James Horner's THE MASK OF ZORRO (1998) - 2023 2-CD Expanded Edition from La La Land Records, produced by Neil S. Bulk

[OneBuckFilms 323]

It would be interesting to know what makes it particularly tricky. Rules change for mechanical reuse fees that year, altering the AFM fees for these recordings, or is it internal politics of some kind?

 

Either way, I hold out hope for expansions, even if unlikely for whatever reason.

 

I've seen too many film score release miracles not to.

To my thinking on AFM fees etc., they are doing what any union should do, and that is to protect the rights and interests of it's members.

 

Unfortunately, it sucks when it diminishes the viability for releasing more music.

[JTN 2,031]

22 hours ago, crocodile said:

Horner fans were really spoiled this year.

And judging from Intrada's 2024 lineup they will be next year as well.

[Tallguy 3,399]

16 hours ago, JTW said:

And judging from Intrada's 2024 lineup they will be next year as well.

 

Volunteers: CONFIRMED! (<-- Obligatory wink to show: I have no knowledge that Volunteers is coming next year.) (Would be nice though.)

[Jay 37,369]

I received my physical copy and can't wait to dig into things!!!

[Levraibond 14]

Listened to it this afternoon.

So great to finally hear these new tracks !

 

Now, don't get me wrong, I think this is a great release and aside from the "W" missing on the first page of my booklet I love it. But, yeah there had to be a "but" ... the transition from the amazing stellar sounding of the "Hook Ultimate Edition" to this score made me realize the sound quality is not as detailed and rich as the aforementioned one. I don't know if it's due to the original sessions (recording/setting artistic choice) ... or even a creative choice during the remastering process but I find the sound to be a little bit "muffled". It sounds very good, but when you compare it to the 2023 Hook Ultimate Edition, or even to another Horner, 2019 "Project X" mastered by MM for LLL there's a bit difference. It doesn't breathe as much.

 

I don't know about you, but I tend to find old analogic remastered recordings to sound way better than many "modern" digital recordings.

 

 

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

I think Legend of Zorro is a better sounding recording (and performance) than Mask.

 

Yavar

[Edmilson 7,466]

Weird, Mask had some London Symphony Orchestra musicians performing on it. There's an interview on the James Horner Film Music Website that I was reading today that mentioned that Horner ordered some LSO people to fly all the way to Los Angeles to perform alongside American musicians on the revised version of Diego's Goodbye 

 

As far as I know, Legend was entirely on the USA, but I may be wrong.

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

You’re not wrong. And I don’t think Mask is performed or recorded poorly at all. I just think Legend has a bit more spark to it. It wouldn’t surprise me if LA players just felt a bit more natural with a Hispanic idiom than London players.

 

Yavar

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

It's here. Ripping this now and it's next on my playlist after Sneakers!

[Faleel 5,356]

Got this from Santa today. Ripping now.

[Jay 37,369]

Anyone have more thoughts on this great release?

I admittedly haven't listened to it as much as I should have since I fell completely in love with the Sneakers expansion, but this is great too.  It almost would have been better if these two giant releases had been months apart instead of on the same day,  but I'm sure that was out of everyone's control

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

I love how much better the full score flows compared to the album. I always found the OST a little overbearing after a while, but having everything complete and in its proper place really helps. I'm loving this expansion, but I do have a similar situation to you, @Jay. Only here it's Hook that's currently hogging all the playtime. What a ride that one is! I'm sure I'll get back around to this one soon though.

[Jay 37,369]

Yeah! 

 

I had a listen the other night.   I loved that after the first 3 tracks (17 minutes of music!) set up the whole tone and scope of the score with many of its themes, the subsequent run of previously unreleased cues is just awesome! Almost 14 minutes of new music over the next 8 tracks, offering a lot of fun stuff the OST album didn't have.  I love the wimzy in some of these cues, and that Aliens-esque motif in Meeting on the Beach and Prison Escape. 

 

When you finally get to familiar music from the OST in track 12 with The Fencing Lesson, you've really been on a quite a new journey for a while, and I love it!

[GerateWohl 4,370]

17 hours ago, Jay said:

and that Aliens-esque motif in Meeting on the Beach

That irritated me a lot, when I watched the movie. 

[Smeltington 1,440]

Having never seen the movie or heard the score, I gave this a first listen recently. From what I know about the film I expected Spanish sounds, and lots of swashbuckling. Well, the first thing you hear is a very Spanish-sounding chord to open the whole score, then a brief pause, and we continue with... surprise... SHAKUHACHI!!! I mean, it's Horner, duh, but still, lol.

 

The rest of the score had a lot less of an action/adventure feel than I was expecting, and the amount of danger motifs in the climax were a bit much for me. Overall I was a bit disappointed. But I'm still excited to listen again and hopefully discover everything there is to like about the score vs. my expectations. I did enjoy the Flamenco percussion (if that's the right term) quite a bit, and of course the smooth, silky Horner-ness of it all.

[Tallguy 3,399]

22 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

 

The rest of the score had a lot less of an action/adventure feel than I was expecting

 

Honestly that took me 25 years to get used to!

[Smeltington 1,440]

Yeah, Braveheart does kind of the same thing, it's full of epic battles and violence but the music doesn't always sound like "battle" music when you hear it on its own. That score has a much softer approach than you would expect given its subject matter.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Doesn't matter, though. Braveheart is his masterpiece.

[Smeltington 1,440]

Sure, what's there is fantastic. It just feels a lot different from what another composer might have done. Or even from what Horner himself might have done earlier in his career.

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

One of the reasons I love The Legend of Zorro more is that it has a whole lot more development of the original Zorro themes, and almost no danger motif.

 

Yavar

[Smeltington 1,440]

That'll be something to look forward to one day.

 

20 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

almost no danger motif

 

Good, I don't want NO danger motif, it just wouldn't be right!

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Cue danger motif.

[Tallguy 3,399]

Forgive my lack of Horner slang vocabulary, what do we call the "Dundun dundun dundun dun..." that begins Kirk's Explosive Reply and Genesis Countdown or has a faster "bum bum bum bumpidy bum bum bum" in Flying Circus (~1:20)? Or another variation at 4:50ish in Nevile Sinclair's House? (I always called it "James' Theme".)

[Jay 37,369]

Deniz Cordell's liner notes for the LLL edition of TWOK must talk about it (he talks about every recurring idea in the score), though I don't recall right now what he said about it

[Trope 527]

8 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Forgive my lack of Horner slang vocabulary, what do we call the "Dundun dundun dundun dun..." that begins Kirk's Explosive Reply and Genesis Countdown or has a faster "bum bum bum bumpidy bum bum bum" in Flying Circus (~1:20)? Or another variation at 4:50ish in Nevile Sinclair's House? (I always called it "James' Theme".)

He seems to consistently apply it to moments of growing tension or plot development.

[Tallguy 3,399]

7 hours ago, Trope said:

He seems to consistently apply it to moments of growing tension or plot development.

 

Not to get too serious (and hopefully not serious at all at the same time): It's a Hornerism. And one of the first ones that I recognized as such. Blatantly so, I always thought.

 

What strikes me is that I never really noticed "The Danger Motif" so much until it became a thing or a meme or whatever. It's even referenced in the fairly wonderful Without James Horner video.

 

I would never mark it as an "essential" Horner ingredient. But to many it's THE Horner thing. To me it was always MUCH more the dundun dundun dundun thing.

 

OTOH, I was just talking to my brother last week and he talked about listening to some Horner thing (Avatar? We both hate Avatar) and he talked about how quickly the diddly do thing (Danger Motif) showed up. I laughed and told him "Yeah, but when I watched The Magnificent Seven for the first time that damn thing made me cry." It was like Jamie looking down and saying "Remember."

[Edmilson 7,466]

The danger motif is underrated anyway. It's one of the staples that militant Horner haters use to attack him and his music, but I still like it when it's well used. 

 

On the last few years of his career Horner gave it some pretty nice variations, like this one from Troy:

 

 

Or in Avatar, when the danger motif becomes less, well, action-y and more tragic:

 

 

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

I like that he never (that I can recall/am aware of) reused the extended version of the danger motif he used for Kahn (which is a brilliant villain motif) so it remains unique to that score. Unlike when the Aliens are attacked by the Klingons…

[CatastrophicJones 18]

On 19/12/2023 at 7:26 PM, Levraibond said:

Listened to it this afternoon.

So great to finally hear these new tracks !

 

Now, don't get me wrong, I think this is a great release and aside from the "W" missing on the first page of my booklet I love it. But, yeah there had to be a "but" ... the transition from the amazing stellar sounding of the "Hook Ultimate Edition" to this score made me realize the sound quality is not as detailed and rich as the aforementioned one. I don't know if it's due to the original sessions (recording/setting artistic choice) ... or even a creative choice during the remastering process but I find the sound to be a little bit "muffled". It sounds very good, but when you compare it to the 2023 Hook Ultimate Edition, or even to another Horner, 2019 "Project X" mastered by MM for LLL there's a bit difference. It doesn't breathe as much.

 

I don't know about you, but I tend to find old analogic remastered recordings to sound way better than many "modern" digital recordings.

 

 

 

This was produced by MM yes, but mastered by Doug Schwartz whereas Hook was mastered AND produced by MM. That would explain a difference in sound however I find this release to sound excellent so I don't understand the complaints. Not to mention these scores were composed and recorded by different people, Horner is no Williams and Williams is no Horner 😉😅

[Trope 527]

I'm quite enjoying this music (hadn't heard the OST before), but can someone confirm if the overdriven/quasi-distorted bass at 0:57 in the Main Title is also present in the film? 

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

On 05/01/2024 at 10:45 PM, Jay said:

Deniz Cordell's liner notes for the LLL edition of TWOK must talk about it (he talks about every recurring idea in the score), though I don't recall right now what he said about it

 

I was going to look it up. Turns out I only have an FSM release from 2009. Is the LLL worth double dipping?

[Tallguy 3,399]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Breathmask said:

 

I was going to look it up. Turns out I only have an FSM release from 2009. Is the LLL worth double dipping?

 

Depends. It sounds great. It's nice to have the end titles with and without Nimoy. I like having the discrete tracks very much. And I'm the kind of nut who prefers the LP version of Battle in the Mutara Nebula with the moment of total silence rather than the tracked in wild ambient music, but still wants to have the film version.

 

The LP assembly from disc 2 is available on Spotify.

 

It's been a long time since I read them, but the liner notes are much more free form than the more standard "history / biography / track by track synopsis". I should go back and look at them again. One of the few (only?) Original Series era liner notes NOT written by Jeff "The Music of Star Trek" Bond. (I'm going to feel bad if it turns out someone else wrote 3-6 or something.)

[Jay 37,369]

1 hour ago, Mr. Breathmask said:

 

I was going to look it up. Turns out I only have an FSM release from 2009. Is the LLL worth double dipping?

 

Yes, definitely.

[Tallguy 3,399]

1 minute ago, Jay said:

 

Yes, definitely.

 

That's the more concise answer.

[Levraibond 14]

On 06/01/2024 at 11:59 PM, CatastrophicJones said:

 

This was produced by MM yes, but mastered by Doug Schwartz whereas Hook was mastered AND produced by MM. That would explain a difference in sound however I find this release to sound excellent so I don't understand the complaints. Not to mention these scores were composed and recorded by different people, Horner is no Williams and Williams is no Horner 😉😅

I'm not complaining. I'm observing the difference between these two scores, sound wise. I tend to prefer Hook to Mask Of Zorro on that pure technical, personal, sound preference. I love to spot some "studio noise" here and there. Makes it organic and alive.

[CatastrophicJones 18]

1 hour ago, Levraibond said:

I'm not complaining. I'm observing the difference between these two scores, sound wise. I tend to prefer Hook to Mask Of Zorro on that pure technical, personal, sound preference. I love to spot some "studio noise" here and there. Makes it organic and alive.

 

Gotcha. That's fair enough! I'm enjoying both releases. Did you get Sneakers too?

[Levraibond 14]

On 09/01/2024 at 12:11 AM, CatastrophicJones said:

 

Gotcha. That's fair enough! I'm enjoying both releases. Did you get Sneakers too?

I had to pass on that one. I have to save some money as "Dad" is still on my want list, as well as Goldsmith's Alien & Poltergeist. Quartet Records re-release of Cutthroat Island too. Not to mention the future release of How To Train Your Dragon 3 Deluxe Edition :-D No release date yet but hopefully coming soon.

[crumbs 14,317]

4 hours ago, Levraibond said:

Not to mention the future release of How To Train Your Dragon 3 Deluxe Edition :-D No release date yet but hopefully coming soon.

 

That release date has been announced: February 23

[Jay 37,369]

The release date for that album was announced by John Powell eleven months ago

[Tallguy 3,399]

56 minutes ago, Jay said:

The release date for that album was announced by John Powell eleven months ago

 

Who can remember back that far? Now let me tell you about the SECOND time I saw Star Wars...

[Jokerslb 0]

Is there any difference between Zorro’s Theme (Film Version) and Zorro’s Theme, from the LLL Records release? Because I can’t tell the difference. 🤔😏

[Jay 37,369]

Part of the album version was a different take than what went into the film.   The performances are practically identical though, for sure

 

If Neil S Bulk reads this and wants to email me a clarifying answer, I will post it here for him!

[Holko 9,529]

On 14/02/2024 at 9:12 PM, Jokerslb said:

Is there any difference between Zorro’s Theme (Film Version) and Zorro’s Theme, from the LLL Records release? Because I can’t tell the difference. 🤔😏

If you listen very closely to the harp at the end under the final held brass notes, the album version has simple consistent ascending scales (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9), but the film version pays with it a bit (1-break-2-break-3-4-5-6-7). The timing also differs a little. The opening is also a different take but just another great performance of the same material the same way. The middle (0:48-2:22) is the same take.

 

 

 

 

I've listened to the OST for this score at work not long before it was announced but wasn't entirely impressed. Then after the LLL ended up on... sites, I listened and liked it more but it was a bit much at first. Then I watched the movie for the first time (pretty fun, great screen presences, clever way to split the character into a young fighter and older detective) while following along with the tracklist, and then I felt I'd probably love this so I finally bought it. And I do.

 

Probably the most striking element on this first "proper" listen to me was the main Zorro theme - before the first proper cue ends, it's already ubiquitous, and completely obvious that this is the Zorro theme, as if it's been that since the silent movies and Disney series and all the others. I felt that Horner has done here what JW has for Superman and Elfman for Batman, but unlike with those there are no new takes on the character yet to live in its shadow.

 

Anyway, score's really fun and a really solid foundation, can't wait to hear Legend in 258 years when the AFM shit is revised!

[Tallguy 3,399]

4 hours ago, Holko said:

before the first proper cue ends, it's already ubiquitous, and completely obvious that this is the Zorro theme, as if it's been that since the silent movies and Disney series and all the others.

 

That's a great way to put it.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

This is the Zorro theme.

 

 

[Edmilson 7,466]

5 hours ago, Holko said:

Anyway, score's really fun and a really solid foundation, can't wait to hear Legend in 258 years when the AFM shit is revised!

Apparently Legend won't need the AFM approval. @Jean-Baptiste Martin revealed a while ago that Horner finished the score in June 2005, just a few days the AFM date of July 3rd, 2005. Fightplan and The New World on the other hand... 

 

edit: here are his posts where he says that:

 

In other words: Horner finished TLoZ literally 6 days before the AFM date!

[crumbs 14,317]

Well that's wonderful news indeed! Hopefully we can get Legend of Zorro as a companion release for Black Friday this year then

 

Then hopefully the AFM will start granting waivers for 2005 scores anyway, because it's nearly two decades ago for crying out loud!

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

5 hours ago, Holko said:

but unlike with those there are no new takes on the character yet to live in its shadow.

I see nobody knows about the Spanish Amazon series... It's interesting though, the score is all over the place with some obvious temp tracks (going from Horner's MoZ to Paesano's Daredevil) and no real theme, not a memorable one at least.

[Holko 9,529]

2 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Hopefully we can get Legend of Zorro as a companion release for Black Friday this year then

Yes, just like we got Spiderman 2 last year!

4 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Then hopefully the AFM will start granting wavers for 2005 scores anyway, because it's nearly two decades ago for crying out loud!

They'll probably revise the deal to be more in line with copyright laws! 95 years after everyone involved is dead!

[Edmilson 7,466]

3 minutes ago, Holko said:

Yes, just like we got Spiderman 2 last year!

I think Spidey 2 would be a little more than Zorro 2 complicated due to the numerous composers involved and the whole mess that was the recording sessions. Elfman being Elfman, would he lobby for just his music to be included and not the stuff written by Chris Young, John Debney and Deborah Lurie? Maybe, since he has worked with Raimi again after SM2, he got over the allegedly awful experience he had in SM2 and would see no problem in expanding that score? But wouldn't the whole copyrights thing be more complicated with at least 4 composers contributing to the score?

 

I dunno, I think someone should message LLL to see if they can answer if they are able to do Spiderman 2 or not.