ELMER BERNSTEIN – THE
MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM SOUNDTRACK (POLYGRAM)
Rattling and
atmospheric this soundtrack is an assertive gesture as to what it is like to
have the mindset of a dependent living in a hectic metropolitan setting. As a result the album is as much about
hidden messages as it is outward and overt statements. As frenetic time changes occur it is as if
they are representing the schizophrenic traits of what it is like to be an
addict.
That said this album
is perhaps a bit misleading if you want to attach drug addiction to music in
the fifties. Rather than being avant
garde and even downbeat jazz, this is big swing orchestration performed by
tight players somewhat removed from the hipster grit reality offered by the
movie.
This is the work of
Elmer Bernstein a man who later became famed for scoring The Magnificent Seven
and The Great Escape in addition to such lightweight favourites at National
Lampoon’s Animal House, Airplane!, Spies Like Us and Ghostbusters. This was his fourth film score and it saw
him gaining an Academy Award nomination.
And for it was steering Shorty Rogers and His Giants with Shelly Manne
as they powered their way through proceedings.
The Man With The
Golden Arm is a popular movie with heroin taking percussionists. In it Frank Sinatra plays a drummer named
Frankie Machine. He is a jazz drummer
in the Beat era and yet, he is relatively square. Freshly released from prison his visits his crippled and
crippling wife Zosh who is in a wheelchair from where she stifles his
aspirations. More encouraging however
is old flame Molly who wrestling against heroin becomes the heroine. And as tracks take up the title/name of both
these characters the movements are appropriate.
The record begins with
“Clark Street” and the pulsing opening to proceedings. It arrives with swagger before changing pace
and tact in grubby fashion being somewhat representative of the dizzying
existence serving as a prologue and lo-fi overture to what lay ahead. After dropping low it eventually ends high.
As per the movie the
next stop on his travels is “Zosh” which proves a solemn offering arriving with
a degree of peace and suggestion of love.
The drifting emotions feel lost at sea.
In contrast now back
in the swing of things “Frankie Machine” arrives with a huge presence and
opening gestures akin to the arrival of “Blue Train” by John Coltrane. Then comes “The Fix” with more high spirits
in the mix and another track that reminds of the bombastic energy playfully
attached to themes to shows such as Police Squad and Dragnet. As I say, its relatively square.
With this you can
always rely on a woman to cool things as “Molly” drips in and glistens offering
a remorseful and reflective signature.
Its liking from a distance. And
this is a method later repeated on the sedate “Sunday Morning” that sounds
rather like Lalo Schifrin initially before resuming loud and alarming gestures.
And it is these traits
that rev the album living in the tracks “Breakup” and “Audition”, the latter of
which has an almost salsa flow and “Sing Sing Sing” big band swing. Then arrives the darkness of “The Cure” and
it’s near Bernard Herrmann scoring “Taxi Driver” gestures. You do not need the screen images to know
what is occurring here. However
gradually it calms down just as “The Finale” plays out the remainder of the
movie and the album complete with a giant final blow.
In portraying a
grubby, druggy world full of hostility, desperation and anger, Bernstein was
able to paint a lot of beauty and wonder.
This is jazz on an orchestral scale, cleaner than those being
represented by it but no less magnificent all the same. This was when music was nothing but art.
Thesaurus moment:
clean.
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