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A really wonderful later score from John Barry – and key proof of the maturity he really hit in his music during the 80s! There's a style here that goes way beyond most of his soundtracks of the 60s – and even of the 70s – a depth of feeling and jazzy approach that's almost like some of the best vintage work by Johnny Mandel! The orchestrations are sublime – handled by Al Woodbury with a really careful balance of strings and solo instrumentation – the greatest of which is the alto sax of Ronny Lang, which blows out wonderfully on most of the score's best numbers. Titles include "Main Title", "I'm Weak", "Chapeau Grits", "Busted", "Surprise", and "Oscar". This beautiful 2CD package is filled with a huge amount of tracks – not just the 13 numbers of the original album, but an additional 47 numbers – including tracks from the film, demos, and other great bits!

An amazing collection of music – and essential to any collection of blacksploitation soul and funk, even if you own the original Shaft album on Stax! Disc 1 features the original film score for the Shaft movie, not the record issued by Stax – so although Isaac Hayes handled the music, it's different from what you might have on record – and features a great array of vocal tracks and shorter funky sound cues – all with rhythm by The Bar-Kays and The Movement! Titles on disc 1 include "Bumpy's Theme", "I Can't Get Over Losin You", "Reel 4 Part 6", "Source No 1 6M1C", "Source No 2 7M1A", "Shaft Strikes Again/Return Of Shaft", "Shaft's Pain", "Rescue/Roll Up", "Love Scene Ellie", "Harlem Montage", "Shaft's First Fight", and "Title Shaft". Disc 2 features the killer soundtrack to Shaft's Big Score – written by Gordon Parks, and played with full funky style by Dick Hazard, who's getting a bit of help from the mighty Tom McIntosh. The tracks seem to include everything issued on the original LP, plus a bit more – with titles that include "Symphony For Shafted Souls", "9M3", "Funeral Home", "Don't Misunderstand", "Fight Scene", "Ike's Place", "First Meeting", "Smart Money", and "Blowin Your Mind". That disc and all of disc 3 features music from the Shaft TV series – some really under-exposed music that's totally great too, but almost with more of a crime/cop sort of style – although also with some cool moody moments too. Some of this music was done by Johnny Pate, and titles include work from the episodes The Executioners, The Killing, Hit Run, The Cop Killers, and The Kidnapping. 3CD set also features 2 bonus tracks from a single – "The Men" and "Type Thang".

A great little soundtrack – to one of the creepiest baby films ever! The score is one of the last from the legendary Bernard Herrmann – and it's one that's got all the depth and majesty of his best work for Hitchcock – an amazing sense of tone and texture that's hardly what you'd expect to such a gory little thriller! Herrmann was always one to bring his a-game to the studio, but he really knocks it out of the park with this one – using classic modes to hit some newly-creepy styles – in a way that's almost as if he's trying to show a whole younger generation of soundtrack artists that things can still be done best the old way. This reissue presents the music for the first time ever in its entirety – with amazing sound, and a very well-done booklet filled with notes and spooky photos. Titles include "Father & Child/Father Protects Child", "Raid On The School", "Frank Visits Basement", "It's Alive", "Charley's Dead", "The Big Search", and "Empty Fridge/Father Stalks Baby".

The Wild Bunch just got even wilder – with three full CDs of music – including the whole film score, plus alternate music, demo tracks, additional recordings, and the full 1969 soundtrack album too! The music is wonderful – a surprisingly poignant score – especially when you consider that it was written for a film that was known for its graphic violence! Jerry Fielding's at his height here – drawing on his earlier work in jazz, yet weaving together colors and tones that work with really bold imagistic properties – almost visual in themselves, but in ways that are so different from the images on the screen – and which, on record, make the whole thing feel like it's almost an alternative movie in itself! The orchestrations are wonderful – hardly the usual western style, but not really crime, cop, or other 60s modes either. The 3CD package features 74 tracks in all – plus wonderful notes and images – in the usual Film Score way!

A masterpiece of moody keyboards – two killer 70s scores from the great Dave Grusin! First up is The Friends of Eddie Coyle – wonderful music for a superb late Robert Mitchum film – never available on record, at least that we know of – and filled with the kind of groovy, funky, keyboard-heavy lines that make some of Grusin's early 70s scoring so great! The tunes are wonderful – often a bit short, but very enigmatic – and the package features stunning sound on tracks that include "Mr Connection", "Clean Cut", "Baylis Robbery", "The Stakeout", "Shopping Center", "Partridge Robbery/Take A Walk", "Jackie Meets Pete & Andrea", and "Eddie Is Hit". Three Days Of The Condor is an incredible soundtrack – one of the all-time greats of the 70s! Dave Grusin really outdid himself with this one – and created a sublime mix of sound, space, and spare funky beats that holds up wonderfully all the way through! The main theme steps around in a haunting mix of electric piano, basslines, and muted trumpets over strings – and lots of other tunes on the set follow the same format – taking the best of funky Morricone and Francis Lai, and giving it an even hipper American twist! Plus, most of Grusin's soundtrack work of this nature was never properly issued (like his great tunes for Barretta!) – and this rare album is one of the few that ever made it, however briefly, to the record racks! Titles include "Condor", "Yellow Panic", "Out To Lunch", "Flight Of The Condor", and "Flashback To Terror". Loads of great keyboards! CD also features 8 more bonus tracks added to the original record – more great Grusin nuggets from the Condor soundtrack – packaged here with great notes, on a CD that's over 70 minutes in length.

An amazing double-header – and a set that really adds a lot more music than we might have expected! First up is a richly expanded version of Cleopatra Jones – one of the best of the blacksploitation scores of the early 70s – a masterpiece of music that we rate every bit as high as Shaft or Superfly – maybe even higher! The music here is incredible – a surprising funky turn for JJ Johnson, who most folks know for his straighter jazz work – and like Marvin Gaye, Barry White, and others who were surprising the world with their ability to score music for a full film during the early 70s, JJ really knocks it out of the park with this one – coming up with a batch of tunes that are a wonderful mix of sophisticated scoring, creative instrumentation, and some damn funky grooves! The title cut features Joe Simon on vocals, and Millie Jackson sings on the cuts "Love Doctor" and "It Hurts So Good". The rest of the set is instrumental, and other cuts include an instrumental take on "Cleopatra Jones", plus "Go Chase Cleo", "Goin To The Chase", "Wrap Up", and "Airport Fight". This new version features 17 bonus tracks from the original film score, not the record – amazing extra music by Carl Brandt, with titles that include "Emdee", "Elevator/Cleo & Captain", "Pot Burn/Mommy/Police Raid", "Ambush", "Doodle Apartment", "Before Crash", and "Snake Crib". CD 2 features some long-lost music from the film Cleopatra Jones & The Casino Of Gold – a well-known follow-up to the original movie, but one that was never properly represented on record – making this CD set a long-awaited premiere of the original music for the film! The set features music by Dominic Frontiere – penned in a mix of funky action modes, with some slight exotic touches too, due to the location of the story. Frontiere's in his best soul/funk mode – a side that few folks realize he can do this well – and the music has a slightly different feel than JJ Johnson's Cleo Jones work, but is equally nice. Titles include "Casino Source", "Chopped Meat", "Oymia", "Les Orgie", "Fatman Stomp", "Dead Dragon Lady", and "Pool Hall Rock" – plus the vocal number "Playing With Fire". CD also features 4 more bonus tracks from Cleopatra Jones – including extended versions of the theme, and Pattie Brooks singing "Swing Down Chariot" and "Am I Blue". Great notes too – very full, with lots of photos, in the best Film Score tradition!

Ennio Morricone's beautiful score to one of the beautifully shot films of the 70s, or all time, really – Terrence Malick's legendary Days Of Heaven – the original 1978 soundtrack album and Morricone's cues programmed separately on one disc plus a bonus disc of extended score material and more bonus tracks! It's gorgeous stuff, from Morricone's haunting "Main Theme" and his more classically enthralling sounds, as well as the rootsy folk guitar by Leo Kottke and and equally swampy fiddle dance number by Doug Kershaw. It's all newly remastered on this great 2CD set from Film Score Classics. Nearly 2 1/2 hours of music on 2CDs: "Harvest", "Threshing", Kottke's "Enerlin", Kershaw's "Swamp Dance", "The Return", "The Chase", "The Fire", "Days Of Heaven" and many more.

If Hawaii was this funky, we'd move there in a minute – and honestly, we wouldn't be surprised if this record did a heck of a lot for the image of state back in the day! The soundtrack is one of our all-time favorites – a driving batch of larger orchestrations that is heavy on percussion, filled with jazzy riffs, and which makes great use of electric bass to round out the bottom nicely! Mort Stevens goes way beyond the typical cop show groove on this one – filling up the record with rich colors, unique tones, and some great inflections on the horn passages that charge each tune with a mad level of excitement. There's some great instrumental touches in the set too – like occasional fuzzed-out guitar, Hammond organ, and even a bit of sweet flute and soulful sax – giving the whole thing a feel that reminds us of Lalo Schifrin's best work from the time. Includes the massive "Hawaii Five-O" theme, plus the cuts "Call To Danger", "Up Tight", "Blues Trip", "The Long Wait", "The Floater", "Beach Trip", "Operation Smash", "McGarrett's Theme", and "Front Street". Book 'em Danno!

Fantastic funk from the Italian scene – penned for a cop movie that was also known over here as The Hired Gun! The style here is even more of a cut above than usual for Italian crime – really on a par with the best American work of the period, particularly some of the extra-hip stuff you might hear on TV – like some of those gems from Sunday Night Mystery Movie that would blend sophisticated strings, offbeat orchestrations, and some great funky basslines and keys! The keyboards are especially nice – snaking through over these bass bits that roll out wonderfully and there's some moody woodwind moments that further deepen the sound in ways you wouldn't expect. Plus, the whole package is totally great – full, well-written notes in English – almost at a Film Score Monthly level! CD features 15 tracks from the film – plus 5 more bonus cuts from the vaults.