Buy it... if you own little or none of Mark McKenzie's music from the early 1990's or, conversely, if you're interested in his unreleased music for Mi Familia and Down Periscope.

Avoid it... if you already own Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, Frank and Jesse and McKenzie's later 'Con Passione' compilation, for there's not much else to make this previous collection worth the search.

McKenzie

Mark McKenzie: Orchestral Film Music - Volume One: (Mark McKenzie) While far from a household name, Mark McKenzie has been active through the 1990's and 2000's as both an orchestrator for major scores and a composer himself for small projects. His music is generally melodic in structure and lyrical in movement, often made intimate by the restraints of recording with small ensembles (or the need for such music for the family style of films to which he has been typecast in the 2000's). Although many of his scores have been released due to the support of Intrada Records, McKenzie has used a couple of promotional compilations through the years to help promote some of his work that is too obscure to even merit an album release from Intrada. In 1996, the first of his compilations took the form of a lengthy album with selections from five of his early scores. For a more balanced collection of both this music and his entries from the late 1990's and early 2000's, a subsequent promotional compilation called "Con Passione" would feature additional suites from The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca, Durango, The Lost Child, and Dragonheart 2: A New Beginning. Most of the material on "Orchestral Film Music - Volume One" comes from Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde and Frank and Jesse, both released in full by Intrada. The highlights for film music fans, however, include music from the mid-1990's films Mi Familia (My Family) and Down Periscope. The 1995 score for Mi Familia is slightly flavored with a Spanish influence, but mainly delves into the romanticism of the topic. For this Francis Ford Coppola epic, McKenzie provides a classically based main theme to a slow, waltz-like movement and a secondary woodwind theme of allure. The brass in the title theme may exhibit a bit too much pomp for repeated enjoyment, but the woodwind theme is hauntingly beautiful and its performances in several tracks would foreshadow similar recorder sequences in Durango. A small portion of McKenzie's music for Mi Familia was released by Elektra Records at the time of the film's release, but only on an album heavy with songs. A significant amount of extra material, roughly 15 minutes, is available here.

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As for the ridiculous comedy Down Periscope, three previously unreleased tracks amounting to about six minutes is included on this compilation. When McKenzie's friend Randy Edelman did not have time to rescore a few shots late in the film's production, McKenzie stepped in and provided a few comedy march cues that very much resemble some of the children's marches composed by John Debney at about the same time. While even more material from Mi Familia would appear on the "Con Passione" release, this compilation offers the most material from Down Periscope. As for the other scores represented, Frank and Jesse features several strong portions, especially those recorded with the orchestral ensemble. But the early highlight of McKenzie's career is the delightfully playful romp Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, and all the highlights of that score are presented here. Any album with the "Overture" and "Something Electrical" cues from this score is worth having. The curiosity on this promotional album is the single track from McKenzie's early Warlock: The Armageddon. The short cue presented here is by far not the best that the score has to offer (in fact, you won't find it in identical form on the original Intrada album) and there remains much great material on that album with which McKenzie could promote his talents. The Druid warrior theme alone from that score is extremely enjoyable, though it's possible that no additional music from that score was included here because of the dreadful quality of the recording. Nothing from Warlock: The Armageddon would inhabit "Con Passione." Also a bit of a curiosity on "Orchestral Film Music - Volume One" is the arrangement of tracks so that the bits and pieces of each score are scattered throughout the album. The experience would have been far more coherent had each score's cues been featured together, starting with the strength of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, and McKenzie would solve that problem on the follow-up compilation. In any case, this album still presents a very good demonstration of McKenzie's early works. If you manage to acquire this album early in your collection of McKenzie's scores, there's not much point in seeking the full albums of Frank and Jesse or Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde given how much is pulled from them for this compilation. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Mark McKenzie reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78 (in 9 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.45 (in 3,022 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.