This week’s “Picture Perfect” will be full of music from movies focusing on indigenous tribes of Latin America. But somehow none of the scores will be by Argentinian-born Lalo Schifrin. Instead, there will be music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Branislau Kaper, Elmer Bernstein, and Silvestre Revueltas. (Listen today at 8:00 EDT/5:00 PDT on kwax.uoregon.edu .) Schifrin was born in Buenos Aires on this date in 1932.
He is the composer of over 100 film and television scores, including those for “Cool Hand Luke,” “Bullitt,” “Dirty Harry,” “Enter the Dragon,” “Mannix,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Rush Hour,” and of course, “Mission: Impossible.”
A highly-respected jazz pianist, he was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie, who hired him on spot. Schifrin composed for Dizzy an extended work for big band, “Gillespiana,” in 1958. He worked frequently with Clint Eastwood and scored George Lucas’ first feature, “THX-1138.” He was unceremoniously fired from “The Exorcist,” after director William Friedkin invited him into his office and hurled his recording of the score out the window into the parking lot. But that’s Friedkin for you.
In all, Schifrin collected 22 Grammy nominations (winning five times), four Primetime Emmy nominations, and six Academy Award nominations. He received an honorary Oscar in 2018.
Schifrin has been living in the United States since 1958 (he became a U.S. citizen in 1963), making a very healthy living, arranging and composing across a variety of genres, encompassing bossa nova, jazz, bebop, rock, and classical, all the while cashing those lucrative Hollywood paychecks – and collecting royalties for the continued use of his indelible theme in the “Mission: Impossible” film franchise.
So no Lalo Schifrin on “Picture Perfect” today. (We did get to enjoy “Bullitt” a couple of weeks ago.) Nevertheless, we wish him a very happy birthday!
“Concierto Caribeño” for flute and orchestra
Lalo Schifrin and Dizzy Gillespie
“Cool Hand Luke”
Rejected score from “The Exorcist”
The disturbing trailer
Lalo receives his honorary Academy Award from Eastwood
Schifrin’s greatest hit
More about today’s “Picture Perfect”
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