Jaws, how well do you know this iconic score

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Nearly 48 years ago the film Jaws premiered becoming the first true summer blockbuster. 

The lines at the boxoffice were longer than had ever been seen to that point. Everytime a Jaws commercial came on this 14 year old chubby kid would runny from whatever point in the house he was to stand in front of the tv, not for the visuals but the music. Before the film had actually opened in Little Rock I had purchased the soundtrack at Walmart. I still have that 33 buried away. I have played it hundreds (high) of times. I have many of the later releases. They offer excellent additional music but they never get the play time that of the original, and imho perfect original. 

 

Any what are your feelings. Thousands of films and scores have come and gone including many Williams scores and Jaws may have never connected for you. 

 

So tell us your thoughts.

 

[Jay 37,379]

It's great

[bollemanneke 3,352]

So so and don't believe so. What mainly turns me off is how everyone is always going on about how genius that two-note theme is. I mean, yes it is, kind of, but the shark cage fugue is infinitely more superior. I do have to say I really like the OST program, though.

[Bespin 8,484]

Jaws's music > Jaws's movie > Shark's realism

 

[crocodile 8,020]

I love the score and film and I do enjoy all three recordings - album, film and RSNO.

 

Karol

[Brónach 1,302]

28 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Jaws's music > Jaws's movie > Shark's realism

 

 

i even like the shark for some reason, as dumb as it looks with its eyes open. i guess it's cute to me.

[Thor 7,533]

I know the score intimately, at least the soundtrack album, which I played many times in the early film music years in the 90s and 2000s. Not so much these days. The score-in-movie pretty well too, but not on that level.

 

As score-in-film, it's obviously a 5. As a soundtrack album, however, it's probably a 4 (and I'm obviously talking about the OST here; the expansions are 2). The sequel score is more listenable and enjoyable as an album experience, IMO.

[stravinsky 206]

I picked up the LP second hand when I was a teenager. The minute I heard "Out to Sea" I knew it was greatness. 

[Faleel 5,366]

4.5

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

2 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

So so and don't believe so. What mainly turns me off is how everyone is always going on about how genius that two-note theme is.

 

"Everyone" probably depends on what your reference set is. The general public is likely only aware of the two note motif, but for the rest of us, the genius of the score lies in the combination of that primal material with all the swashbuckling stuff.

 

2 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

I mean, yes it is, kind of, but the shark cage fugue is infinitely more superior. I do have to say I really like the OST program, though.

 

Not so much the OST *programme* as the OST *arrangements*. I find them to be superior to the film version in all cases (and the recording is great, too - a shame that no original tapes survive), but there's some wonderful material in the full score that I wouldn't want to miss either.

[Bellosh 3,422]

top 5 score of all time for me. probably never going to change.

 

top 1 or 2 movie of all time for me. (raiders and jaws constantly switch)

 

i'm also a HUGE fan of the book. I've read it multiple times. love how 'miserable' everyone is.  i'm also from new england originally, so it helps.

 

my current favorite cue from the score (it changes) is 'Blown to Bits'

 

there's nothing like Jaws on the tv or the stereo during Memorial Day Weekend and/or July 4th

[Sandor 797]

For me, it’s a 5 star score and a true classic.

 

Joe: thanks for sharing your wonderful story! 

[bollemanneke 3,352]

25 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

"Everyone" probably depends on what your reference set is. The general public is likely only aware of the two note motif, but for the rest of us, the genius of the score lies in the combination of that primal material with all the swashbuckling stuff.

 

 

Not so much the OST *programme* as the OST *arrangements*. I find them to be superior to the film version in all cases (and the recording is great, too - a shame that no original tapes survive), but there's some wonderful material in the full score that I wouldn't want to miss either.

I agree about the arrangements! Well, but even if the score IS good, I think it's still overrated. As in, I'd take Harry Potter, Hook, Home Alone, Far and Away, Schindler's List, Terminal etc any time over Jaws.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,556]

How well do I know JAWS?

I've had the score in one form or another, since Christmas, 1975.

 

Is it worth 5 stars?

Are you 'avin' a Turkish, my son?

[GerateWohl 4,388]

The only thing, that annoys me about Jaws is, that it is one of the three scores that Williams gets asked about to date in almost every interview. I would love to hear an interview, in which Williams gets asked about his approach to his score for A.I. or Munich or The Book Thief or his experience with Alan Parker on Angela's Ashes. But everyone wants to talk about Jaws. :-/

 

[MrJosh 892]

I know Jaws quite well and I do love it, I think it's worthy of 5 stars yeaahhh.

 

When I first went full-on John Williams fan somewhere around 2000/ 2001, I went to the library and found the Joel McNeely re-recording there and that was my first real listen to the Jaws score. Even in my newby-ness, I knew it wasn't the actual film recording, though it was fun to listen to. 

 

I have a fond memory of my grandparents buying me the Decca Records release when I was on a summer trip to visit them. They said I could go pick out some CDs and so I went to see what they had in the soundtracks section. I got Jaws, the 1998 Close Encounters CD, Jurassic Park OST, Raiders and Last Crusade. 

 

Anyway, that 2000 Decca CD is part of a very special memory for me, and then I ended up listening to it very regularly

[Datameister 2,044]

It's not perfect, but it easily clears the 5 star bar. "Intimately" might be a bit too strong a word for me, but it's a lot closer to that than "so so."

 

The score and the OST both offer unique strengths. The score avoids the weird reverb, includes great additional music, and features a strong performance by the orchestra. The OST fleshes out some moments that feel abbreviated in the score while nicely capturing the whole musical narrative in a tighter presentation.

[Jay 37,379]

The LP re-recording has artificial reverb added to it?

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

13 minutes ago, Jay said:

The LP re-recording has artificial reverb added to it?

 

Yes, and the un-reverbed sources seem to be lost, which is why the remastering of the film score is a much bigger improvement than what they could do with the album tracks.

[Jay 37,379]

Stupid Universal fire

[MrJosh 892]

Yeah, that is sad. I definitely prefer the sound of the film score over the album. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,556]

51 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

Yes, and the un-reverbed sources seem to be lost, which is why the remastering of the film score is a much bigger improvement than what they could do with the album tracks.

 

Marian, this is intriguing. How can you be sure of the inclusion of artificial reverb?

[JoeinAR 1,949]

4 hours ago, Sandor said:

For me, it’s a 5 star score and a true classic.

 

Joe: thanks for sharing your wonderful story! 

Any time. I am revisiting the scores in preparation for rating John's fine works.

But Jaws deserves praise beyond praise.

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

50 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Marian, this is intriguing. How can you be sure of the inclusion of artificial reverb?

 

To be honest, I thought it's just common knowledge. Supposedly it's clearly recognisable as fake reverb, by people who know more about reverb than I do.

[Datameister 2,044]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

Marian, this is intriguing. How can you be sure of the inclusion of artificial reverb?

 

I don't know if it's ever been officially confirmed, but I'm just about positive it's artificial. The "tails" are too long. They feel sonically separate from the tighter sound of the scoring stage at Warner Bros.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with artificial reverb; it gets used on plenty of scores. I just don't think this one aged well.

[Andy 4,148]

I’m about to post knowing I won’t be able to put all the things I love about Jaws into words but here goes. 
 

I think I saw it for its first theatrical rerelease. I was probably 6 or 7 I guess. I remember I kept asking my mother “is this a true story?”  Yeah, it definitely was real to me. The thought of the shark being fake never ever crossed my mind.  These days, he’s a classic movie monster to me.  Real great whites aren’t as cool looking as Bruce.  
 

I also have fond memories of renting the Super8 ten minute reel from the public library and projecting that on a bedsheet in my room.  Make no mistake, even that little highlight reel would scare the shit out of me.  Although with that tech you could run it in reverse to watch Quint’s death backwards, quite amusing to a pre teen. 
 

The score… well obviously most joes can’t see the forest through the trees composed of two notes.   There is so much complexity and nuance to the complete score. Stuff you definitely don’t even pick up on the wonderful OST presentation. 
 

So many moments. 
 

Small motifs, like the serene “open ocean” motif that closes out the Preparing the Cage fugue on the OST makes two appearances in the score, when Brody looks through the estuary bridge to the open sea, and when Hooper and Brody are attempting to snag the two barrels.   That sustained note almost makes a sort of reprise of the final note in the End Titles as if to suggest the ocean is still and the water is calm once again. 
 

The sea shanties elevate this from terror, beyond adventure, to something impossibly joyous when it shouldn’t be.  And they’re not all “Spanish Ladies”.  There’s the main one based on the Orca theme, a secondary one that really brings the high adventure in Man Against Beast, and a third, which bears similarity to Spanish Ladies when it appears in One Barrel Chase.  But you need the full score to get the delightfully woeful actual singular quote of Spanish Ladies played by flutes against strained high strings suggesting hopelessness as Quint looks at the soaked life vests below deck. (“Quint Thinks it Over”) Absolutely brilliant. 
 

Can we talk about the shark theme?  Isn’t it more than a motif?  That slithering French horn that plays counterpoint to the ostinato is absolutely beautiful and fearsome. It opens up “The Pier Incident” in woodwinds to great effect.  The OST Main Title also has that wonderful series of triplets after the first crescendo of the motif.  You hear these triplets on harp along with the woodwinds playing the slithery counterpoint at the beginning of “The Empty Raft” (Kintner’s attack) and of course the harp triplets start off Chrissie’s Death in both recordings.  When the Shark Theme really crescendos on the OST Main Title, the triplets yield to that awesome motif suggesting the massive size of the shark, also heard in Man Against Beast (or Sea Attack Number One on the OST). This is not a two-note motif!  And yet, strip away the horn counterpoint or the harp triplets and you have “The Shark Approaches”, perhaps one of the most machine like, unstoppable, and yeah even scary statement of the theme in the whole score.  Those celli and double bass just chug that to pieces!

 

The End Titles start with the gentle four note bed with tolling bell. The perfect denouement to bring peace back to the audience.  One masterful allusion to that happens in the full score (“Tug on the Line”) which was dialed out in the film.  Maybe Spielberg felt Williams was telegraphing an eventual happy ending, but musically it’s a wonderful callback, or call forward in this case. 
 

@Belloshmentioned Blown to Bits, which features  the Cage Fugue played as an adrenaline surging shark hunter theme for when the men are getting serious about their work.   I love its appearance in Sea Attack Number One and of course Man Against Beast.   It allllmost is a prototype sound for the military theme from CE3K.   And the proper full treatment of the Fugue in Preparing the Cage … well, I don’t really have words. 
 

My god, how many themes are we up to now?

 

I haven’t even mentioned pieces like Night Search (which is like a mini movie in itself) and the Indianapolis Story.  Two notes!? “Jesus H Christ” as Quint would say. 
 

The writing for harp in Jaws deserves its own “Greatest Thing Ever” thread.  The aforementioned triplets, almost suggestive of rising bubbles before the leviathan breaches and hell breaks loose.  The frantic harp glisses in The Underwater Siege are astonishingly violent. And although JW isn’t the first to orchestrate underwater with harp, he’s the best. Those prickly plucks of confusion just before the shark pulls the estuary victim under his capsized boat make my neck hairs bristle.  
 

AND THEN you have “Father and Son”. Holy God, how can so much be conveyed with so little?  The delicate harp and piano, against the long sustained bass, acting as almost a foghorn of doom that still looms above Brody as he has a tender moment with his kid.  That this cue exists in this kind of film from that era is a miracle. 
 

From delicate to as violent as an orchestra can sound with “Quint Meets His End” (dialed out in the film, but used iirc in some TV Spots.  Jeepers that is orchestral thunder. And those shrieking piccolo stabs, coupled with the relentless two note brass hits, which recall similar brass for Man Against Beast where Quint waits until the last second to fire the harpoon.   Incidentally, I happen to personally enjoy Sea Attack Number One just a hair more than Man Against Beast, which gets a lot more attention (used in live performances to show the scene with and without music). 
 

It’s getting late and I gotta go to bed and I still haven’t even gotten to Out to Sea or The Promenade Montage!!!

 

I guess I’ll stop by saying Jaws never stops surprising me.  I know every note of many scores from his golden era, but Jaws is the one where I continue to find those little moments, that connective tissue that suggests that nobody in the crew took their job more seriously than Williams. 
 

Anyway, he delivered the bomb. 

[Holko 9,534]

7 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

To be honest, I thought it's just common knowledge. Supposedly it's clearly recognisable as fake reverb, by people who know more about reverb than I do.

Damn, I always thought it sounded kinda weird

[Datameister 2,044]

Well said, @Andy. The two notes are obviously the most iconic element of the score, and they're certainly effective, but it's all the other stuff that draws me back to it again and again. (Also, fun fact: It's usually tuba playing that slithery solo, actually, not French horn!)

 

 

[Sweeping Strings 2,365]

15 hours ago, Brónach said:

 

i even like the shark for some reason, as dumb as it looks with its eyes open. i guess it's cute to me.

Absolutely no other way to do it at the time (of course, the problems they had with 'Bruce' are well documented). Glad the once-rumoured re-release with the shark replaced by CGI never happened.

[GerateWohl 4,388]

5 hours ago, Andy said:

I think I saw it for its first theatrical rerelease. I was probably 6 or 7 I guess.

Bwaah! This is not a kids movie! I don't understand parents, who take their 7 year old kids to such a movie where an about 7 year old boy gets slaughtered by a monster shark on screen. 

 

Anyway, I like the comment from Williams, when he first spotted the move "This is like a pirate movie." When I read this, I realised that this shark cage fugue theme is actually like pirate theme. And it is really great. It is on my list of the most brillant movie themes ever.

[Jurassic Shark 12,099]

3 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Bwaah! This is not a kids movie! I don't understand parents, who take their 7 year old kids to such a movie where an about 7 year old boy gets slaughtered by a monster shark on screen. 

 

Agreed. JWFans are crazy (or at least their parents).

[Andy 4,148]

1 hour ago, Datameister said:

Well said, @Andy. The two notes are obviously the most iconic element of the score, and they're certainly effective, but it's all the other stuff that draws me back to it again and again. (Also, fun fact: It's usually tuba playing that slithery solo, actually, not French horn!)

 

 

I literally realized that was tuba not French horn when I woke up for my 3 AM pee. 

[Bespin 8,484]

For those who have troubles to get into the score, try the Decca program, but using the Intrada versions.

 

Basically, some important actions cues are moved near the beginning of the album to keep the listener "challenged".

 

That's a little modification that change everything (well it does for me!). And it is not forbidden to think this modification was asked by John Williams himself on the Decca Collector's Edition...

 

[pete 907]

Tourist on the Menu needs to be part of any suite performed in concert.

1. Theme from Jaws

2, Tourists on the Menu

3. Out to Sea/Shark Cage Fugue

and 4 - why not? - Jaws 2 End Credits.

 

Perfect!

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

55 minutes ago, pete said:

and 4 - why not? - Jaws 2 End Credits.

 

[Andy 4,148]

Oh I also love the somber horn solos just after Mrs Kintner slaps Brody.  Trumpet then French Horn. That funereal elegy sound he would revisit for Star Wars (77), Superman, and Dracula.  He's sort of gotten away from that for character deaths, but man those were good!

[Faleel 5,366]

10 hours ago, Andy said:

that wonderful series of triplets.  You hear these triplets of course the harp triplets , the triplets the harp triplets The aforementioned triplets,

 

 

10 hours ago, Andy said:

although JW isn’t the first to orchestrate underwater with harp, he’s the best.

Paul J Smith would like a word!

[Bellosh 3,422]

My playlist of Jaws has the typewriter cue, the marching band cues and the ragtime cues

 

It's the ultimate way to listen to Jaws.

[Jay 37,379]

I hope on a reissue that Typewriter is moved into the main program and From Bad To Worse is moved into the bonus tracks (it's an alternate for Quint Thinks It Over)

[Jurassic Shark 12,099]

20 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

The only thing, that annoys me about Jaws is, that it is one of the three scores that Williams gets asked about to date in almost every interview. I would love to hear an interview, in which Williams gets asked about his approach to his score for A.I. or Munich or The Book Thief or his experience with Alan Parker on Angela's Ashes. But everyone wants to talk about Jaws. :-/

 

 

Interviewer: What was your approach to your scores for A.I. or Munich or The Book Thief, and your experience with Alan Parker on Angela's Ashes?

JW: Can't remember. Ask me about cookies and dead composers. 

[Holko 9,534]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

I hope on a reissue that Typewriter is moved into the main program and From Bad To Worse is moved into the bonus tracks (it's an alternate for Quint Thinks It Over)

Nah that's too simple, the geniuses are planning to remove stuff instead.

[Bellosh 3,422]

speaking of which...is Intrada still working on that re-issue or is it dead in the water (no pun intended)

[Marian Schedenig 8,212]

2 minutes ago, Bellosh said:

speaking of which...is Intrada still working on that re-issue or is it dead in the water (no pun intended)

 

That's a bad pun, Harry.

[Holko 9,534]

7 minutes ago, Bellosh said:

speaking of which...is Intrada still working on that re-issue or is it dead in the water (no pun intended)

The store page still says "The Jaws 2CD set is currently sold out but will likely be re-issued at some point with a slightly different program"

https://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.9909/.f

[Bellosh 3,422]

yeah i know, i check often 

[Jurassic Shark 12,099]

"At some point" is the key here...

[GerateWohl 4,388]

I expect an anniversary reissue in two years.

[Brónach 1,302]

slightly different? how? why?

 

extremely tragic of me to not have any of those cds

[Jay 37,379]

11 minutes ago, Brónach said:

slightly different?

 

Yeah

 

11 minutes ago, Brónach said:

how?

 

click

 

11 minutes ago, Brónach said:

why?

 

click

[Andy 4,148]

I have the Intrada original, but this absolutely infuriates me.  I wish there were a better model for the limited editions.  I’m not missing Jaws, but there are always some I wish I had picked up.