JazzWax List: Detective Jazz III

It was a cold and rainy night—the kind made for staying in with a glass of rye and a bad book. Outside, cars drove by slow and sloppy. Inside, the pink neon sign from the bar across the alley kissed the wall over and over, steady and insistent. Then came the knock at my email box. I turned to open the message and wound up face to face with the Crime Jazz guys. "We love ya past lists, but we thought youze ought to know about a few more ob-skewer ones," they said. After shoving the suggestions into my chest, they left.

Regular readers may recall that I posted previous lists of albums that celebrated TV and movie detectives of the late '50s and early '60s here and here. Below, I offer up a third list, courtesy of JazzWax readers Joe Fay and James Cimarusti. I have them all, and can say they are indeed terrific and worth owning: 

• Richard Diamond—Pete Rugolo (1957)
• This World, Then the Fireworks—Pete Rugolo (1997)
• Checkmate—John Williams (1962) 
• The Interns—Leith Stevens (1962)
• From Russia with Love—Si Zentner (1963)

JazzWax clip: Here's a taste of the Richard Diamond soundtrack...

 

Comments

[mel house]

Shelly Manne and His Men have a great CD based on the Checkmate series and of course the more well-known Peter Gunn and the follow-up Son of Gunn series. All are terrific.

[James Cimarusti]

Thank you for the credit Marc :) I can also recommend the the Shelly Manne albums mentioned by Mel. (Shelly Manne also covered the "Gunn" movie sountrack on "Jazz Gunn" completing his cover recordings of Mancini "Peter Gunn" music as well as also playing on the official Mancini soundtrack recording. Though done in the late '60's, it reprises some original TV show themes and is great, late, crime jazz) The original "Checkmate" sountrack by John Williams is (hopefully) still availble on a limited editon CD from Film Score Monthly (paired with his "Rhythm In Motion" album)and is chock full of west coast talents-the band is almost exactly the same line-up as Henry Manicini's. While the first 3 albums in the list are on CD, unfortunately the same can't be said for the last two. As you state, these are all great albums and I regret I don't own the "Richard Diamond" or the "Interns".

I must be going..I have a date at Mothers ;)

Keep up the great work!