The scores are Bernard Herrmann's Taxi Driver and Wendy Carlos' A Clockwork Orange.

Herrmann's style on Taxi Driver is that of a calm and lonely jazz (with strong brass and percussion throughout). Carlos' style (or instrument of choice, in this case) - as with all of her works - is a sythesizer (utilizing the works of Beethoven).

Firstly, jazz. Jazz has always been one of my absolute favorite music genres. As an alto saxophone player myself, I've been involved with jazz for close to seven years. I began playing the sax in middle school band but soon dropped out before my Freshman year of high school. The reason? My outside instructor/mentor was a jazz woodwind expert (he gave lessons on tenor sax, alto, flute, and clarinet) and he turned me onto jazz stylings in my eight grade year. He gave me a book of fingerings and a CD to play alongside. We eventually got into improvisation, and I dropped out of school band. I didn't feel that the authoritarian aspects of playing amongst a high school marching band was exactly for me; I was much more in tune with the jazz relationship of the alto sax. Unfortunately, around the end of my Freshman year of high school, I abandoned playing my saxophone and concentrated on trying to get onto one of the many sports teams at my school. Unfortunately, this was a bad decision on my part and no high school team would excpet me; and I was forever stuck in the outside leagues of my youth (baseball and basketball were my chosen sports). I also stopped listening to and absorbing jazz. During my initial Howard Shore uprising (just before The Fellowship of the Ring) I sought out much of his work - particularly with a favorite filmmaker of mine, David Cronenberg. Naked Lunch was about my third or fourth Shore purchase and I didn't quite get the music on my first few listens. But after I finally saw the film, and became enamored with the writing of William S. Burroughs (and subsequently, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey) jazz came back into my life; in a big way. I began to pick up the albums of Charlie Parker and (my favorite) Miles Davis; as well as the music of Naked Lunch co-composer Ornette Coleman (a living genius). I also began to research the use of jazz in film scores; and a particular favorite of mine is Bernard Herrmann's aformentioned score. I can't recall when or where it was, but I remember reading an extremely negative and seemingly biased review of Herrmann's music (if I remember, the poster was more infatuated with Herrmann's more orchestral scores). Now, if you're not aware, Taxi Driver was Herrmann's final score, and a hell of a note to go out on. The use of jazz as a symbol of Travis Bickle's loneliness is outstanding and the intense use of brass and percussion to highlight the violent nature of the character is particularly effective. Is it any wonder why Martin Scorsese sought out such an influential film composer? Herrmann understood characters like very few composers do, and he eleveated the music to proportions of greatness. So why is there such disent towards this score?

In the case of synthesizers, perhaps the bad rep is justly deserved. Many composers use the synth as a tool to make things easier (Tyler Bates seems particularly good at this) but there are some (Goldsmith, Morricone, Beltrami, Arnold, T. Newman) who understand that the synthesizer is a wonderful component and an important tool in the creation of music. For those who don't understand the synth, I'm sorry. It seems your dire affection for the organic nature of the orchesta overshadows the true nature of the synth. A synth is an instrument that is just as hard to play as a string or a brass or a woodwind. It must be tuned properly, and - if the player is overzealous - it can overheat at fast rates. The synthesizer has aided in more music than you may realize. Of the past 40 years, some wonderful music has come out of a synth (the music of DEVO, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and, the pioneer herself, Wendy Carlos). Like it or not, the synth is a wonderful instrument; and it needs a return to the proper affection it deserves, or else people like Bob Moog might be forgotten in the future of music. Are you a fan of the theremin? I'd hope that you understood that the synth has its roots in the theremin. Do you like the music of Jerry Goldsmith? Goldsmith was a master of manipulating the synthesizer to do great things. People knock on Wendy Carlos because they don't particularly "get" her music or even what she adds to a film. Her music in The Shining is engrossing, and her music in A Clockwork Orange completes the picture's theme of nihilism. Carlos plays variation on Beethoven and other composers with her many synths, and to an untrained ear it might turn you off. But in context, the music is important because it's giving anachronsitic value to the seemingly ancients works of earlier-century composers. This is old music, played many times before, arranged by many, hacked by others, and now we're hearing it on the "future" of music, and it takes on a new meaning. It ultimately becomes an important character in A Clockwork Ornage. We identify the film's striking images with Carlos' manipulation of Beethoven's Ninth, or the music of Purcell, or "The William Tell Overture". It's breathing new life into old music. We're getting a similar revival of past music in the avant-garde, metal, and folk movements of today. Bands like Estradasphere or Faun Fables or the Arcade Fire or Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (I could keep going and hopefully raise your interest) are utilizing the techniques of 20th-Century composers like Charles Ives, John Cage, and Igor Stravinsky as well as the film music of Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, and - as luck has it - Bernard Herrmann. Jerry Goldsmith is a popular influence on many of the young composers of today, and, rightfully so; Goldsmith was a genius, who gave us a life's work of multiple masterpieces.

So, why is there such dissent against things sounding different and new?

[Message edited by nuts_score on 01-27-2008]

A Streetcar Named Desire
The Man with the Golden Arm
Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
The French Connection
The French Connection II
The Seven-Ups
The Conversation
Chinatown
The Naked Lunch
Quiz Show
Clockers
The Cooler
The Caveman's Valentine
Sideways
A Tale of God's Will: Requiem for Katrina
The Black Dahlia

Every score you listed I've heard in some way (except for Quiz Show, which I've never seen) and they all lend a great jazz element to their respective films. Maybe my wish is that more filmmakers would use jazz to associate their characters, even if it might be unconventional. For instance, Coppola could've requested David Shire to construct a more conventional thriller score for The Conversation, but since the main character Harry Caul actually plays the saxophone as a projection of his loneliness, its obvious that Shire and Coppola felt that jazz was the way to dig deeper into the character.

I suspect part of the reason jazz is not favoured by soundtrack fans over traditional romantic orchestral themes-and-variations is the relatively aleatoric nature of jazz. It can be very satisfying when you get into it, but at first it can seem very random next to a satisfying exploration of a strongly tonal melody. As to why it isn't favoured by film producers - it once was the hip thing, but nowadays symphonic rock, pseudo-world music and pop minimalism seem to get all the love.