It’s Léo Delibes’ birthday. So naturally, my thoughts turn to kung fu!
Perhaps you’re familiar with Delibes from his ballet music, or from his opera Lakmé, with its famous “Flower Duet” and “Bell Song.” But if you made it a habit to tune in to “Kung Fu Theater” in the 1980s, you may also have encountered the “Procession of Bacchus.”
Granted, for some, this will be an arcane reference point. I can’t even remember what film, myself. But face it, all of those kung fu titles were randomly chosen from a scrambled short list of maybe eight or ten words anyway (i.e. Shaolin, jade, dragon, master, deadly, invincible, mantis, Buddhist, fist, etc.).
Of course, I was one of a presumably tiny subset that always found the musical choices entertaining. There were purloined movie soundtracks from much better-known, western films, alongside the occasional snippet of classical music. And yes, every once in a while, there was an original score.
Spaghetti western music was especially well-represented, with a lot of Morricone (presumably uncompensated). Sometimes there would be the odd needle-drop from John Williams. There were also many, many brief tracks that were often very nearly recognizable, yet always frustratingly just out of reach.
Now, I find a page on the website of Kung Fu Magazine on which some committed disciple has taken it upon himself to identify the music of kung fu. He’s done a fairly impressive job of it, too. Though I still can’t find the kung fu movie I watched on my tiny, rabbit-eared set in the college dorms that opened with the “Procession of Bacchus” from Léo Delibes’ ballet “Sylvia.”
https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-63823.html
I miss “Kung Fu Theater!”
On a related note, someone must have sold some sort of institutional record library to Princeton Record Exchange. A lot of the CDs have stickers on them that read “LIBRARY COPY: PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE.” They’re in pristine shape (of course, they are; why would anyone be interested in listening to classical music?), so I’ve been filling in around the edges of my personal collection. This involves, among other things, picking up a fair amount of ballet music by Léo Delibes and others. Since I started doing the light music show for KWAX, it astonishes me, with a collection of 10,000+ CDs and records, how many holes there are in my library. It really brings home how often I used to spackle in with short selections from the library of a certain local classical music station I used to work for, that ironically now pumps in most of its content from outside sources.
If I hadn’t gotten into radio, I think my dream job would have been choosing the music, fabricating the translations for, and dubbing ‘70s kung fu movies.
Happy birthday, Léo Delibes!
Delibes without all the ponytails and bamboo:
“Procession of Bacchus”
“Flower Duet” from “Lakmé”
“Bell Song” from “Lakmé”
Pizzicato from “Sylvia”
Waltz from “Coppélia”
Before A.I., there was kung fu! How else to explain the word salad in this sublime trailer for “The Buddha Assassinator” (1980)?
“The Dragon, the Hero” (1979) opens with Morricone, from “The Big Gundown.” There’s also some John Williams, from “Star Wars,” no less, played during the kill around the 20-minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDQ1mI6Z2QY
Strong opener for “Fist of the White Lotus,” music credited to Eddie Wang, but sounding an awful lot like it was lifted from Ron Goodwin’s score for “Where Eagles Dare.”
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