Bond, James Bond.

or the sound before I even knew what jazz was...

Bond, James Bond.

Growing up, I watched the Bond movies (all the great oldies for that matter) first on our old black & white TV.

Then, finally, my dad broke down and bought a nice, big color TV. He wanted to watch college football games in color - who can blame him!

I remember when we all gathered around and watched the Wizard of Oz for the millionth time and for the first time seeing it in technicolor. With that TV, we broke the color barrier. Immediately, when I saw the old movies, I was taken in by this new color spectacle. But with this modern technology came an unexpectedly much better sound system too. This only made me more interested in the sounds.

Watching old movies for me was a solitary venture; however, that was about to change….

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As I said last week, Jeff and I would go estate sale hunting for movie memorabilia and movie soundtracks. At one hunt session, I picked up the Thunderball soundtrack. In truth, I really dug the cover art. That was solid.

But then when I played the album, it was “Bang, right in the kisser”. Who was this guy, John Barry? In his blog Steven Hart wrote this and I couldn’t have written it any better:

“He quite simply blew my mind at the tender age of nine or 10 when I went to see my first James Bond flick, You Only Live Twice. In retrospect I can see it’s not a very good movie — certainly the lamest of the Sean Connery era (my comment: Sorry Steven, I actually like the film!), with a visibly bored star and a script that reflects none of the wit of its scenarist, Roald Dahl — but I couldn’t have cared less back then. All I knew was that the movie had a rocket base hidden inside a volcano, a piranha pool for the disposal of incompetent functionaries, and above all John Barry’s most gleamingly beautiful Bond score. The opening sequence, with a space capsule hijacked right out of orbit by another vehicle, was hot stuff already, but Barry’s music — all silken menace, gradually building to an awesomely scary climax — hit it out of the galaxy. The You Only Live Twice soundtrack was the first music I wanted to buy and own, along with the soundtrack for 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

John Barry was cool! Remember this is the guy who did the soundtrack for Midnight Cowboy. Here he is with then wife Sixties siren Jane Birkin.

I cut my teeth on the “Bond Sound” - that brass-heavy, jazzy mix. At the Casino from Thunderball is that sound at its swankiest:

…and with Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang at its coolist:

I was a sucker for John Scott’s horn. A funny side note here is that Jimmy Page played session guitar on Thunderball soundtrack.

Check John Scott’s horn out on Into Miami from Goldfinger:

Now, I think the best Bond soundtrack is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. A real masterpiece - a black horse Bond classic. Let’s reluctantly look past the obvious, best Bond song: Louie Armstrong’s We Have All The Time In The World - a stone cold classic - and go right to this:

What made this one so cool is that thumping bass. That was something that I really latched on to. It made my head bop instantly. Also, the funky zylophone-thing playing in the background. Wow. I didn’t know what it was, but I loved the sound.

I like the lushness of the first half of Bond Meets the Girls:

By 1964, the legendary John Barry had already established the “Bond Sound”. Here’s another, Tiffany Case from Diamonds Are Forever. A real classic:

There’s that funky zylophone-thing playing again. John Barry was the man.

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In August of 1973, my buddy up the street gave me an awesome birthday present. We were both huge Bond fans and he got me this:

I think it was THE FIRST LP I ever had that was my own (as you know from last week, I had a bunch of 78 RPMs)! My folks had a couple dozen LPs - mostly cool musicals and soundtracks like, Carousel, The King and I, Oklahoma and Exodus. You can see this one is a cut-out, so he was lucky enough to find it in the one used record store we had in our town. I played that on my brother’s record player with headphones. This is when I really heard the Bond Sound for the first time. And it reached out and grabbed me.

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In the 1970s, like most kids my age, I loved going to the movies. My favorites were James Bond and Bruce Lee. I had seen all the Bond movies multiple times on TV; and I loved Sean Connery, even though my favorite Bond is George Lazenby, from my favorite bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But the talk on the street was that for the next Bond flick, Sean Connery was OUT and a new Bond, Roger Moore, was IN. What?

That wasn’t the only big change. The epic John Barry was also OUT. In an effort, I guess, to liven things up, the Bond machine had tapped Paul McCartney and George Martin for the soundtrack. What? After the artistry of John Barry, the thought of Paul McCartney and George Martin (I was never a huge Beatles fan) made me anxious, at best. Nonetheless, I couldn’t wait for the new Bond to hit the screen. I had never seen a Bond flick on the big screen. Then, finally it happened.

In 1973, Live and Let Die hit the theaters (I think it played in a double feature with Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon). It wasn’t the best Bond movie by far, nor the best soundtrack. In fact, in retrospect, I find the soundtrack disappointing. But it was Bond on the big screen, and I loved it. Interestingly, this deliberate change in the Bond Sound also marked a deliberate change in my musical journey….

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My buddy, Jeff was a big Marx Brothers guy. In 1977, when we were 15 years old, we joined the Marx Brotherhood at the University of Minnesota.

One of our parents would drive us down to the U of M campus and drop us outside the building. The secret word to enter the meeting was, of course: “Swordfish."

Here’s my old club card:

This would be the first time I would watch a movie outside the confines of my TV room. But it was all in good fun. The older guys all welcomed these two young and enthusiastic high school kids. We were kinda of a novelty.

Here is an interesting article called Marxmen, Remembering the Marx Brotherhood reflecting on the time just after we were members. Jeff and I had already been members and moved on before Erik and Nathan joined the club.

Over the 1977 Labor Day weekend, Jeff and I attended Cinecon 13. A galaxy of films and film activities sponsored by the Society for Cinephiles, which I guess we were. It was held at the Sheraton-Ritz hotel in Minneapolis. We had caught wind of it through the Marx Brotherhood because Ruth Hall would be there. Here is her publicity shot from the Marx Brothers’ 1931 film Monkey Business.

On Saturday afternoon, my mom drove us down to the Ritz and dropped us off. As soon as we walked through those front doors we were amazed. The extent of moviedom was mind boggling. We stepped off the streets and into heaven. Here’s the program booklet

That’s Ruth Hall’s autograph on the back.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Cinecon 13 was meeting the incredible Arthur Kleiner. He acted as the Musical Director of The Museum of Modern Art, Film Department, in New York from the time he emigrated from Vienna in 1938 until his retirement in 1967. Some may know of him from shows he played in the 1970s at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, the city he and his family moved to after his retirement from MoMA. More about Arthur Kleiner can be found here.

At Cinecon 13, he played accompaniment to a silent film. This was stunning and had an immediate impact on me. I met him during an evening reception, and he signed my program.

These events from fall of 1977 marked a big change for me. Up until then, my musical journey had been in the small and isolated circle of my home and small town. But that fall, it opened up into a new world.

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Musically, I was moving away from the Jazz Age 78 RPM and Bond Sound. This was no doubt influenced by the rise of Disco, movies like Saturday Night Fever, and more pop music like Santana’s album Welcome.

Welcome had a huge impact on me, introducing me to Sound of the Wind from Santana’s Caravanserai’s and Narada Michael Walden’s Awakening, with Carlos Santana’s late title track solo - side 2 of this LP is solid. Later on it brought me to John McLaughlin, but that’s another story, which we’ll get to soon….

Somewhere in 1978 or 1979, I had found a local radio station that played smooth jazz. I listened to it at night while I did my homework. This station introduced me to three particular albums and three songs that opened my ears to extended, improvisational music:

• Grover Washington Jr., Reed Seed - Reed Seed (Trio Tune)

• Bob James, One on One - Winding River

• Weather Report, Tale Spinnin’ - Badia

I didn’t know it at the time, but three musicians in this grouping played large roles in the development of the free jazz movement: Bob James, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Zawinul. We’ll learn about them later.

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As I look back, these songs were my first taste of jazz outside of the Jazz Age and movie soundtracks I had been listening to. I think it’s here, during my senior year in high school, that the light bulb went on.

Next week, our journey takes us to New York. Still not aware of jazz outside Grover Washington Jr.’s smooth jazz and some Weather Report jazz fusion, I stumbled onto an amazing place that I call “Ground Zero”, where my journey really began….

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Feel free to contact me at any time to talk shop. I welcome and encourage that….

Until then, keep on walking….