Word: lalo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...putting his piano playing down," says Dizzy Gillespie, "but he's a better writer than a pianist." Gillespie was talking about Argentina's Lalo Schifrin, 37, who used to jam with Dizzy's band in Birdland days. Today Schifrin is widely accepted in Hollywood as the most inventive composer of movie scores in the business. Since quitting the Gillespie quintet in 1963 to try his luck with films, he has scored 21 features (Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt), three TV serials (including Mission: Impossible, with its pulsating, wide-open jazz theme) and half a dozen TV specials. Almost...
Part of Schifrin's versatility stems from his parents' background. His grandfather had traveled from his native Russia to Amsterdam, intending to catch the first ship to the U.S. The only boat leaving immediately was bound for Buenos Aires, so he took it. Thus, Lalo (his real first name is Boris) was born in 1932 in a city that drew no cultural and social lines between various forms of music. Argentine folk music, Spanish songs, American jazz and pop, the classics, were all treated on a par-especially in the household run by Schifrin's father, concertmaster...
...rhythm section, singing the themes in wordless scat syllables (ba ba da ba dee). As for jazz itself, its linear bass line, contrapuntal melodies and free improvisation all suggest parallels to Bach-parallels that have been explored notably by such performers as the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck and Lalo Schifrin...
...piece for today is Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole. Galamian nods and sings along, sometimes snapping his fingers to indicate rhythm. His few comments are deceptively simple. "Intonation," he murmurs, or, "That's it, that's it." When something goes wrong, he raises an eyebrow; the music stops cold. Then he picks up his 1680 Nicola Amati violin and, filling the room with a full, rich tone, shows how the passage should sound. "Mark that," he says...
...DISSECTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF MUSIC FROM THE PAST AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF LALO SCHIFRIN'S DEMENTED ENSEMBLE AS A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE (Verve). The title is a tortured joke, but the music is airy and inventive, if a bit dry. It consists of jazz improvisations on classical, Renaissance and medieval styles of music. Several ensembles, one predominantly strings (Beneath a Weeping Willow Shade), one heavy on the horns (Blues for Johann Sebastian), are led by Schifrin, who also plays an ornamental harpsichord...