Yavar Moradi

Lots of the trailers and promotional material for this show made it look kinda trashy, but I watched the whole season and actually it's quite good! I would have hoped for a couple more episodes in the season because one character's journey in particular felt very rushed (while another's was very drawn out), but overall I thought it was very good setup for greater things to come. And I really liked the scoring, overall, recognizing multiple repeating themes and motifs and some powerful musical moments. Re: the "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" song -- it works better in context, as just something a silly character is making up on the spot, which makes me forgive its poor rhyme and meter. Yavar

I agree with you on all that, and I can understand your feelings. I already became a fan of Russo's work on Fargo (and had heard his work on Legion was good) before Star Trek: Discovery happened. So I was cautiously optimistic about his involvement...and let's just say I was disappointed. I used to hate Leonard Rosenman's score for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home so much that it soured me on the rest of his output too. But now I've learned to appreciate him a bit more, and even grown to like certain scores of his like Cross Creek. So maybe one day you'll warm up to some of Russo's *other* work. P.S. @Jurassic Shark thanks for posting the Spotify link to Eidelman's Symphony. Here's the link for the companion work on the CD (a chamber orchestra work performed by members of the London Symphony Orchestra)...it is utterly superb as well: And just for the heck of it, here's a Spotify link for all four of Eidelman's Star Trek: Discovery demo pieces...not so superb, as I've already indicated, though they're not awful or anything (just a far, far cry from his fantastic score to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country): So like I said, Jeff Russo might be giving the current Trek producers exactly the sort of bland music they're asking for. Let's not forget what happened to Dennis McCarthy and Jay Chattaway's initially more bold approach, over the course of their time on Star Trek: The Next Generation (to say nothing of Ron Jones who was "let go" for his music calling too much attention to itself)... Yavar

I have his Fargo work on album and I would describe it as "very good". He does an excellent job of channelling Burwell's very fine film score, IMO. But either he was bad composer casting for Trek, or with all of the producer "cooks in the kitchen", he did exactly what he was instructed to do. I think there's at least some chance it's the latter, because while Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a fantastic score, the great Cliff Eidelman was invited to submit demos for Star Trek: Discovery that IMO turned out to sound as relatively drab and un-inspired as Russo's eventual work on the show...here's his rejected main title (for some reason put up against the show's season 2 title sequence): You can listen to the other three demo cues he wrote here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/30/listen-to-a-discarded-score-for-star-trek-discovery/ Now before you say it's just because Cliff Eidelman is a washed up composer at this point (since he hasn't scored a feature film for 8 years), you should hear his Symphony for Two Pianos and Orchestra, written roughly around the same time period as those uninspiring Trek demos and recorded with no less than the LSO -- all three movements are on YouTube right now and they are *marvelous*: (If like me you think that's fantastic work, and want to buy the album on CD, it's only $12.97 from CDBaby, and it includes a whole other concert work that's also fantastic: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/cliffeidelman12) In contrast to both Eidelman's demo and Russo's final score for the show, the demo work Austin Wintory submitted for Discovery is far superior IMO, but he produced it entirely on his own initiative without any directives from above: https://medium.com/@awintory/star-trek-discovery-in-a-parallel-universe-94695577457a What do you think? Yavar

No, that still has to be produced, and I have faith that Lukas will do it. I too was excited for a new Ron Jones album and was disappointed he was replaced on the project. The final score isn't bad but I don't care as much about having a soundtrack album for it. That said, Lukas has said he's going to make sure the soundtrack release also includes a HQ copy of the film itself, now, to make up for the switch. Yavar

Damn. Now I feel I need to hunt this down. Frank's theme has been virtually absent from the score releases. On the Vol. 1 release it only appeared in the big finale cue. Personally I wish each season of this show got a packed 2 CD set with 160 minutes of music, because I agree that a lot of great cues get omitted. Personally I can do without most of the source music cues and I'd rather get more score instead. (Except for most of the French harpsichord stuff...that worked fine in-show but I can do without it on album, lol...) Yavar

I like it.

Nothing about a return of Masters Film Music, alas... maybe if Robert doesn’t feel like tackling them himself he could/would license Lionheart and The Final Conflict our to others for new definitive editions to be produced... Yavar

I think AFO is a rare Goldsmith score like Star Trek: Nemesis where neither the original album nor the complete score are ideal, but an excellent program can be edited out of the complete score. But I’m already on record for saying I don’t love AFO as much as everyone else seems to, and my favorite music in the score is mostly by Joel McNeely. Yavar

@karelm @Fancyarcher @Brundlefly @Display Name @TownerFan @Disco Stu @Mr. Breathmask @Faleel J.M. @El Jefe @Modest Expectations @Laserschwert @publicist @BrotherSound @Modest Expectations @Jay @Stefancos @Jurassic Shark -- as promised we are starting off 2020 with a special "throwback" episode, where Clark takes a break and Jens joins us in his place, to discuss the beautiful score Jerry wrote in 1958 for "Tongues of Angels", a live filmed play in the Studio One series -- see above for the episode itself if you're inclined to watch it. Though it has been up on YouTube since before the podcast started, we only discovered recently in November that Jerry composed a score for it. Our discussion (actually recorded in December 2019) is here: http://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/2486198-episode-24-tongues-of-angels-westinghouse-studio-one-1958 Yavar

Blah. What I really want to know is: will they reinstate the Alfred Newman 20th Century Fox fanfare to the Star Wars films? Yavar

Yes, that's *possible*, but I think the existing album release might complicate that some, because Warner Bros. Records (i.e. Warner Music Group) probably maintains rights to the original album on Elektra. So in order to be able to release the complete score of just 15 minutes, there would be still an extra added expense of having to pay an additional licensor. Maybe it'll happen some day but I'd be surprised if any label prioritized it, just to add one or two extra short cues. I guess we will see though! Eh, it seems like it will have to wait until the next Varese batch at least (though yay for Dolores Claiborne: The Deluxe Edition!) so I personally would add it back into your list, with the caveat (as with The Swarm) that we know from Bruce Botnick that a new definitive release of it is coming soon....now returning to address the rest of your list: This could presumably come from anyone who is able to deal with the Italian company which has possession of the complete score multitracks. Quartet being based in Spain *might* have better access than any of our American labels, but I've heard they've been trying for many years with no success so far. So we'll have to keep hoping. At least we know the score survives...unlike the complete scores for Under Fire, Legend, Link, and Secret of NIMH earlier in the decade...all but one of which (Legend) you left off this list, presumably for that very reason. But things turn up all the time that we'd been told were lost (think Williams's Dracula), so I'm going to still maintain hope on those four. Link at least has a bootleg release with the missing cues, albeit in poor sound quality (about the same condition as the unreleased music on the Legend boot). I think someone at FSM catalogued all of the cues still unreleased from Secret of NIMH, though I think it amounted to less than ten minutes. Here's a complete cue list for Under Fire, for those interested: http://collections.new.oscars.org/Details/Archive/71303030 I'm not sure we know for certain that Varese has Criminal Law in perpetuity, since they released it in the 80s before they started getting perpetuity rights on almost everything they licensed. Still, it is *probably* complete already and assuming it's complete, I don't think warrants a new edition. The 'Burbs I would definitely re-buy again even if it just added some film versions of cues or something. Love that score to death. Also in the late 80s Jerry had his first experience with score rejection, on the film Wall Street (for which he originally wrote the theme he later re-used in his rejected score to Alien Nation, and ultimately The Russia House. It is unknown how much music he composed for Wall Street besides that theme, but it may have just been a few cues or demos (nothing recorded). Yeah I think MV has confirmed both of these will be getting definitive reissues by LLL. So if you leave U.S. Marshals off this list as you did above, you probably might as well leave these off as well (and both got expanded, pretty much complete, releases anyway). So this isn't entirely accurate...first, Lionheart has never gotten an expansion really. What it got instead was an unusual "Volume Two" which had the remainder of the score (plus a repeat of the finale cue tacked onto the second half of the track "The Future") left off the initial volume, released not long before it. Varese *did* put out a digital "Deluxe Edition" with a nice new cover for iTunes, but it was just a port of those same two discs, not remastered and put into film order. So IMO we could really use a new edition on CD. We are also still missing a *little* bit of music, as the aforementioned cue ("The Future") crossfades into the repeated finale cue... so a little bit of it is missing and a new edition could premiere the full "discrete" ending of that cue, plus any alternates or unused cues that might exist. We know from my interview with him that Robert Townson (not Varese) controls the rights for both Lionheart and The Final Conflict, under his own Masters Film Music label (which has fallen dormant again ever since Joe Vs. the Volcano: The Big Woo Edition was released in a Varese Club batch several years ago). So presumably if he felt like it he could either start up his film music label again and release definitive editions of both, OR he might be willing to sub-license the titles to Intrada or La-La Land, sure (but I wouldn't take that for granted). Rumors are that Silva Screen recently let go of the rights for Supergirl (as it turned out they had for Rambo: First Blood Part II) which they held for many years because of their 90s expansion of the score. So we might be due for a remastered definitive 2-CD edition of that score, with all alternates. As far as I know they still control Legend, but the complete score only survives on a very poor bootleg. (Producer of the Silva Screen expanded album for the score in the 90s, James Fitzpatrick, said that they included everything on the source they had.) This is one where I have no idea if the Prometheus release was the complete score. Their release of High Velocity around the same time period was not, but it was only missing less than 2 minutes of low-key suspense music. I will have to watch the film sometime and double-check to see whether they left any music off with this score. I really like it though, and would buy a new edition since it's been like a quarter century since the last release! Yeah the existing Intrada release for this was already pretty much definitive (and I think was limited to a generous 5000 copies at the time), but I agree with you that they might reissue it at some point. I don't think LLL can reissue this unless they sub-license it from Varese, which completely premiered the film recording of the score for their Deluxe Edition. Varese wouldn't maintain control of the album recording (the only Omen score to get a unique recording for album), but what we need most is a new edition of the film recording which improves the sound quality somewhat (a couple cues show some damage that might be repairable by Mike Mattesino with more modern tech than was available at the time of the DE, if he were let loose on it...) This is one where I'm unsure if the OST was a unique album re-recording instead of the film recording (as was the case with Patton). Intrada does seem most likely to tackle a definitive edition, but really any label that works with both Universal Music Group and Universal Pictures can license this to do that, and La-La Land has recently started putting out a lot of vintage Universal titles, such as Williams's Earthquake, which they had to license from both UMG (for the album recording) and Universal Pictures (for the film recording). These are all lower priority for me, to be honest. I guess I'd be most interested in a new edition of Twilight's Last Gleaming because I don't own any version currently, and on FSM I've heard about one short cue at least that was recorded at a late pick-up session and is supposed to be the highlight of the entire score! But I'm pretty sure that at most there is less than five minutes of unreleased music for this one. The Cassandra Crossing was in Prometheus's final batch of expanded original recordings (before they became solely a source of funding for Tadlow re-recordings), about a decade ago. I think it's as definitive as posslble, unless someone wanted to let Mike Mattesino loose on the sound, or if stereo sources for the complete score are found (they presented the original album in stereo on one disc, and the complete score in mono on the other). High Velocity, as I've already noted above, is one of my favorite Goldsmith scores and I always thought there were missing cues. Turned out that it just felt that way because the album jumbles the film cues all out of order so that their natural development/flow isn't maintained. I'd buy a new edition of the score for that reason alone, because the couple minutes of unreleased suspense music are really nothing to write home about. Here is a complete cue list for those interested: http://collections.new.oscars.org/Details/Archive/71302967 I'll add two scores from the post-1976 period which you left off your list but which deserve mention I think: Raggedy Man - Varese controls this in perpetuity but recently reissued it without any extra music. This is probably because the unreleased music is very minimal for the score. Here is a complete cue list for comparison: http://collections.new.oscars.org/Details/Archive/71303004 Damnation Alley - The complete orchestral tapes did survive for Intrada's great release of the score, but most of the synth elements remained lost and had to be recreated anew by Leigh Phillips. Maybe some day they will be discovered and we will get the full film recording at last, but until then it's amazing that Intrada paid for the expense of re-recording this important part of the score so that the entire composition could be released on disc. I'll continue backwards with pre-1976 scores in a later post... Yavar

I will say that the Varese expansion of Chain Reaction was terrific and hugely improved my opinion of that score (as is typical with Goldsmith expansions, to be honest...) Yavar

I'm a bad, bad Goldsmith fan -- I too think Elfman's Dolores Claiborne is a superior score to Goldsmith's U.S. Marshals, though I have indeed been interested in re-assessing the latter score in complete form. At least we know it's still coming! Yavar

“Trust me, lots of great Goldsmith releases still to come!” Yavar

Hey guys I fully admit I’m obsessed. Yavar

All correct, though it might also be helpful to add studio info -- for example, Varese would have to deal with Disney to expand things like The 13th Warrior and Medicine Man (being from the Disney-owned Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures, respectively), which might introduce complications. I think Varese themselves also hasn't expanded a Fox title in a while (LLL licensed Planet of the Apes this past year from both them and Fox). And most recently we have found out that Warner Bros. Pictures substantially increased their rates for licensing music from them (Warner Bros. Records is a separate entity and still friendly to sub-licensing the albums they control), so this will probably at least reduce the number of Warner Bros. expansions that are pursued by the labels, for a while. I think The Last Castle is very likely for us to see from Intrada in a significant expansion. Mulan Disney is still holding onto for now, though I think it's still possible they may let Intrada expand it in the future if they don't get their own act together in tackling it (they passed up an obvious opportunity this past year to produce a new definitive Aladdin when the live action remake happened, so the live action Mulan doesn't really signify anything at this point unfortunately). Also from this time period we have Soarin' Over California (two cues unreleased; the "fill and spill music" as Bruce Broughton put it in my recent interview with him) and The Kid (written but not recorded by Goldsmith, but could potentially receive a premiere recording if someone Kickstarted it). And I assume you skipped over U.S. Marshals because it will imminently be announced! I for one think Rudy (a particularly widely beloved Goldsmith score) would likely outsell L.A. Confidential (the score is good but I think it's the film that's more beloved here), but that may just be me. That said, I also wanted to add that both of these actually have virtually complete officially licensed score releases -- as DVD isolated score tracks! Now, that's going to be in lossy audio (no Blu-ray iso score tracks), but at least it's something and I've been enjoying my complete score rips of these for some time. Still, I would of course buy an official CD expansion. I think sales for City Hall would be closer to Love Field and Matinee than Angie and Malice, personally. People like Jerry in noir mode, and I personally think the score is superior to L.A. Confidential. Love Field is by far my highest priority of these (http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7704), but it would be wonderful to get an official complete 72 minute Matinee in good sound quality because the boot is only barely enjoyable thanks to its inferior sound quality (not nearly as bad as the Mom and Dad Save the World sessions tape though). Since Varese has been working to expand all the Goldsmith/Dante scores they control, I feel certain they will eventually get around to the last two (this and Looney Tunes, although Warner Bros. Pictures might be an issue for the latter). What we know about unreleased music for these: Angie (more missing than I expected, though I haven't timed it yet): https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=138083&forumID=1&archive=0 City Hall (about 12 minutes): https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=110759&forumID=1&archive=0 Love Field (hard to calculate since there are alternates and many cues unused in the film and also omitted from the album): https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=138078&forumID=1&archive=0 Malice (only 7 minutes unreleased in the film): https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=110814&forumID=1&archive=0 Matinee: as I mentioned, there's a 72 minute sessions boot. Here's a great unreleased action cue Roger at Intrada shared: https://www.dropbox.com/s/63xpcoqz1um2rkd/Number 4.mp3?dl=0 Also around this time but left off your list: his rejected noir score to 2 Days in the Valley. What Intrada released on CD was the original album arrangement (aborted at the time when the score was rejected from the film), not the complete score. I don't know how much longer the complete score might be; the track titles Intrada used were not the official ones but ones made up by a fan (for the bootleg) years before, and I think there are combined cues, so it's hard to figure out since none of the score was used in the film! And finally we have the one other score Jerry is known to have written but not recorded... and this is officially my most-wanted Goldsmith Kickstarter project, if anyone is brave enough to tackle it! As I wrote on FSM already, https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=138063&forumID=1&archive=0 Yeah, this could be awesome. And if The Kid is a lesser score, then highlights from it (rather than the complete score) could be used to fill out a premiere recording of this one, on CD. This is Goldsmith's second shortest film score out of his entire career, after Seven Days in May. According to FSM poster DavidCorkum, https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=123773&forumID=1&archive=0 But I only notice a single unreleased cue when I look at the written cues in the Academy archives: http://collections.new.oscars.org/Details/Archive/71303016 Of course their collection may not include alternates or unused cues, but in any case I wouldn't expect an expansion of this very short score anytime soon. The original album was padded out with dialogue clips specifically because it would have been a 15 minute CD otherwise (and I guess Jerry didn't think of simply writing more music for the album at the recording sessions, as he did with Fierce Creatures later). Justin Boggan at FSM claims that the Varese Club album of this is actually *not* quite complete; that there are at least some significant alternates or unused cues they left off. I don't know any further details though, but a "Deluxe Edition" may still be possible one day. Disney would have to license additional cues as I already mentioned, but this is one of my personal most wanted expansions, even though only around 15 minutes are unreleased: https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=109823&forumID=1&archive=0 Haha I think even "moderate seller" is optimistic on this one; people love hating on it, even though I think it has some wonderful elements especially the love theme. I recently figured out though that only four short cues are unreleased, so it's *very* low priority even for me the obsessive completist: https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=138082&forumID=1&archive=0 Yeah this is the one remaining unreleased rejected 90s Goldsmith score that we know *was* recorded, and the tapes apparently recently discovered in Carol Goldsmith's possession with recording engineer Mike Ross-Trevor's help. I believe a label is actively working on this one right now. I friggin' LOVE this score and the existing sessions boot sounds *very* poor, too poor to really enjoy the score apart from recognizing its quality! I think of this one as an honorary Joe Dante score; it is full of delightful energy and fun, with some really exciting parts. It might be a "moderate seller" but I for one would be over the moon to get it. This is literally the only unreleased cue I'm fairly certain (but it might be the best one Jerry wrote for this project); the film version of the finale (which was almost certainly recorded on its own in a pick up session, and might be found in the future): https://www.dropbox.com/s/996won8iqu3uv1h/Number 6.mp3?dl=0 To close out Jerry's unreleased 90s work, we must mention two wonderful themes he composed for projects where his son Joel handled the other scoring duties: I'll address the pre-90s work later when I have time. Yavar

Neat! I dig it... I just may be offering a few corrections here and there. And I think you should go earlier than High Velocity! It's not like that was remotely the year his music started being awesome (as much as I frickin' love High Velocity...) Sooooooooooo goooood! Yavar

so how did you choose what to include on your list? Yavar

This is plenty! And there's even more great stuff pre-1976! A few notes though: High Velocity is one of my FAVORITE Goldsmith scores (though it's generally pretty overlooked), and I always thought from listening to the album that it sounded a bit disjointed, like there were missing cues/development in between. Well, I watched the film, and there was less than two minutes of unreleased music, all of it very low-key suspense music that was not among the best musically the score had to offer. I would still buy a complete release of course, but I found the existing album was improved greatly just by reshuffling all of the cues into film order, so the natural musical journey was intact. Lionheart is virtually complete but could use a reissue...same goes for several other titles on your list. Criminal Law I think was virtually complete and I don't know many people who would buy an expansion, even if one were possible. But over half of your list could really use an expansion IMO! So bring it on... Yavar

Probably not *quite* that far off, but it'll be several years from now, for sure. The full project as currently scheduled should take a decade and a half. We aren't leaving any stone uncovered, when it comes to Jerry's output. And discussing these forgotten gems is some of the most fun! Here's the Studio One episode we uncovered and will be releasing this "throwback" episode of the show about. It has an absolutely gorgeous Goldsmith score: I recommend you give it a watch and appreciate the score in context if you don't want to be spoiled by our imminent episode. Yavar

I mean...SIGN ME UP, as a listener, should anyone want to tackle Bernstein's long, prolific, and varied output. In terms of Hollywood composers, IMO he's the only one who competes with Jerry when it comes to versatility, longevity, and how prolific he was. Which also means it's too big of a project for me to contemplate, considering I've already probably bitten off more than I can chew with The Goldsmith Odyssey. If I do a sequel podcast in 17 years or whenever when we finish this one, it'll probably be something a *little* less ambitious, like say The Poledouris Odyssey. Comparatively manageable compared with Goldsmith or Bernstein... By the way, our next episode will be coming very soon (tomorrow night, in fact). Jens has returned for this special episode to launch us into 2020, as both co-host and editor (Clark is taking a brief break on hosting, and David taking a brief break from editing). Get ready for a special THROWBACK episode of The Goldsmith Odyssey! Those who are on certain Goldsmith FB groups will know exactly what we are covering... Yavar

oh yeah. My opinion of both scores was greatly improved by hearing them in complete form! Can’t wait to see what Varese has in store for us this year! Yavar

I think you guys are going to be surprised by Intrada this coming year. yes there is. Yeah it’s insane that this is the one Goldsmith Omen score not to get a complete release yet, when it is largely regarded as the greatest of the three! I know you jest, but there actually is a Not Without My Daughter unreleased cue whose inclusion would prompt me to re-buy the score (the best cue of it being unreleased): https://www.dropbox.com/s/996won8iqu3uv1h/Number 6.mp3?dl=0 Roger actually shared it in this Intrada thread: http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8073 Actually finding this thread again reminded me just how badly we need the Under Fire complete tapes to be found... https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vq6fajj3xwzr1p/Number 5.mp3?dl=0 I mean, DAMN but I need that unreleased action music. Yavar

I wouldn’t say that—why? Yavar

Well we know thanks to Bruce Botnick that one of these will be Goldsmith's U.S. Marshals! Yavar