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1992 NBC Olympics broadcast CD ("new" Williams pieces!)


thx99

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There is an in-house(?) CD featuring music used during NBC's broadcast of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, which includes four Williams compositions, all related to "Olympic Fanfare & Theme":

  • "Prime Time Tease" (beginning with Leo Arnaud's "Bugler's Dream" and then transitioning into a variation of "OF&T", anyone who's watched the NBC Olympic broadcasts will recognize this track instantly)
  • "Contemporary Tease" (a humdinger of a piece and one of my Williams grails, sort of "Hoe Down" meets "OF&T"; I first encountered this piece in an NBC promotional video for the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics)
  • "Dramatic Tease" (a subdued and beautiful variation of "OF&T")
  • "Olympic Fanfare & Theme" (what I believe is a new recording of the entire piece for NBC's use though I haven't compared any of the pre-1992 recordings to confirm this)

The rest of the CD is filled out with two versions of Arnaud's "Bugler's Dream", six John Tesh tracks, "Torch Theme" by Angelo Badalementi, and Yanni's "In Celebration of Man", as follows:

  • Prime Time Tease (Arnaud/Williams)
  • Contemporary Tease (Williams)
  • Dramatic Tease (Williams)
  • Late Night Tease (Tesh)
  • Late Night Animation (Tesh)
  • Prime Time Reset (Tesh)
  • Voices Of God (Tesh)
  • Late Night Reset (Tesh)
  • Morning Reset (Tesh)
  • Bugler's Dream (a la Hendrix) (Arnaud, arr. by ??)
  • Bugler's Dream (Arnaud)
  • Olympic Fanfare & Theme (Williams)
  • Torch Theme (Badalamenti)
  • In Celebration Of Man (Yanni)

Feel free to PM me for more information.

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Thanks for this. I wonder if the arrangements of the OF&T are Williams' or someone else's?

Edit: Strike that. They are clearly Williams' own arrangements.

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Prime Time Tease and Contemporary Tease are super fun!

I really like Dramatic Tease a lot - it's quite lovely

 

The straight-up performance of Bugler's Dream is nice, I can't remember the last time I actually heard the whole thing - I usually only hear the beginning of it before it segues to Olympic Fanfare and Theme ala the 1996 Summon The Heroes CD. Interesting to hear he had already been experimenting with that pairing in 1992 (in Prime Time Tease)

 

The Bugler's Dream ala Hendrix - :folder: I like Hendrix and all, but this didn't work

 

Finally the new performance of Olympic Fanfare and Theme - it's good, but I think my favorite version will always be Erich Kunzel's (also the first version I ever heard)

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Prime Time Tease and Contemporary Tease are super fun!

I really like Dramatic Tease a lot - it's quite lovely

These three tracks are truly the highlights of the CD, IMO!!

The Bugler's Dream ala Hendrix - :folder: I like Hendrix and all, but this didn't work

Absolutely agree!! A definite skip.

Finally the new performance of Olympic Fanfare and Theme - it's good, but I think my favorite version will always be Erich Kunzel's (also the first version I ever heard)

I'm still partial to the true original recording made by Williams for the 1984 Olympic album. But that was the first version that I ever heard. :P

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I like the 1992 performance of Olympic Fanfare and theme the best

I wish we had the "bells" version of Bugler's Dream arranged by Williams as heard in the Athens Olympic preview video

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I wish we had the "bells" version of Bugler's Dream arranged by Williams as heard in the Athens Olympic preview video

Yes!!!! :yes: Still a grail, along with all of the other missing NBC Olympic bumpers.

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  • 8 years later...

Just remembering how exciting it was when this surfaced back in 2013.  Those original Williams tracks are amongst my all time favorites of his TV work. That ending of "Dramatic Tease" is just sublime.

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14 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

Is there a photo of this CD and it's artwork (if any)?


I have never seen an image of this CD or its artwork. Just digital audio files being bandied about in various places.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

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