Jerry Murad's Harmonicats - Great Themes from TV and Motion Pictures

Great Themes from TV and Motion Pictures appeared on Columbia's Harmony budget label in 1969 as the tenure of Jerry Murad's Harmonicats with the company ended. The 10 tracks were assembled from LPs released on the main Columbia label over the previous few years.

Several came from The Love Song of Tom Jones and Other Great Movie Hits (1964), which you can read about and listen to a sample in this previous post. The earlier blog entry also has a bit of background on the group.

The Pink Panther Theme, of course, is very familiar thanks to Henry Mancini's hit version from the original soundtrack that featured the sax of Plas Johnson. Surprisingly the substitution of harmonica for sax works quite well in the Harmonicats' version, which was on both Great Themes and Love Song of Tom Jones.

The Pink Panther Theme



The content of Great Themes does not appear to have been released digitally.

Note in the video below that the cover for the British release of the LP (on Hallmark) was changed to highlight Theme from "The Avengers," the highly popular U.K. TV series that ended its run of eight-plus years in May of '69.

Pat Williams - Heavy Vibrations

Most of arranger and composer Pat Williams's work has been in the recording studios and for the movies and TV, so he remains largely unknown to the general public.

His work in the studios began in New York in 1961 and when he moved to Los Angeles seven years later, he began composing for film and television as well. Some of the TV shows he scored included Mary Tyler Moore, Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco and Columbo. On the big screen, Williams's scores enlivened The Cheap Detective, Cuba and Cry-Baby, among many others.

He has worked with such singers as Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, Billy Joel and Frank Sinatra, as well as finding time to record albums of his own, including three for Verve in the late 1960s.

Heavy Vibrations came out in 1969 and spotlighted brassy arrangements of current hits like Get Back, Son of a Preacher Man and River Deep, Mountain High. Also on board were several Williams originals, including the gently swinging Catherine.

Catherine



None of Pat Williams's Verve LPs have received a full digital release, but a couple of tunes from them have surfaced on iTunes. These apparently have been sourced from vinyl, with audible clicks and pops, and are not recommended.

Here's Williams's funky take on Get Back from Heavy Vibrations.

Pino Calvi - Romantic N. 4

Italian pianist, conductor and composer Pino Calvi (1930-1989) enjoyed a lengthy career in his homeland, composing music for movies and TV. He also participated personally in the famous San Remo Music Festival, entering one of the oldest song contests in Europe in 1957, 1962 and 1963. Calvi conducted the festival orchestra in 1963, 1964 and 1966.

He also recorded prolifically, including a series of at least 15 easy listening LPs for the Ri-Fi label dubbed Romantic. The albums must have sold reasonably well since the series that began in 1968 lasted until at least 1982. Romantic N. 4 came out in 1974 and contained a version of Nino Rota's theme for Amarcord (1973), Federico Fellini's highly regarded comedy-drama set in an Italian coastal town in the 1930s.

Amarcord



Many of Pino Calvi's recordings for Ri-Fi have been repackaged in a series of download albums available from Amazon and elsewhere. There have been very few CD releases of Calvi's music and all are out of print.

Here's Calvi playing and conducting on Italian TV in 1968.

The Windmill Orchestra - Instrumental Gold

Instrumental Gold was a TV-advertised double-LP set issued in Canada in 1976 on the Windmill label. The tracks were recorded in England and credited to the Windmill Orchestra. The tunes ranged from instrumental rock to easy listening and movie and TV themes.

A similar Instrumental Gold set with almost exactly the same cover was issued by Warwick in the U.K. the same year. It was also advertised on TV.

The track listing was different from the Canadian version, but a few cuts appeared on both releases. However, the U.K. release, on a single LP, credited the tracks individually to various artists, including the Bev Phillips Orchestra, Terry Walsh and the Phantoms and Don Lusher and His Trio.

The British version was issued in Germany in 1978 by K-Tel with this cover.

Anyway, back to the Canadian version. This release contained several then-recent movie and TV themes that were not included in the U.K., including Shaft, S.W.A.T. and The Rockford Files.

The Rockford Files



The Windmill Orchestra take on the Theme from The Rockford Files is very close to that of the original by Mike Post.

Paul Nero Sounds - Golden Western Hits

This is NOT pianist Peter Nero. This Nero plays neither neither piano nor fiddle -- in fact that's not even his real name.

Paul Nero is the name adopted by German jazz saxophonist and composer Klaus Doldinger for a series of instrumental pop albums in the 1960s. Some, like Golden Western Hits (1969), were released on Liberty in North America as well as in his native country. Others, including a few in the non-stop dancing mode popularized by James Last, were confined to a European release.

Since 1971 Doldinger has led a jazz group called Passport whose music has been likened to that of Weather Report. He's also well respected as a composer of music for films and is responsible for the scores of Das Boot (1981), The Never-Ending Story (1984) and Palmetto (1998).

The Paul Nero recordings began in 1965 with The Big Beat, credited to Paul Nero's Blue Sounds, and ended in 1970 with Tops for Dancing. Somewhere along the way the "Blue" was dropped from the group's name.

On Golden Western Hits most of the tracks are familiar themes from western films and TV shows, including of course Bonanza. Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote the theme for the long-running series and it was orchestrated by David Rose and arranged by Billy May for the soundtrack. But it was guitarist Al Caiola who had the hit recording, in 1961.

The Nero version has a Caiola-style guitar, but it's surrounded by a very inventive string and brass arrangement.

Bonanza



None of Klaus Doldinger's Paul Nero recordings have made it onto CD or have been made available as downloads. But Doldinger doesn't appear to want to hide them. They're listed in the discography on his official website.

To close, here's the rather offbeat rendering of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly off the Golden Western Hits LP.

Shelly Manne & His Men - Checkmate

The TV series Checkmate ran for 70 episodes on CBS from 1960-62, with Anthony George and Doug McClure playing the owners of a San Francisco detective agency, Checkmate Inc. They were aided by a criminologist portrayed by Sebastian Cabot.

The complete series was released on DVD in 2010, but with prices hovering in the $50 range I'd probably think twice about parting with my cash. I suspect it would make pretty tame (boring) viewing today.

Nonetheless Checkmate featured a fine jazz-tinged score by young composer Johnny Williams, who as the more mature-sounding John Williams would go on to write the scores for Star Wars, Superman, the Harry Potter films and other blockbusters.

Among the musicians appearing on the soundtrack of Checkmate was drummer Shelly Manne (1920-1984), a veteran of the West Coast jazz, studio and soundtrack scene. He was already the go-to guy for Henry Mancini and had performed on his classic TV scores for Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky.

Manne also turned out his own version of the Peter Gunn score for the Contemporary label in 1959. The group was billed as Shelly Manne and His Men, a moniker that was also applied when the drummer turned his attention to the Checkmate score, again for Contemporary, in 1962. The other members of the group were tenor saxophonist Richie Kamuca, trumpeter Conte Condoli, Chuck Berghofer on bass and Russ Freeman on piano. The LP contained a wonderful ballad, Fireside Eyes.

Fireside Eyes



Shelly Manne's Checkmate was available briefly on CD via a 2002 release on Original Jazz Classics. A copy now will set you back $40-50. There is a download available from iTunes in some countries but its origin is highly suspect.

To close, Manne and his men tackle the title theme from Checkmate.