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Jerry Goldsmith's BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (2018 remastered edition by Intrada)


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INTRADA Announces:

 


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BABY - SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND
Composed and Conducted by JERRY GOLDSMITH
INTRADA ISC 403

Intrada presents an updated release of Jerry Goldsmith's 1985 score to Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. Intrada mastered the earlier release from a DAT transfer of Jerry Goldsmith’s personal 2-track stereo mix of the print takes on ¼” stereo tape, made by mixer Shawn Murphy in the early 1990s when Goldsmith was dubbing much of his analog library over to the relatively new digital tape format. For this 2018 remastering of the complete score, Intrada was provided access to everything from the September 1984 sessions, maintained in pristine condition in the vast Disney vaults. These included the original 32-track scoring session masters as well as the multi-track digital mixes made by Murphy from the 32-track elements. One anomaly from the previous release has now been corrected — Goldsmith’s copy of the mixes included a couple of tracks, in particular the lengthy finale of the score, “Baby’s Alive,” playing back at a slightly slower speed than what should have been the case. Finally, in addition to remastering everything, this release includes five previously unreleased “extras”— source cues that include three pieces by the composer’s son, Joel Goldsmith, working with lyricist Sidney Barnes on two and Debrah Neal on the third and two traditional source tracks. These are heard in the film in truncated versions but appear here for the first time in their entirety.

Baby was the first of many impressive scores delivered by Goldsmith that year, a year that included Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Explorers, and King Solomon's Mines. Interestingly the break-loose, thundering action music in Baby most resembles the action music in Rambo, where Goldsmith chose to focus on his aggressive action style for the relentless chase sequences. Baby was a particularly challenging assignment for Goldsmith. Coming eight years before the CGI revolution and Jurassic Park, Goldsmith needed to come up not only with an exciting dinosaur theme, but be the emotion and character of the somewhat inexpressive rubber baby dinosaur character and endear it to the audience. He also had to express the familial instincts of the two adult dinosaurs, their anger and anguish as they confront the dinosaur hunters, and the baby dinosaur's developing bond with the human couple (played by William Katt and Sean Young). Goldsmith also had to characterize the Sunufu tribesmen, flesh out the atmosphere of the African location photography, and provide the driving rhythms that would propel a number of elaborate action scenes in the film. The result: Goldsmith delivers a score that compares favorably to masterpieces like Legend and Rambo 2, in a way creating a satisfying synthesis between the fanciful, exotic fantasy of the former and the hard-charging, relentless action of the latter.

The film follows the story of a young paleontologist (Sean Young) on an expedition to Central Africa, where she eventually runs afoul of the expedition's leader (Patrick McGoohan), who is on the trail of living dinosaurs rumored to be roaming deep in the African jungle. When the paleontologist and her husband chase a dinosaur clue, they do discover a family of sauropods. A band of rogue military men is not far behind, however, and soon the father is killed, the mother is captured, and the baby escapes with the paleontologist and her husband and begins an exciting race to freedom.

INTRADA ISC 403
Barcode: 7 20258 54030 0
Retail Price: $19.99
SHIPPING NOW
For track listing and sound samples, please visit:
http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.11508/.f

 

 

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Remastered reissue of impressive Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack! 1985 Disney live action dinosaur adventure arrives ahead of its time, before Jurassic Park and similar fare became hot property the following decade. William Katt, Sean Young, Patrick McGoohan perform alongside Brontosaurus family, John Alcott shoots rich outdoor jungle photography, Jonathan Taplin & Roger Spottiswoode (who’s Under Fire resulted in one of Goldsmith’s all-time great scores) produce, B.W.L. Norton directs and Disney’s adult theme-oriented Touchstone Pictures presents.


Discovery of dinosaurs during expedition in Central Africa leads to family antics followed by treachery, kidnapping, military conflict, pursuit and exciting rescue - all set to powerhouse Jerry Goldsmith score! Initial ideas color outdoor terrain, expedition itself. Discovery of dinosaur “family” inspires Goldsmith to write not down to but upwards towards majestic, magnificent sauropods: powerful French horn/trumpet statement of their theme over massive major chords in low brass, swirling strings above makes for one of composer’s grandest moments ever! Other highlights abound: tuneful “Baby” theme underscores playful antics in contrast to initial bold material, jungle setting garners array of electronic colors amidst complex orchestration. Spotlight goes without doubt however to propulsive, thundering action cues.

Foreshadowing Goldsmith’s very next project - Rambo: First Blood Part II - exciting pursuit, rescue scenes (“The Cave”, “Mother Is Free”) feature composer in his most ferocious, mixed-meter action mode with tour-de-force writing for entire orchestra. When all is said and done, Goldsmith offers dynamic final cue (“Baby’s Alive”) which re-unites mother and baby, leading to end credits. In epic finish, when medley of themes reaches conclusion, Goldsmith adds magnificent fortissimo coda proclaiming his initial dinosaur theme in triumphant brass, trumpets in the lead. Spectacular ending!

Previous release of score (a fast sell-out) was presented from two-track mixes made from 32-track masters vaulted at Disney, then dubbed down to analog for composer who later transferred elements back to DAT for his own storage, a copy of which was subsequently made for use with Intrada’s presentation many years ago. In somewhat convoluted process, somewhere along the way, pitch anomalies arose on a couple of tracks, especially lengthy finale. New Intrada remastered release was prepared from Disney’s original elements including 32-track session masters and Shawn Murphy’s first generation multi-track film mixes. New elements also allowed for a pair of previously unreleased source percussion pieces recorded by Goldsmith at his sessions plus three source numbers composed by his son, Joel Goldsmith, which appear very briefly in truncated fashion in film but play here in their entirety.

Flipper-style booklet designed by Kay Marshall, notes by Jeff Bond. Recorded by Shawn Murphy on September 24-26, 1984. Arthur Morton & Alexander Courage orchestrate, Jerry Goldsmith composes and conducts. Intrada Special Collection CD available while quantities and interest remain!

 


01. The Drawing (0:49)
02. No Problem (0:41)
03. The River* (2:24)
04. Picture Party (1:14)
05. A Little Joke (0:31)
06. The Family* (3:59)
07. Papa’s Death (7:10)
08. Papa’s Gone (1:21)
09. Baby And Monkeys* (2:51)
10. Food Time* (5:00)
11. No Play (1:54)
12. Where’s Baby?* (3:06)
13. The Cave (4:25)
14. Baby’s Gone (1:57)

15. The Captive (4:11)
16. Mother Is Free (3:33)
17. Baby’s Alive (7:04)
Total Score Time: 52:46
The Extras
18. Native Funeral* (Traditional) (3:04)
19. Kaleri Night Party (Traditional) (2:00)
20. Back Stabber* (Joel Goldsmith/Debrah Neal) (2:12)
21. Hot Love* (Joel Goldsmith/Sidney Barnes) (2:17)
22. Warm Body* (Joel Goldsmith/Sidney Barnes) (3:31)
Total Extras Time: 13:07
*Includes Music Not Featured in Film

 

 

 

media.nl?id=15153&c=ACCT67745&h=53837527

 

media.nl?id=15155&c=ACCT67745&h=ac330be1

 

media.nl?id=15154&c=ACCT67745&h=1bacc8ee

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Just an improvement in sound quality. But that's worth it. I would be very happy about this, if I hadn't recently spent an arm and a leg for the old release.

I think it is clever not to buy any OOP releases from the Intrada Special Collection #1-99, since they are all being reissued these days. Maybe even #100-199.

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3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

What are people's general opinions on this score?  Is it top-tier Goldsmith?  I know nothing of this music or the movie.

 

If you like the action writing in Total Recall and Rambo II, in my opinion this is the next best thing. It's not as full of action as those, but the action part alone is worth it, and the rest is nice, too.

 

I don't recall ever being bothered by the sound quality of the previous release, but depending on what people say about the sound of the new version I might well pick it up. It's one of my Goldsmith favourites.

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9 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

What are people's general opinions on this score?  Is it top-tier Goldsmith?  I know nothing of this music or the movie.

It's an experimental adventure score that is far better than Congo. Like a mixture of Rambo II and Legend, however, not as good as those two.

 

3 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I don't recall ever being bothered by the sound quality of the previous release, but depending on what people say about the sound of the new version I might well pick it up.

Listen to the beginning of The Jump (now it's called The Cave). It sounds quite muffled.

 

Hopefully, Intrada will also re-release The Boys from Brazil. Ideally, without the song in the main program.

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The sound is more than sufficient on the current release. And the score itself, while pleasant enough, suffers from a cutesy main theme repeated ad nauseam (the action material is fine, as expected) and Goldsmith did such material more refined thereafter (Legend, Rambo, Medicine Man, Ghost and the Darkness). The best thing is the killer fanfare that closes the end title.

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I think that only came about because Murphy was Disney's house engineer back then. Goldsmith only switched between Botnick and Mike Ross-Trevor (London) from the early 80's till his death. 

 

My favourite moment:

 

 

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I actually like Congo better than this, Brundlefly. The action in this score is awesome of course, and I like some of the other stuff as well...but that cutesy theme for the baby dinosaur is repeated just a few times to many for my taste, on album. Sometimes it's fine but sometimes it really wears out its welcome.

 

Still I'll definitely pick up this reissue eventually.

 

Yavar

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For me this poses the question which OOP releases are worth chasing down...

 

Coma, Innerspace, Tora Tora Tora, The Blue Max, Dennis the Menace... which of these scores will probably not be re-released in the near future?

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4 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

For me this poses the question which OOP releases are worth chasing down...

 

Coma, Innerspace, Tora Tora Tora, The Blue Max, Dennis the Menace... which of these scores will probably not be re-released in the near future?

 

Dennis the Menace isn't out of print, just out of stock.  Of course who knows how big a hurry they're in to run another printing.

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3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Dennis the Menace isn't out of print, just out of stock.

Good to know.:)

 

2 hours ago, kaseykockroach said:

Both this and Congo cower before the might of The Ghost and the Darkness. 

A lot of scores do that.

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On 5/15/2018 at 11:58 PM, kaseykockroach said:

Both this and Congo cower before the might of The Ghost and the Darkness. 

 no, it's not the same type of writing.

 

Baby is more Goldsmith in his mid-80's prime, the guy who wrote Poltergeist  and Night Crossing.  Congo and Ghost are in his declining years where his orchestrations are more sparce and his music more rhythm driiven

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It's funny, I was actually just listening to Hollow Man hours ago, and grandpa started ranting "Goldsmith wasn't even trying in this one! This is so BORING!".

I thought in the moment "Holy crap, Margo Channing wasn't kidding".

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23 hours ago, Display Name said:

 

This is a weird dinosaur, Jay.

 

Ha, weird! The images are just right off Intrada's site. They must have changed something. 

 

Fixed! 

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15 hours ago, kaseykockroach said:

It's funny, I was actually just listening to Hollow Man hours ago, and grandpa started ranting "Goldsmith wasn't even trying in this one! This is so BORING!".

I thought in the moment "Holy crap, Margo Channing wasn't kidding".

You don't agree with him, do you?:eh:

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21 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

I will never understand what some people have against Hollow Man and why it is often seen as one of his auto-pilot scores that he wasn't even trying on.

 

It's the last Great Goldsmith score.

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Hollow Man

Star Trek: Nemesis

Looney Tunes: Back in Action

 

...are his last great scores from the 2000s.

 

The Last Castle

The Sum of All Fears

Timeline

 

...are also pretty decent.

 

Along Came a Spider

 

...however is boring "didn't even try"-stuff.

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3 hours ago, kaseykockroach said:

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is the last great Goldsmith score.

 

THIS x 100! Glad to see there are others here who also consider this score brilliant. I think it's one of the very best things he did in the last deade of his life. I think I may like it best of all his Dante scores with the exception of The 'Burbs, which let's be honest is pretty hard to beat!

 

I'd hesitate to label Nemesis overall as "GREAT!" but it certainly has some truly great parts...the actiony second half of Odds &I Ends and the end credits development of Shinzon's Theme in particular.

 

Sum of All Fears I'd describe as competent and effective...with the exception of the brilliant main title sequence which is perhaps one of his greatest compositions ever.

 

Yavar

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