Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Jerome Moross

Classic Movie Scores & Film Composers on KWAX

Time was when a good film score was expected to be both melodic and memorable. This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” with the Academy Awards coming up, we’ll take a nostalgic look back to some indelible themes from classic movies of years past.

I don’t want to lay it all out in my Facebook teaser – in fact, during the course of the show, I won’t even identify the pieces until after each one is played, so that you can guess along at home – but trust that you’ll likely recognize most of them, all Best Original Score winners or nominees from highly-decorated films.

Be there at the start for a 90-second montage of introductory fanfares from the great studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The fun begins this morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST!

Then later today, on “The Lost Chord,” it’s another in a periodic series of shows built around concert works by composers better known for their work in film.

This time, we’ll have a concerto for violin, cello and orchestra by James Horner (“Field of Dreams,” “Braveheart,” “Titanic”) and a concerto for flute and strings by Jerome Moross (“The Big Country,” “The Cardinal,” “The Valley of Gwangi”). I hope you’ll join me for “Typcast V” – the fifth in the series – on an all-new “The Lost Chord.”

Both shows are now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the university of Oregon!

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)

PHOTO: Oscar-winner John Williams (right), with presenters Henry Mancini and Olivia Newton-John, in 1978

March 9, 2024
Big Western Movie Music on Picture Perfect Radio

Having had the seat of my radio shows shifted to the West Coast, I can assure you it is a big country. Thankfully, the distance is handily overcome through the miracle of online streaming, the transcontinental railroad of the digital age.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll hit the sundrenched plains and wide-open spaces, with music from outsized movies set in the American West. Live large with selections from “The Big Country” (Jerome Moross), “The Big Sky” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Big Jake” (Elmer Bernstein), and “Silverado” (Bruce Broughton).

With independence thrust upon me, my declaration is that it’s all BIG, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

See below for streaming information.

Keep in mind, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

June 30, 2023
Wild Movie Music Picture Perfect on WWFM

This week on “Picture Perfect,” March goes out like a lion… and a bear… and a baby elephant… and the tiger Shere Khan!

We’ll hear selections from John Barry’s music for “Born Free” (1966), based on Joy Adamson’s memoir about the raising of Elsa, an orphaned lion cub who grows to adulthood and is eventually released into the Kenyan wilderness. The music proved a double Academy Award winner for Barry, who was recognized for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.

Jerome Moross, best known for his music to “The Big Country,” had such a strong personality that his immediately recognizable sound extended even to his work on the National Geographic special, “Grizzly!” (1967), a documentary about a pair of ecologists studying North American bears. “Grizzly!” sports an energetic Americana score that is very much cut from the same cloth.

The Korda Brothers’ adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” (1942) stars the charismatic Indian actor Sabu, as Mowgli, raised by wolves, who yearns to reconnect with his human roots. (For the record, Kipling pronounced “Mowgli” so that the first syllable rhymes with “cow.”) Miklós Rózsa wrote the enchanting score.

And we can’t get through the hour without hearing Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk,” from “Hatari!” (1962). So many exclamation points in these wilderness titles! The film was directed by Howard Hawks and starred John Wayne. In case you’re wondering, “Hatari!” is Swahili for “Danger!”

Take a walk on the wild side, with a spring in your step, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

March 25, 2023
Jerome Moross Frankie and Johnny Rediscovered

Wow! Here’s a neat discovery. An actual performance of Jerome Moross’ ballet, “Frankie and Johnny.”

You probably know the bluesy song, inspired by one or more sensational crimes of passion, in which a betrayed woman shoots her lover. (“He was her man, but he done her wrong.”) There are now so many variants that it’s taken on the quality of a folk song. Elvis sang it. Johnny Cash sang it. It’s been covered by innumerable jazz artists.

Moross uses it as a kind of Greek chorus (sung by a trio Salvation Army sisters) in his brash and jazzy dance piece, which created a sensation at its premiere in 1938. The work predated Leonard Bernstein’s “Fancy Free” by six years and sent the censors into a moral panic.

Though Moross was adept at writing music in many forms – including concert pieces (a symphony for Beecham), musical theater (the cult classic “The Golden Apple,” including the evergreen “Lazy Afternoon”), and opera (“Sorry, Wrong Number”) – he is best known for his classic film scores. He spent much of his career ping-ponging back and forth between New York and Hollywood.

When “Porgy and Bess” concluded its New York run in 1935, George Gershwin invited Moross to join the show, on tour, as a pianist. It was while on a bus trip to Los Angeles to participate in “Porgy’s” west coast premiere that the 23 year-old made a stop in Albuquerque.

“[A]s we hit the Plains I got so excited,” Moross recollected. “. . . [T]he next day I got to the edge of town and then walked out onto the flat land with a marvelous feeling of being alone in the vastness, with the mountains cutting off the horizon. The whole thing was just too much for me . . . it was marvelous, and I just fell in love with it.”

The experience served him well. Moross drew on the memory of that trip in the writing of some of his most famous music, the Academy Award-nominated score for “The Big Country,” with its sense of wide-open excitement in the face of sweeping vistas. Western high-spirits and American jazz color most of Moross’ output.

Happy birthday, Jerome Moross. You tackled everything with exuberance and vitality.

One of the most thrilling credits sequences of all time?

Surely one of the greatest film scores ever written

Rare historic radio broadcast of the Symphony No. 1, with Moross himself at the piano

“Lazy Afternoon” from “The Golden Apple,” sung by Kaye Ballard from the 1954 original cast recording

Theme to “Wagon Train”

Sonata in G major for Piano Duet and String Quartet

August 1, 2022
Western Film Music on Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” hit the sundrenched plains and wide-open spaces, with music from outsized movies set in the American West.

We’ll be living large with selections from “The Big Country” (Jerome Moross), “The Big Sky” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Big Jake” (Elmer Bernstein), and “Silverado” (Bruce Broughton).

It’s all BIG, on “Picture Perfect,” this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Big thanks to everyone who contributed to our recent end-of-the-fiscal-year fundraiser. I am happy to report that we exceeded our goal of $75,000. Here’s looking forward to another year of great music on the radio. Thank you, listener-members, for stepping up and aiming high!

July 3, 2021

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