: (Compilation) If record
producers have learned one important lesson through the years about
selling soundtrack collections to mainstream moviegoers, it would be
that a little James Bond material can't hurt. After previously releasing
an album that spans the themes of all the Bond films from
, the Silva Screen label went back to the City of
Prague Philharmonic to record fuller suites from the first seven Bond
films for inclusion on this 1999 album. Spanning the string of Sean
Connery films as well as the one George Lazenby experiment, this
compilation starts with the origins of Bond in
. With much of the original sheet
music for the actual scores (not the themes) missing and deemed lost,
Nic Raine, who not only conducts the City of Prague Philharmonic, but is
also a long time collaborator with John Barry, reconstructed and
orchestrated each suite individually. Raine's qualifications in this
endeavor are not questioned; he orchestrated the original scores for
, and arranged
superior performances of Barry's work for Silva's complete recording of
and suites of various Barry scores released on
the "Zulu" compilation from approximately the same time as this Bond
set. Instead of simply regurgitating the stale theme arrangements that
fans have heard countless times, Raine and producer James Fitzpatrick
decided to take a different approach with "Back in Action." The original
intention behind the album was to release strictly new material that
they had not recorded and released previously (and, for the most part,
had not been available anywhere on album as the late 90's). These cues,
however, often did not give a very good representation of the themes
from their scores, so in the end, some of the more thematically
recognizable material needed to be combined with the newly recorded cues
in order to make the product attractive on the shelves.
One of the album's selling points is the performance by
Vic Flick on the title Bond theme; Flick was, of course, the original
guitarist for the theme in 1962. Ironically, this first track on the
album is also the weakest. This isn't the fault of Flick, but rather the
intentionally sparse orchestrations meant to better represent the
smaller ensemble that originally presented the theme for
Dr. No.
As such, the ensemble sounds deceivingly lackluster during just this one
performance when compared to what follows. Purists likely won't mind,
though some will have preferred to have heard the full orchestra cut
loose and insert the necessary blast of power the theme benefits from in
other recent re-recordings. The following suites of material from each
of the first seven scores are all enjoyable. The
Dr. No suite by
Monty Norman includes the famous "Death of the Tarantula" track that any
franchise fan will recognize instantly; it's performed with the vigor of
every shoe strike. Seamlessly, the material shifts to the work of John
Barry for the rest of the album (and feel free to insert a joke about
the lawsuit between Norman and Barry here). A lengthy group of tracks
from
From Russia with Love is bracketed by the main theme and
Barry's secondary chase cue (with staggered brass and continuous
percussion) that would prove to be a staple of many of his Bond scores.
The
Goldfinger suite captures both sides of the swinging score,
with both the lounge-worthy Miami theme and the bold, militaristic
version of the title theme displayed during the Fort Knox sequence. The
mass of music from
Thunderball relates to the motif that Barry
set up in
From Russia with Love, with another lengthy portion of
it served throughout the suite. With their exotic and melodic beauty,
the two tracks from
You Only Live Twice offer a great
representation of music from the film and are arguably the highlights of
this album. Included in the suite is everything from the original theme
to the wedding cue, the battle sequence in the crater lake, and the
eerie space cue.
The selections from
On Her Majesty's Secret
Service and
Diamonds are Forever are generally on the more
light-hearted side. For
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (easily
the more superior of the two), Prague records a significant amount of
material available on this album for the first time. The orchestration
on this suite is of interest; the melancholy woodwind theme in "Who Will
Buy My Yesterdays" is treated to the appropriately creepy rattling the
background, while the "Ski Chase" sequence makes use of the overbearing
electric bass in the exciting action sub-theme for the film. Far weaker
are the cues from
Diamonds are Forever, though the instrumental
performance of the theme from the film is an excellent track with which
to finish the album. The performances on the whole are commendable and
the sound quality is crystal clear. While the ensemble had crucified
some of these themes in their early film music recordings from seven or
eight years prior, these new performances are freshly recorded and the
players, as any group will tend to do, got better with time. Nic Raine,
as usual, does a fantastic job of capturing the style of Barry's
original recordings. The separation of most of the films' themes on one
CD (released previously by Silva Screen) and the score suites available
here presents a problem, however. The die-hard Bond score collectors
will very much enjoy the "Bond: Back in Action" compilation, though the
product still doesn't serve as the comprehensive compilation of Bond
score re-recordings that would result if the products were combined. It
was the promise of the album's producers at the time that if this
product were successful enough in sales (and it was released at the same
time as the debut of David Arnold's
The World is Not Enough for
that purpose), a follow-up with recordings from the Roger Moore era of
films would follow. It indeed happened, and the sequel album would be a
more well-rounded and interesting product, partially because of the
possible over-exposure of the earlier Barry scores. Overall, both are
still entertaining albums.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
