{"id":6712,"date":"2013-06-12T01:55:28","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T05:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6712"},"modified":"2013-06-12T01:55:28","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T05:55:28","slug":"cd-tall-texan-the-1953","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6712","title":{"rendered":"CD: Tall Texan, The (1953)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>T to U<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: Monstrous Movie Music<\/a>\/ Released: April 10, 2013<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length: 32 tracks \/ (50:01)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by CD producer David Schecter.<\/p>\n

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Composer: Bert Shefter<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Best-known for scoring with Paul Sawtell the classic sci-fi scores for The Fly<\/strong> (1958) and Kronos <\/strong>(1957), Bert Shefter had done some solo work, and The Tall Texan<\/strong> is one of his earliest film scores, having begun his film career in 1950.<\/p>\n

While a fairly standard western score with \u2018angry Indian\u2019 music and pseudo-native drum for the clich\u00e9d villains and bits of melodic Americana material woven into his main theme, Shefter\u2019s score is nevertheless really well orchestrated to maximize the colours available from a 35 piece orchestra.<\/p>\n

As Monstrous Movie Music\u2019s producer writes in his liner notes, there\u2019s a lot of high pedigree in what was a standard low-budget western from indie studio Lippert Pictures (Destination Moon <\/strong>[M]), spanning the cast (Lloyd Bridges, Fox\u2019 in-house character actor Lee J. Cobb), director and ace editor Elmo Williams (1963\u2019s Cleopatra<\/strong>), and cinematographer Joseph Biroc (Blazing Saddles<\/strong>, Bye Bye Birdie<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>], 13 Ghosts<\/a><\/strong>), and one gets a sense everyone used the film to show they could put more into a straight B-western much in the way similarly skilled, emerging talent elevated Republic\u2019s own wave of westerns and period films.<\/p>\n

Shefter\u2019s music also sounds oddly contemporary because of the vibrancy of his writing; thumping Indian material and repeated thematic bits notwithstanding, there are some really beautifully crafted cues which are not standard to the lower-grade, fast-written scores applied to more straightforward genre efforts.<\/p>\n

A great example is \u201cGun Fight,\u201d which Schecter rightly notes as being a bit of a portent to the buoyant style of Elmer Bernstein\u2019s Magnificent Seven <\/strong>(1960) and its fast counter-punctual notes, especially notes fused by flutes and piano. (The coincidence may stem from Shefter and Bernstein\u2019s own background as concert pianists, if not a shared interest in strong melodies and an affinity for Americana.) In any event, there are some really beautiful passages throughout Tall Texan<\/strong>, such as \u201cGold Glitters,\u201d which builds on the Bernsteinesque motifs with strings in the cue\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n

Shefter also makes great use of the celesta which also distances the score from more traditional B-movie music which had a certain generic library sound. There are cues where Shefter works in short bursts of folk tunes, but they work within the context of the score\u2019s narrative, and perhaps act as melodic buffers between some striking effects, such as the eerie, pliable strings at the beginning of \u201cOn the Way.\u201d That particular effect is especially otherworldly, and recalls Leith Stevens\u2019 Destination Moon<\/strong>. Shefter\u2019s knack for adding modern sounds during the fifties perhaps made him a natural for scoring sci-fi (Kronos<\/strong>) and horror (The Last Man on Earth<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s best sections tend to be the intro themes heard in the first cues, the suspenseful midsection, and parts of the action-oriented finale (which does get a bit repetitive in a few short cues).<\/p>\n

MMM\u2019s CD includes a handful of bonus cues, and David Scheter\u2019s liner notes are typically detailed and appropriately laudatory for a real gem. Bert Shefter\u2019s sci-fi fans will be surprised by the richness of the writing, which differs from the sometimes dissonant quality of his monster music. The mono tracks sound great, and Ray Faiola\u2019s mastering brings out a little bit of dynamic oomph without creating a false stereo image.<\/p>\n

MMM\u2019s other Shefter scores co-composed with Sawtell include Virgin Sacrifice<\/strong>, The Last Man on Earth<\/strong>, and the double-billed Kronos<\/strong> + The Cosmic Man.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Select Merchants:<\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" —\u00a0BSX<\/a> —\u00a0Intrada<\/a> —\u00a0SAE<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0T to U<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ T to U . Rating: Very Good Label: Monstrous Movie Music\/ Released: April 10, 2013 Tracks & Album Length: 32 tracks \/ (50:01) . Special Notes: 20-page colour booklet with liner notes by CD producer David Schecter. . Composer: Bert Shefter . . Review: Best-known for scoring with Paul Sawtell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1457,2072],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Kg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6716,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712\/revisions\/6716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}