4 posts tagged “spy”

I hate to base two posts in a row on TV watching, but tonight's family entertainment was rife with great music that I want to blog about.  We introduced the kids to Bill Murray's best movie, the criminally neglected The Man Who Knew Too Little.  Murray plays an American schmo in London who thinks he is taking part in the experimental "Theatre of Life," but instead ends up as the key player in the middle of super-secret spy stuff--comedic spy stuff, that is.  (Evil lady torturer?  Check.  Ticking time bomb?  Check.  Austin Mini car chase?  Check.)  The film is replete with quotable lines, sight gags, comic coincidences and misunderstandings, all to the accompaniment of vintage and original spy music.  Prominent in the mix is the Three Suns' version of "Fever," one of the most-anthologized songs of the 90s lounge/exotica revival:

That whole lounge thing was fun while it lasted: all the reissues of Esquivel, the Three Suns, Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, comebacks by Yma Sumac and Korla Pandit, and revivalist bands like Combustible Edison, Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited, and the like, not to mention the cornucopia of compilation discs put out by just about every label.  And a lot of it was delectable, glorious spy music.  Nancy Sinatra enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, too, and The Man Who Knew Too Little closes with "The Last of the Secret Agents"--

What a perfect ending to a perfect movie!  (My daughter even said, "This is the best spy movie ever," and she's seen all the Austin Powers flicks.  I don't think she's ever seen a serious spy movie, so she really means spoof spy movie, but that's how good it is.)

Always a spy--I just can't get away from the spy music!  Here's another Lalo Schifrin track, from his execrably-titled 1967 album There's a Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On:

I assume that the keyboard solo is a monophonic synthesizer, and since it was recorded in 1967 that would probably make it a Moog.  (The birthplace of the Moog synthesizer is right here in Ithaca, where Robert Moog was a graduate student in solid state physics.  Or just up the road in Trumansburg, where he had his factory.)  One more "Odies" song down!

We now break from fake cop show themes by contemporary artists to bring you some real cop show music by a past master.  Trumpeter Al Hirt was a titan of the New Orleans music scene (literally, he was nicknamed "The Round Mound of Sound").  When The Green Hornet made the leap from radio to TV in 1966, Hirt was chosen to play the theme song, a swingin' & rockin' new arrangement by Billy May of the old theme song, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee."  And while he was at it, he recorded a whole album's worth of cop show music, The Horn Meets The Hornet.  Here's the "Green Hornet Theme:"

It was heard more recently in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1.  I played the trumpet once upon a time, but I could never get the hang of double- and triple-tonguing.  This song requires a veritable tongue fandango to play, and Al Hirt makes it seem effortless.  The third track on the album, "Night Rumble," is not a proper cop show theme, but it would easily fit into a cop show: in a scene where the cops go to a nightclub to gather information, this would be the music that is playing while women flail around on the dance floor.  Or it could be the music playing at the gang hideout:

I always wanted to get that electric piano sound, but I could never make my Fender Rhodes sound like that.  I found out just last year that it's a Wurlitzer I want.  I use that intro piano lick to check out keyboards and VST instruments.
Among the other treats on The Horn Meets the Hornet is Al's take on the Batman theme:

My earliest musical memory is watching my dad play his flute along with Herbie Mann's Our Mann Flute album, from 1966.  The title is a pun on Our Man Flint, the James Coburn superspy movie with a cool theme song by Jerry Goldsmith, covered on this album.  It's not his worst album-title pun, though; that would be Et Tu Flute (1973).  I have loved this album ever since childhood, especially the tracks arranged and conducted by Jimmy Wisner ("Scratch," "Philly Dog," "Good Lovin'," and "Monday, Monday").  Herbie Mann (born Herbert Jay Solomon) was always too pop for jazz purists, and his genre-hopping throughout the 70s alienated some fans.  But he loved to play the flute, and his enthusiasm always shone through so one couldn't help but groove along.  Here's the album opener, "Scratch:"

I'm a big fan of the art of Josh "Shag" Agle, some of which depict beatniks and swingers dancing to a record.  This is the music I imagine they are dancing to.  If you'd like to hear another track from this album, someone's made a fun little video with "Philly Dog" as its soundtrack here.

Herbie Mann died of prostate cancer in 2003.  I never did get to see him in concert, but my brother did.  He liked it.