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Crime Jazz

This 1997 compilation CD is a great idea, and well put-together, but I've found I'm not its ideal audience. It comprises jazz-flavoured themes and soundtrack cues from a variety of crime-related movies & TV shows from the mid-to-late '50s and early '60s. Some pieces are lifted from original soundtrack albums, while others are reworkings: for example the Peter Gunn theme on it isn't Henry Mancini's original, but a version by Quincy Jones & his band. 

While the main title and lead character themes included have some of the most pointed hooks, the emphasis in them on blaring brass can be a little wearisome. The discs's three opening tracks are all in this vein and collectivly give an impression akin to that of watching three sets of opening credits in succession. There is more variety as the album continues, but there's a strident edge to it throughout which doesn't fit well with by own late-evening listening habits: I can't unwind to it. Maybe it's music to accompany a retro cocktail party in full swing, or a late-night drive in the rain.

My favourite track on the album is 'Harold's Way' by David Amram, taken from the soundtrack of the 1961 film The Young Savages. Its jazziness seems more than skin-deep, not always the case in some of the other pieces. There's nothing bad or out-of-place here, it's just that I can seldom summon the right mood to go with it.



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