Composed by: Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone is beloved for his wholesale reinvention of the western film score, combining operatic melodies, Italian pop and bizarre instrumental innovations. Many of his scores for Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns" have become classics not just of the genre, but the whole of film music.
In all of Morricone's western scores, Navajo Joe (1966) stands out as the single most outrageous if not downright insane effort. Utilizing full orchestra and the choral group I Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni (The Modern Singers of Alessandroni) -- with stunning soloist, Gianna Spagnulo (also heard on Guns for San Sebastian and Moses the Lawgiver) -- Morricone crafted a main title based on the chorus blasting out "Navajo Joe" amidst shieking Indian cries. It has to be heard to be believed and is utterly catchy if not an occasion to stand up and proclaim love of life itself.

John Bender, writing in the liner notes to FSM's definitive new CD, puts it best: "This music was not drafted to slavishly trace a fictional narrative involving a character named Navajo Joe -- the score is Navajo Joe."

The character of Joe is an Indian brave (Burt Reynolds) who slays dozens of bandits in order to obtain "a dollar a head" from white townsfolk needing protection. Subtlety is not the point of director Sergio Corbucci: the story is a model of a quick-moving, non-talky "B movie" plot, with copious action driven by the outstanding music. In addition to the "Navajo Joe" main theme, Morricone also provides a recurring piece of percussive action and a rapturous love theme for Joe's attachment to a half-breed maid (Nicoletta Machiavelli).

The Navajo Joe score has become legendary over the years, in part due to Morricone's credit (the pseudonym "Leo Nichols") and the scattered availability of the soundtrack. Three tracks were released in stereo on a Morricone compilation, and an LP was released in mono featuring a brief program of music. (The CD that appeared in the 1990s was mastered from vinyl sources in hideous sound quality.)

FSM's premiere, definitive CD compiles the complete Navajo Joe soundtrack from 1/4" master tapes for the best-possible fidelity. This includes the three stereo tracks, the additional monaural tracks from the LP, and previously unreleased cues also in monaural sound -- sequenced in film order, with bonus tracks afterwards. It is the Navajo Joe CD for which fans have always dreamed.

Liner notes are by John Bender and veteran B-movie director -- and devoted Navajo Joe fan -- Jim Wynorski.
http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=8178

SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL/THE CHAPMAN REPORT (1965/1962)

First Time on CD!

Composed by: Leonard Rosenman, Neal Hefti

Two Warner Bros. Records LPs come to CD from the era of the "swinging sixties" sex comedy -- and drama. Sex and the Single Girl and The Chapman Report were Warner Bros. films adapted from popular books about the once-taboo subject of sex.
Sex and the Single Girl (1964) was inspired by Helen Gurley Brown's 1962 best seller, an advice book for young women to help them enjoy their single lives. As the book was essentially plotless, the film concocted a story about a fictional "Helen Brown" psychologist (Natalie Wood) whose hit book makes her a target for a sleazy tabloid editor (Tony Curtis). Mistaken identities and slapstick give way to true love in the classic screwball-comedy tradition.

Sex and the Single Girl marked the feature debut of Neal Hefti, best-known today for his memorable TV themes to Batman and The Odd Couple. Hefti made a lasting mark in the Mancini era of sophisticated adult comedy, and Sex and the Single Girl is chock-full of delightful pop confections with jazzy grooves and irresistible melodies. The re-recorded Warner Bros. album includes Hefti's vocal and instrumental arrangements of the film's title theme composed by director Richard Quine.

The Chapman Report (1962) was adapted from a 1960 novel by Irving Wallace inspired by the Kinsey Reports, academic works about human sexuality (by Dr. Alfred Kinsey) which caused a stir in conservative 1950s society. The film features a group of "Chapman" researchers who survey the sex lives of upscale Southern California suburban women, including troubled characters played by Jane Fonda, Shelley Winters, Claire Bloom and Glynis Johns. Legendary "women's director" George Cukor helmed the picture.

Scoring The Chapman Report was the excellent symphonic composer Leonard Rosenman, who blended his usual expertise with modern atonality (for the psychological aspects of the characters' neuroses) with driving jazz (as if a nod to the conventional association of jazz with sex), particularly for the driving main title and a terrifying gang-rape of Bloom at the hands of jazz musicians. Rosenman wrote distinct themes for the four women, ranging from pathos to comedy to atonality, and blended jazz, melody and avant garde expressionism with his usual panache. It is a terrific score.

Both of these works were re-recorded by the composers for the LPs, maintaining the integrity of the orchestrations while adapting many cues for record presentation. The albums have been remixed from the original three-track 1/2" masters for optimal stereo sound quality. The LP for The Chapman Report concluded with Rosenman's pop arrangements of his themes to the James Dean films East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause; these have been retained, placed after a newly discovered alternate edit of his record version of the Chapman Report main title. Liner notes are by Lukas Kendall.
http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=8179

James