound, but not to the point of mimicry. Magne is his own man, which makes any of his work (such as and FantomasCompartiment Tueurs) worth hearing.





This review previously appeared on the author's website www.ScoreBaby.com