Classical restraint as a result. That is a mat ter of personal taste; this Mozart works both ways. The string playing is just what one would expect of three-quarters of the Guar ncris: rich in tone, and mutually supportive. E.C. Michael Nesmith Live at the Palais; The Wichita Train Whistle Sings (Pacific Arts) After listening to the cheering, screaming audience at this performance in Victoria, Australia last year,, one wonders why we aren’t hearing more about —or from — Nesmith back -here. He was recording country-rock back before there was a name for it, and has written songs that have been done to death by others; without “Different Drum,” where would Linda Ronstadt be right now? (Still in the pigpen?). The “Live” album is basically a collection of Nesmith’s greatest hits, or at least his best-known numbers with the exception of “Drum,” which isn’t here. “Joanne,” “Silver Moon,” and “Some of Shelly’s Blues” arc, though, plus a rocking version of “Nadine” that ranks among the best covers of Chuck Berry material ever. The backup group includes drummer John Ware, who worked with Nesmith before joining Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band; bassist David Mac Kay; pianist James Jrumbo; and A 1 Perkins, who simply sizzles on electric 6-string and steel guitar. Sound quality is a bit strange, with the room’s echo captured all'too well on tape fact: . you get a free bonus T-Shirt when you purchase either a Vl5 Type IV or a Vl5 Type 111 Super Track cartridge! Join the exclusive Super Ttack Team and show your colors. That's right. If you buy either a Shure Vl5 Type 111 or Vl5 Type IV cartridge between now and November 30, you get a Shure designer "T" shirt FREE. You’ll receive Super TRACKABILITY for your records, and an eye-catching 100% cotton Shure designer "T" SHIRT for yourself! Our “T" is an original with an exclusive, contemporary full-color Shure collage up front. Super Ttack: The winning team. Shure phonograph cartridges are known and acclaimed the world over for superior performance, ultra-flat response, rigidly uniform quality, and above all, for unparalleled trackability. The Super Track cartridges are the best phonograph cartridges Shure makes ... and the best-performing cartridges you can buy anywhere, regardless of how much you spend. The Vl5 Type IV opens a new epoch in high fidelity history and sound reproduction excellence. A premium cartridge in all respects even among premium cartridges,*it knows no equal and has no rival. And, the Vl5 Type 111 is second only to the Type IV! i- — * ! Fill out this coupon and send it to: i Shure Brothers Inc., 222 Hartrey Ave., Evanston, IL 60204 J iAttn: Department 63-AC . - . j Please send me my Shure T-shirt. Enclosed are the two end flaps of the i i box my Super Track cartridge came in, and 50t for postage and handling. ( i My T-shirt size is... ! □ Small ‘0 Medium □ Large i City —State Zip } i Please'ailow four to six weeks for delivery. Limited to one Shure Designer J i “T Shirt per customer. Offer expires November 30,1978. * i l . —— Shure Brothers Inc., 222 Hartrey Ave., Evanston, IL 60204 In Canada: A. C. Simmonds & Sons Limited # Manufacturers of high fidelity components, microphones, sound systems and related circuitry. si—iure and Nesmith’s voice sounding a-bit distant: this is why most acts heavily overdub on so-called live albums. It’s to Nesmith’s credit that he kept that to a minimum (he explains where and why in the liner notes), but the sound might be a bit disconcerting at first. The performances more than com pensate. In 1967, Nesmith and arranger Shorty Rogers collaborated on an instrumental album fusing big-band jazz and country styles, with strings,' horns, and soloists in cluding guitarist James Burton, steel guitarist Red Rhodes, and banjoist Doug Dillard. It’s still ahead of its time, and available for the first time in ten years. Original Cast The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (MCA) .This album gives you a taste of why the Broadway musical tale of tail on the trail is such a hit. Carol Hall’s songs, like the rauc ous .“24 Fans,” the wistful “The Bus from Amarillo,” and the hard-bitten but hopeful “No Lies,” are often delightful. The rec orded performances are exuberant and con tagious, radiating a joy that makes the sex ual goings-on seem just as nice and normal as the barn-building scene in Sever Brides for Seven Brothers. But what, exactly, is going on here? Aha! Funny you should ask! Nobody’s telling —at least, not the record company. The double- j Name. i Addresi Ampersand fold album, “generously” housing just one disc, has no plot synopsis, no lyric sheet, and no accounting of-who sings what. Who is doing that marvelous wailing on “24 Hours of Loving?” Gol-lee, fellas, leaving that stufT out shore is dumb. Anyhow, wc can’t all get to New York to sec the play, but since it’s “presented” by Universal Pictures, there’ll be a movie of this ’un as sure as the sun sets in the West. Meanwhile, enjoy the record Miklos Rozsa “The Thief of Bagdad”; Elmer Bernstein “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Elmer Berns tein conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. (Warner Bros.) Del Porter Film scores arc an incidental art form, or a craft perhaps, like pottery or weaving. They may be beautiful, or exciting, or anything else, but first and foremost, they are meant for practical use, to heighten the mood on screen. Stripped of the moving pictures they are meant to accompany —pictures which either make one forget they"are listening to music at all, or too conscious of the self effacing accompaniment —too many film scores end up as so much musical doodling. There are exceptions and exceptional composers such as Bernard Herrman, Erich Korngold and Bronislaw Kapcr, but the □ Extra Large significance of the creator is probably indi cated by the Schwann catalog, which lists films by title but doesn’t credit the composer at all. Such anonymity is the film composer’s lot, and that may be one reason so many of them adopted musical disguises. The Bern stein of “Mockingbird” is Aaron Copland, The Rozsa of “Thief’ is Delius or Grilles. It is all too predictable. Copland first wrote “folksy” American music for films. Bernstein signs to write (quickly, no doubt) music for a “folksy” picture. The result: de rivative Copland.. One can just imagine the producer of The Thief of Bagdad telling Rozsa, an accom plished concert hall veteran, “I got this Arabian nights picture due out in six weeks. Write me something exotic, a little belly dance music, and make it good.” So Rozsa gives Alexander Korda what Korda and the audience expect, pockets the check, and goes back to writing the “serious” music which orchestras won’t play because he is, after all, a film composer. Well, the family has to eat. • Not all film music is weak, or ersatz. Bernstein himself produced at least one ex traordinary score, The Man with the Golden zlrm.Rozsa did Spellbound and Julius Caesar, to name two that come to mind easily. But these two eflorts are not of that high musical standard. They remain recordings, well performed to be sure, for film or nostal gia buffs October, 1978
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