Family Ties
By Brantley Thompson Elkins
This is the story of a family tree, but itÕs got nothing to do with my genealogy, or yours, or anybody elseÕs. ItÕs about a musical family tree, and a mystery. ThereÕs a kind of music often called Òfilm noir jazz,Ó from its association with film noir movie themes. ItÕs a slow, moody sort of jazz, usually with a trumpet solo. YouÕve probably all heard it from seeing the movies themselves, or from soundtrack albums. Here are a few examples posted at YouTube.
David Shire, Farewell My
Lovely, 1975:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4aEKRSijQ
John Barry, Body Heat, 1981:
Angelo Badalamenti, Fire Walk
with Me, 1992:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LasYely-11k
YouÕll recognize the family resemblance in these themes, but thereÕs a
mystery here. Where did film noir jazz come from in the first place? Not from
the first generation of noir films in the 1940Õs, as witness the main theme
from the first adaptation of Raymond ChandlerÕs classic hard-boiled detective
novel, which was co-written by Leigh Brackett (a pioneering woman writer of
science fiction and hard-boiled mysteries; Howard Hawks hired her on the basis
of her first hard-boiled novel No Good from a Corpse) and starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall:
Max Steiner, The Big Sleep, 1946:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tykVpx-820
IÕve been a movie buff and a music buff (mostly classical, but some pop)
all my life. IÕve always been obsessively curious about whatever interests me,
such as science fiction (IÕm an independent scholar in that field.). I even
bugged Shadar back in the day about where the Aurora Universe came from. Like
paleontologists searching ancient cave rock strata for the origins of human and
other life, IÕm obsessed not just with what things are but where they came from.
In a book about movie director David Lynch, a friend of mine had characterized
BadalamentiÕs theme for Fire Walk with Me as a sort of modal jazz, a form neither major nor minor, neither happy
nor sad. It turned out that she was relying on a friend of hers who taught
music, and that what he had in mind was Kind of Blue, Miles DavisÕ groundbreaking album that was the
fountainhead of modal jazz. So I gave Kind of Blue a listen:
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, 1959:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEC8nqT6Rrk
Good, but very definitely not what I had in mind. Moreover, the point of modal jazz, at least to my friend who wrote the book about Lynch, was to be emotionally neutral – whereas film noir jazz is fairly dripping with emotion. I was really bugged about this, but I was butting my head against the wall. Ordinary Google searches for Òfilm noir jazzÓ led nowhere at the time. And then, years later, it occurred to me to try searching YouTube for Òfilm noir jazz.Ó HereÕs the first thing that came up, headed ÒTribute to FILM NOIR:Ó
Miles Davis, Frantic (Ascenseur pour LÕƒchafaud), 1958:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGScj8pXFMA
And there it was. After a decade of frustration, IÕd found it. It was Miles Davis, after all, but not from Kind
of Blue, but rather from the main theme
(ÒGŽnŽriqueÓ) for a French film
noir directed by Louis Malle. It was released here as Frantic, but the original French title translates as Elevator
to the Scaffold. YouÕll notice that the
YouTube video features stills from noir films of the 1940s, including BogartÕs,
that used entirely different kinds of music.
I mentioned this ÒdiscoveryÓ to another long-time friend, whoÕs a fan of
hard-boiled detective stories and noir films, and it turned out heÕd known
about it all along. I guess I must have never asked him about it, although it
should have occurred to me to do so. And since I came across the ÒTribute to
FILM NOIRÓ video a couple of years ago, I see that somebody has put up a link
to DavisÕ ÒGŽnŽriqueÓ that popped up at the top of a Google web search for
Òfilm noir jazz.Ó
I touched on this story in 2008, in my own tribute to Angelo Badalamenti
here at The Bright Empire. A number of the links there have gone dead since
then, and IÕm not sure if I can find substitutes for all of them. But what IÕm
aiming at here goes beyond the subject of Badalamenti; itÕs part of my fascination
with cultural turning points. When we think of turning points, we usually think
of the strictly military and political: Hiroshima, the Stonewall riot and the
like. But there are other turning points just as decisive.
Not long ago, Velvet and I saw the movie Coco and Igor, which has to do with a love affair between Coco
Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. A supposed affair, actually, since biographical entries on both indicate that any
such relationship was only rumored. In any case, as seen on the screen, the affair
seems rather tepid – Stravinsky comes across as a cold fish, and Chanel
as rather shallow. SheÕs a lot more interesting when sheÕs heading up the
research and development operation that created Chanel No.5. And Stravinsky
– well, the movie starts with a re-creation of the near-riot at the 1913
premiere of The Rite of Spring,
an event that changed classical music forever, just as Beethoven had changed it
a century earlier. It also changed ballet forever. The filmÕs version of the
riot is online, but the screen image is tiny and the sound quality poor (except
for the commercials!). A better version below is from a BBC documentary, Riot
at the Rite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3ArnGRJlt4
The Joffrey BalletÕs recreation of the original ballet, without the
riot, is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjX3oAwv_Fs
There have been cultural revolutions that utterly failed. Serial music
never caught on except with a small band of elitists, just as so-called
experimental fiction never made it past the little magazines. But Stravinsky did catch on; you can recognize his impact in the work
of composers as diverse as Bela Bartok and Silvestre Revueltas – as you
can tell from a performance of the latterÕs ÒSensemaya:Ó
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZO2VkKKR7o
ÒSensemayaÓ is a very original work, not a mere pastiche of The Rite
of Spring – and yet it would never
have been composed in an alternate history where Stravinsky was never born or
his ballet never happened.
Alternate history – a science fiction idea. Has it ever been
applied to something like this?