“[A]s we hit the Plains I got so excited,” recollected composer and pianist Jerome Moross. It was 1936 and, at George Gershwin’s invitation, he was en route to Los Angeles to participate in the West Coast premiere of “Porgy Bess.” When he stepped off the bus in Albuquerque, it changed him forever. “…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.”
He would recall this powerful communion with the American West decades later when he came to write his best-known music, the Academy Award-nominated score for “The Big Country” (1958). Indeed, the “western” sound would color many of his future film and concert works, with the energetic syncopations of his native New York City supporting an easy lyrical gift that could easily pass for genuine American folk music.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll saddle up for selections from four of Moross’ big screen westerns. The success of “The Big Country” put Moross much in demand as Hollywood’s troubadour of the great outdoors. The trail was still fresh when he was enlisted for “The Proud Rebel” (1958). The film starred Alan Ladd, as a Civil War veteran with a troubled past, and the late Olivia De Havilland, as the ranch owner who takes responsibility for him. Tensions mount as a corrupt landowner and his sons attempt to drive the woman off her ranch.
While “The Proud Rebel” tapped into predictable western archetypes, “The Valley of Gwangi” (1969) exploded all expectations. A cross-genre western that might best be described as “Annie Get Your Gun” meets “King Kong,” the film’s premise hinges on the discovery by an enterprising band of cowboys of an Allosaurus in a lost valley in Mexico, which of course they press into service at their Wild West show. What could possibly go wrong? In a time before starships and superheroes dominated the cinematic landscape, “Gwangi” must have been very heady stuff for six-year old boys everywhere.
The project was conceived decades earlier by Willis O’Brien, the special effects legend who created Kong. But it was left to his protégé, the great Ray Harryhausen, to bring the film to fruition. The result, while never scaling the operatic heights of “Kong,” is a fascinating mélange, a movie that is part cowboy, part creature-runs-amok.
For those of a certain age, one of Moross’ most recognizable melodies must surely be the theme to the television series “Wagon Train.” Unfortunately, that music was soon discovered to bear a striking resemblance to a secondary theme in “The Jayhawkers” (1959). Fortunately for Moross, competing studios were willing to look the other way. “The Jayhawkers,” which starred Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker, is set in the days of Bleeding Kansas.
We are borne west on music of great vitality. Breathe the open air with Jerome Moross, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
