Wednesday, October 09, 2013

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Lalo Schifrin

Artist:Lalo Schifrin
Song:Pampas
Album:Latin Jazz Suite





Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin is best known for his film and TV music. But he started out in jazz and has always mixed jazz with classical music. Recently he has done a lot of guest conducting with regional orchestras and the 1999 CD Latin Jazz Suite is representative of that. He was born June 21, 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His father was a violinist. While Schifrin studied at the Paris Conservatoire in the 50s, he played jazz in Paris clubs at night. He met Dizzy Gillespie in 1956 and this led to the Schifrin composition Gillespiana and then Schifrin became Gillespie's musical director in 1960. Then he got into composing film scores at MGM. The 1966 theme from the TV series Mission; Impossible is probably his most popular song. But he became very popular with studios infusing contemporary jazz into film music. Occasionally he recorded albums. But he was very busy with films in the 70s and 80s. In 1997, Schifrin started his own label Aleph Records and he has released a lot of his film scores on CD and a few jazz recordings. The 1999 CD Latin Jazz Suite was recorded in Cologne, Germany with the WDR Big Band along with special guests Jon Faddis on trumpet, David Sanchez on alto sax, Ignacio Berroa on drums and Alex Acuna on percussion. Schifrin first recorded Pampas on the 1978 album Gypsies. It is based on a theme he wrote for the 1979 film Boulevard Nights. Latin Jazz Suite was nominated for a Grammy and was taped for DVD release. As I said, Schifrin does a lot of guest conducting so this is typical of his current activity. Schifrin's most recent significant film score was for the Rush Hour series. And he last released a jazz album in 2011. He has been working on a 4CD retrospective of his music called My Life In Music to be released next month. So if you are only familiar with Lalo Schifrin's film music, I think you might enjoy his symphonic jazz. Here's Lalo Schifrin with the WDR Big Band featuring David Sanchez and Jon Faddis performing Pampas from the Latin Jazz Suite DVD.

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