LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

Rhino and Turner Classic Movies Music are pleased to present the premiere release of Andre Previn's complete scoring sessions from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1955 classic motion picture Bad Day At Black Rock and previously unreleased selected themes from Previn's original scores for three additional M-G-M motion pictures, all of which are also now finally available after being long sought-after by fervent film music fans.Andre Previn is not only an Oscars-winning composer of orchestral, chamber, stage and film scores, he is one of the world's best known and most versatile musicians, a conductor of esteemed orchestras, a prolific chamber music and jazz pianist with numerous recordings to his credit, an author and a television host, to name just a few of his accomplishments.Born in Berlin, Previn began taking classical piano lessons as a child before WWII, emigrating with his family Los Angeles, California, where his cousin Charles was already an established composer. At the age of sixteen, while still a student at Beverly Hills High School, Andre began working professionally as a jazz pianist; by his 19th year, he was working on original scores for some of Metro's best musical pictures. One of the 1950s’ finest films, the suspenseful Bad Day At Black Rock was a powerful indictment of the intolerance of the McCarthy era. In an Academy Award-nominated performance, Spencer Tracy plays John Macreedy, who stirs things up in a quiet little town that hides secrets from its past. Director John Sturges and screenwriter Millard Kaufman also earned Oscar nominations for their fine work. Previn was 25 when M-G-M studio head Dore Schary selected him to compose and conduct Bad Day At Black Rock's vivid score. As Previn recalled in his memoirs, he came up with "a vaguely dissonant and sinister score that seemed to make the producer very happy." From the opening underscore, the music creates an atmosphere of mystery and tension perfectly in sync with the film’s story. As the premiere release of Andre Previn's complete scoring sessions from Bad Day At Black Rock amounts to little more than twenty-three minutes of music, we’ve added previously unreleased selected themes from scores from 1949's Tension and Scene Of The Crime and 1951's Cause For Alarm. These earlier M-G-M scores paved the way for increasingly important assignments for Previn. This Turner Classic Movies Music edition of the Bad Day At Black Rock original motion picture soundtrack contains 32 previously unreleased tracks from four different Previn scores as well as a 20-page booklet featuring a current overview from Turner Classic Movies Music Producer George Feltenstein.Bad Day At Black Rock is available as an individually numbered limited edition of 4,500 copies.
Main Title (3:17 ) Hello, Black Rock, Hello (1:25 ) Village Smithy (0:55 ) Hastings Information (0:57 ) Medley: Walk To Jail/Jagger In Jug (0:44 ) Meet Smith (0:38 ) Medley: Smith Visits Sherrif/Doc Gets Mad (1:06 ) Adobe Flats (1:45 ) Jeep Chase (1:20 ) Back To Town/Stealing Keys/Gas Station Blues (2:16) Doc's Place (0:38 ) Escape (3:55 ) End Titles & Cast (0:58 )