Category: Daily Dispatch

For some reason, the powers-that-be were unusually cagey about the score to Steven Spielberg’s imminent extraterrestrial opus, “Disclosure Day.” I mean, it was common knowledge that John Williams would be writing the music, but when someone at one of the recording sessions posted a video clip of Williams conducting, it was swiftly taken down – as if someone had shared irrefutable evidence of an actual close encounter, and it needed to be covered-up. Why? Naturally, the conspiracy mill was set churning. The truth is out there!

Personally, I wondered if perhaps, on account of his advanced age (Williams is 94-years-old), there was concern that he might not have had the energy to follow-through on the project, or that his work would reveal that he had simply lost his touch. The first trailer for the film transparently did not use Williams’ music, but rather employed what sounded like generic tracks from the studio library – no sense of the Williams magic anywhere – and for me, there was no doubt that its absence diminished it.

Then I thought, there’s got to be a new trailer for the Super Bowl, and this one will definitely feature Williams. There was, and it didn’t. How could I not think that the producers were panicking or that the bean-counters hated the music and that there was scrambling going on behind the scenes to find competent hands to make sense of whatever superannuated Williams had produced?

In the past, there have been a few instances where Williams was assisted by now 77-year-old William Ross (“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”), but Ross has always been the first to admit that Williams did all the actual composing. Recent Williams biographer Tim Greiving insists that the new score is substantial, and that John Williams wrote every note.

I won’t watch the most recent trailer, as I don’t want to know any more about the movie until I see it, so I can’t speak to whether or not Williams’ music has finally been utilized in the film’s marketing. But not long ago, someone leaked a minute of the music online, and it’s gorgeous. A few days later, a three-minute teaser for the film’s soundtrack was posted, which turned out to include that minute clip. I’ve been playing it over and over again. This is the kind of film music I have so been missing. It doesn’t hurt that its atmosphere is very much akin to that of Vaughan Williams of the Tallis Fantasia and “A London Symphony.”

This exposure to new John Williams music and the prospect of making it the soundtrack of my summer lifted my heart, but also filled me with trepidation about the physical release of the score. The world has moved on from the 20th century, and wide distribution of a compact disc release is no longer guaranteed. I mean, look at how poorly Disney handled the “Dial of Destiny” soundtrack, with its preorder, limited quantity BS. It took me over a year to luck into a shrink-wrapped overstock copy, which I was able to purchase from a third party for about 50 bucks. THIS IS JOHN WILLIAMS, PEOPLE. Wake up! There is still a market for his music!

Fortunately, Disney has no connection to the current film, a Universal release, with the soundtrack being distributed by Waxwork Records. I had a moment of panic when corresponding with Mather Pfeiffenberger about it. It looked to me like it was only going to be made available as a digital download, with a limited vinyl run. Mather did an A.I. search to confirm my worst fear: that it would not be coming to CD. Naturally, I exploded like Mount Etna (it’s my Sicilian blood), but thankfully I looked further into it, and it will indeed be released on compact disc in July – weeks after the release of the film, which is not ideal, but hey, at least it will be available. (Another epic fail for A.I. Don’t trust it!) It remains to be seen what retailers will be carrying it and how easy it will be to get a copy. I don’t want to be put through the Disney mangler again.

Of course, this poses an issue for “Picture Perfect,” my film music show, as I would have loved to have been able to share some of the music this week. But a phone call to Waxwork revealed that I would have to go through Universal to get permission, and I just didn’t want to deal with it. I believe the digital download will be available on Friday. I’ll pick up what I need for next week, and then buy the CD when it’s available.

Things were so much simpler in the old days. Soundtrack albums were usually in stores well in advance of a movie’s release, and I’d be listening to the music before I even saw the film, scrupulously avoiding reading the titles of the tracks. Life was good then.

At any rate, what we have to enjoy now is the three minutes at the link below, and I’m loving it. Although he continues to do his best to keep himself sharp by composing every day, it’s entirely possible this will be John Williams’ final film score. But he’s been surprising us again and again for the last twenty years. I’m just thankful that if it is his last film, it’s not “Star Wars” or Indiana Jones. The ship should have sailed on those franchises in the ‘80s.

This is the 30th collaboration between Williams and Spielberg, and surely it will bring the composer his 55th Academy Awards nomination. It won’t win, but it will further solidify Williams’ standing as the most nominated person alive. If it comes to pass, he would only need three more nominated scores to match the all-time nominations champ, Walt Disney! He could have done it, too, had he not had periods when he took a few years off. But we can’t begrudge him that. In the words of Charles Ives, “Prizes are for boys, and I’m all grown up.”

Thank you, John Williams, for all the beauty and inspiration you’ve brought to the world. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to enjoy one last remnant of a great era.