22 replies to this topic

[Zorin Industries]

Like many others I have spent a week listening to the work of John Barry Prendergast - 1933 - 2011.

I have re-discovered some beautiful and rousing gems and heard some cracking pieces for the first time. I have been oddly very impressed by the scores for INDECENT PROPOSAL and THE SCARLET LETTER and reminded of the brilliance of the sound of Swinging London that John Barry was such an integral force of.

I thought it fitting to start a thread where folk can post their favourite Barry pieces, new and old, Bond or not Bond. Not everyone knows the full palette of his musical canvas and I thought a sort of memorial wall of Barry's music is as fitting a tribute as any.


I will start the (thunder)ball rolling....


RIP The Barry.... who else will now make hair shampoo sound so lush....



RIP The Barry .... who else will score characters arriving as well as this....

[Zorin Industries]

RIP The Barry... who else will give such regal elegance to the epics...

RIP The Barry... who else makes TV themes sound like standards....

[The Shark]

THE ADVENTURER is another fine Barry TV theme, featuring the phat Moog bass we all know and love from ORSON WELLES GREAT MYSTERIES, THE PERSUADERS and OHMSS. And of course, one of John Barrry's favourite instruments playing the melodic line - the Hungarian cimbalom.



A rather forgotten mid 60s Barry score. (Hints of Arnold's opening to QUANTUM OF SOLACE here)



And Bryan Forbes's SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. Barry's score starts at the 2:14 mark, though I'd very recommend watching the prelude to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhJXNhwJhZ0&playnext=1&list=PLB6E6F3AC11AA3D03

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[FLEMINGFAN]

I always enjoyed watching him conduct the orchestra and the fluidity in which he did it.
This is a clip of him at the Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor:
That said, anything he did was wonderful.
A great loss and it is a pity he was never Knighted, unlike his contemporaries.

Edited by FLEMINGFAN, 03 February 2011 - 05:34 PM.

[sthgilyadgnivileht]

An obvious choice perhaps, but i'll post Flying over Africa just because it represents the zenith of great cinematic music.


I have always liked 'Explosion' from Barry's Masquerade score. Not the best movie that he added his talents to but nonetheless a tense clever piece of composing that is 100% Barry.

[The Shark]

I always enjoyed watching him conduct the orchestra and the fluidity in which he did it.
This is a clip of him at the Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor.

Do you have the clip, FLEMINGFAN?

[FLEMINGFAN]

I always enjoyed watching him conduct the orchestra and the fluidity in which he did it.
This is a clip of him at the Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor.

Do you have the clip, FLEMINGFAN?

Yes, just attached it (I am a bit of a moron regarding that sort of thing....along with everything else)

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

Some of my favourite tracks from Bond...





and many more...

[x007AceOfSpades]

All of these are beautiful and masterful tracks from the legendary John Barry. R.I.P.

[mattjoes]

The whole theme is wonderful, but 0:53 - 1:02 is my favorite part. Such a blissful high can be experienced by listening to Barry's music.

[Harry Fawkes]

Wonderful thread guys. Thanks!

[Ambler]

After the somewhat euphemistic obituary in the Telegraph I'm tempted to post a track from Barry's musical Lolita, My Love. Here's Body Heat instead:



People tend to focus on Barry's romantic side but his music could be very sensual.

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

I might rent OUT OF AFRICA this weekend.

[The Shark]

After the somewhat euphemistic obituary in the Telegraph I'm tempted to post a track from Barry's musical Lolita, My Love. Here's Body Heat instead:



People tend to focus on Barry's romantic side but his music could be very sensual.

Barry could record sex like no other film composer, (in the studio, of course). Though I think that's one of the many rerecordings of the BODY HEAT theme. This the film version, which essentially uses synthesiser instead of flutes for the countermelody. Slightly more dated perhaps, but I think it produces a very different effect. Not only the eroticism of the moment, but the psychopathy beneath. The somewhat tackiness of the synth chimes working well.



There's another cue (called 'Something's Up') that I think captures sex pretty well. It's from THE KNACK, scoring (IIRC) one of its more infamous scenes. Alan Haven works the Hammond Organ, and I think it's King Errisson (from the Original Neil Diamond Band) on the bongos (who can also be heard (and seen playing) on THUNDERBALL, FROM RUSSIA WITH LVOE and a number of other Barry recordings at the time).

I can't presently find it on Youtube, so I've uploaded it to 4shared here:

Something's Up.

Also, here's a great radio interview with Barry from 1999, lasting 2 hours.

http://www.wqxr.org/...-david-garland/

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

Here are single and LP covers in high res.

http://www.flickr.co...tos/ateam/sets/

[jrcjohnny99]

Some good choices;
struggling with embedding here so will come back to this later

Edited by jrcjohnny99, 04 February 2011 - 03:46 AM.

[Zorin Industries]

I think for so many reasons (more than just personal taste) Barry's score for OHMSS was his richest Bond score. It was that Bond sound both with refreshed urgency and new techniques/instruments but it was also (maybe) his most mature Bond score, as this track proves... DUSK AT PIZ GLORIA. There is real melancholy and scale to this piece and indeed all of OHMSS.

[gkgyver]

An obvious choice perhaps, but i'll post Flying over Africa just because it represents the zenith of great cinematic music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlK3yE65qS8

Who would score films like that nowadays?
Who would even be allowed to?

Such a loss ...

[quantumofsolace]

The BeingJamesBond podcast has this:

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

Just check out HOW BIG was the Bond sound of John Barry that a cue of Thunderball is heard in an episode of Super Hijitus (an Argentinean made cartoon broadcasted in the 60s)

Check it out at 5:30 approximately

[Mark_Hazard]

Great find. It reminds me of watching bits of early kung fu type films in the 60s when they were forever putting in bits of Barry's Bond tunes.

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

Yes. Well, actually, I've spotted that on TV recently, in a new broadcasting of the show. Immediately I've searched on the tube and posted it here.

[Professor Dent]

One of my favorites from his non-Bond work.