Gil Melle TOME VI Reissued in Japan

[JSngry]

...so here's a friendly "heads up" for those so inclined.

http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=yjd...p;ref=index.php

$22.99 ... CD

(€17.35 || £11.64 || ¥2709) (approx.)

CD (Item 446025) Verve (Japan), 1967 -- Condition: New Copy

An amazing little album from the legendary Gil Melle -- a set that's billed as the first album of "electronic jazz", and which features Gil working with his Jazz Electronauts combo! Although Melle's perhaps best known for his baritone sax modern sides of the 50s for Blue Note and Prestige, his influence on this album is possibly a far greater one on modern music -- because Gil creates a sublime blend of jazz roots and more sophisticated instrumentation -- cast out in ways that are complicated, yet never too harsh or overly-academic! The electronic aspects of the record are sometimes sparing -- mixed into the styles of the combo, often through Gil's use of soprano sax -- almost as a magic wand to shape the sound of the rest of the music. Other instruments are electrified too -- a bit of cello, an effects generator, and "electar" -- mixed with more conventional piano, bass, and drums! The album features 4 long tracks -- and titles include "Blue Quasar", "Elgin Marble", and "Man With The Flashlight".

I've long had a scratchy LP of this one, and I think that "historically interesting" is a fair description for it. Definitely not a mindfuck or anything, but not an "inside the box thinking" thing either. Credit is indeed due, if not a particularly big lot of love or affection.

Your mileage will undoubtedly vary (either way), especially at this price, but at least you know it's there if you want it.

[Dmitry]

Definitely not a mindfuck or anything, but not an "inside the box thinking" thing either. Credit is indeed due, if not a particularly big lot of love or affection.

I coined the pharase "mind-fuck". I will forgo the lack of love, but credit would be nice!

Mind-fuck describes a whole lot of music. The clearest examples - some Evan Parker's Po Torch records.

I hope this reissue makes people give up their vinyl, so I can finally buy this somewhat elusive Lp.

I bet this cd will go for bucks when it too disappears. Thanks for the heads-up.

Edited December 26, 2006 by Dmitry

[Stefan Wood]

A funny story: I had this lp, and I sold it on ebay to -- none other than Gil Melle himself! He had been looking for a copy for years, and was happy to have won it. Got positive feedback.

Edited December 26, 2006 by Stefan Wood

[Dmitry]

A funny story: I had this lp, and I sold it on ebay to -- none other than Gil Melle himself! He had been looking for a copy for years, and was happy to have won it. Got positive feedback.

It would've been cool if Gil Melle left you a negative. I'd be a conversation piece. Alas...

I have a particularly unusual Gil Melle LP. Let me go take some pictures. Back in 10.

[Nate Dorward]

That's very funny! Dan Warburton & I put together a large "Reissue This!" feature on out of print records for the Jan. 07 issue of Paris Transatlantic, & this was Derek Taylor's pick. We hadn't known of the fresh Japanese reissue. Oh well... Anyway, in a few days' time you can see Derek's review of the original LP.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

WHtawhathwatwhawtahwatwhawt WHAT in th eholy hell of all things holy is this??!?!? whats the electar. what is the electronic elements of the lp? i dont understand? is there like a crazy bebop syntheszier solo, or whats goin on w/ this?!?!?

[Head Man]

I've always found that a little Gil Melle goes a long way.

[AllenLowe]

when I was working on my 1950s book Melle told me he was the first to use electronics/synthesizers in jazz. He told me about some experimental 1950s concerts he had participated in, and Teo Macero confirmed a lot of what he told me - Macero also mentioned the participation of Varese in some of these, but unfortunately I never had time to follow all this up (and Macero was not real friendly) - it would be interesting to speak with Paul Bley about all this and have a real chronology of the use of electronics in jazz -I also have a Hodeir LP which has an early use of such effects -

[etherbored]

I have a particularly unusual Gil Melle LP. Let me go take some pictures. Back in 10.

my money's on "the andromeda strain" score, housed in a silver fold out hexogonal sleeve...

-e-

[Dmitry]

I have a particularly unusual Gil Melle LP. Let me go take some pictures. Back in 10.

my money's on "the andromeda strain" score, housed in a silver fold out hexogonal sleeve...

-e-

Your money was right. I even have the folding instructions sheet and a hexagonal inner sleeve.

Does anybody want to see pictures?

Edited December 28, 2006 by Dmitry

[etherbored]

of course we do, dmitry - they're as rare as hens teeth! i love this record, and film for that matter.

good on ya,

-e-

[Bluerein]

I'm surprised to see these on the Dusty Groove web site. This one (with some others) are Tower Records Japan exclusive issued cd's. Others in the series are Doldinger, McFarland, Mel Brown, Jimmy Smith).

[sidewinder]

A funny story: I had this lp, and I sold it on ebay to -- none other than Gil Melle himself! He had been looking for a copy for years, and was happy to have won it. Got positive feedback.

Yikes ! Didn't think it was that elusive..

Picked it up for a measlyish 10 Euros in Germany at a store some years ago. Aggie/erik was with me - maybe a lucky mascot?

Edited December 28, 2006 by sidewinder

[Teasing the Korean]

I posted about this record a few months back asking if he'd done anything similar, and the answer was no. (I was hoping I'd run across the non-existent Tomes I-V someday).

I have a room full of albums and CDs and I must say this is one of those records that doesn't quite sound like any other. Of course, it contains elements of ubiquitous stuff from that era, including electronics and modal structures, but the whole created by these elements leaves its own imprint. On me, at least. Most if not all of the electronics involve looped delay effects on the sax (used sparingly and to good effect). To me, the album has an introspective feel, even during the more frenetic passages. It provides great late night listening, especially if listenened to while drinking red wine in a room with mid-century European furniture.

[etherbored]

...which begs the question: what about mid-century modern minimalism?

-e-

[Teasing the Korean]

...which begs the question: what about mid-century modern minimalism?

-e-

I'm all for it. Any suggestions?

[etherbored]

so is dmitry gonna post any pics of this record or what? it's been three days since he said he'd "be back in 10". ah, maybe he meant 10 days...

-e-

Edited December 29, 2006 by etherbored

[Teasing the Korean]

“The Orson Welles of film composition.”

---Television director David Green about Gil Mellé.

The Jazz Genesis

Composer Gilbert John Mellé was born December 31, 1931 and passed away October 28, 2004.

Gil Mellé was a self-taught musician, electronic instruments inventor and engineer, painter and graphic design artist: in short, a demiurge. In 1950, thanks to Alfred Lion, he started his career at Blue Note Records as a baritone saxophonist, band leader (Gil Mellé Quartet), arranger for the jazz scene and also fashioned the album covers for other jazz artists (Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins): http://www.gilmelle.com/albumcovers.htm . He studied music theory with modernist composer Edgar Varèse (1883-1965) -- known for blending acoustics with mechanical sounds by using tapes: see the musique concrète piece "Déserts" (1954) and the Organized Sound opus "Poème électronique" (1958) -- and from 1959, Mellé built his own instruments from scratch. In the mid-1950's, he left Blue Note and signed with Prestige. In 1968, he achieved the first electronic jazz album for Verve Records under the name Gil Mellé and the Electronauts -- see the veiled reference to Jason and the Argonauts traveling through uncharted waters -- : “Tome VI” (the name of the instrument that he designed from a customized soprano saxophone with circuits; Tome standed for Transistorized oscillator modulator envelop:

http://www.gilmelle.com/instruments/tomev1.htm

Almost Ten Years inside the Universal Factory

Still in '68, producer Jack Laird gave Mellé his first job at Universal Studios: “Perilous Voyage”, a two-hours made-for-television movie accompanied with a strong electro-acoustic composition which was broadcast in 1976 due to its violence. The early 1970’s allowed Mellé to be at his creative peak and conceived the first electronically-generated score -- actually, it was electronics combined with musique concrète -- for Robert Wise’s science-fiction film “The Andromeda Strain” by using many of his devices, especially the drum machine called Percussotron III. In the line of this feature film music, TV producer Jack Laird hired again Mellé to write the spooky main themes (performed with the Percussotron III, the Elec-Tar and the Doomsday Machine) for the first two seasons and some season 2 scores (“House--with Ghost”, “Dr. Stringfellow’s Rejuvenator”, “Hell’s Bells”, and some experimental library music) of the horror anthology “Rod Serling’s Night Gallery”. The third great achievement came from a young journeyman director named Steven Spielberg who had Mellé to score episodes for the 1971 short-lived series “The Psychiatrist”, starring Roy Thinnes -- the main theme consisted of an exquisite brief, suave and warm motif -- ; later, in 1973, Spielberg used him again for a television movie thriller with the IMF couple Martin Landau (as TV reporter Paul Savage)/Barbara Bain (as Savage's TV producer Gail Abbott): “Savage”.

a. The Television Collaborators

Mellé worked a lot for people as writer-producer-director Jerrold Freedman (see “The Psychiatrist”, "Rod Serling's Night Gallery", “The Chill Factor" aka "A Cold Night's Death”, “The Last Angry Man”, “Borderline”) and writer-producers Richard Levinson/Willian Link (see “My Sweet Charlie”, "Columbo", "That Certain Summer", “The Judge and Jake Wyler”, “Tenafly”, “Partners in Crime”, "Savage", "A Cry for Help").

b. "One more thing…"

During the first (and, perhaps, single best) season (1971-1972) of the police show “Columbo” (starring Peter Falk) whose theme was created by composer Billy Goldenberg, Gil Mellé developed an alternate jazzy Columbo main theme and left three beautiful and sensitive scores: “Death Lends a Hand” (the most ambitious of the bunch owing to the avant garde electronic and refined melancolic jazz bent), “Dead Weight”, “Short Fuse” (including acid funk rock-oriented shades). Meanwhile, Mellé scored two downbeat television movies related to the NASA: “The Astronaut” (1972) -- forestalling the sham plot from “Capricorn One” -- , with Monte Markham and Richard Anderson (future Oscar Goldman) and, above all, “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1973), starring Lee Majors, Martin Balsam and Darren McGavin -- Mellé perfectly recaptured the desperation of disabled pilot Steve Austin owing to his integration of the sad jazz melodies with funky outbursts into agonizing electronic vibrations. In 1973, Mellé took care of a memorable adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel for the four hours television mini series: “Frankenstein: The True Story”, which was a marvelous symphonic score. For the anecdote, both “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “Frankenstein” shared the theme of the man-made monster which took its roots from the myth of Prometheus.

c. “Don’t look now, baby, but Kolchak’s coming back in style.”

Item: after two television movies (1972-1973) centered around the character of monsters hunter reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) for ABC and whose music was by Robert Cobert -- producer Dan Curtis’ personal composer -- , Universal television decided to launch a regular series and asked Mellé to write the main theme and the first four jazz-macabre scores before leaving owing to artistical misunderstandings of the show's tone: “The Ripper” (including acid rock-oriented shades and a hectic climax), “The Zombie” (with Haitian-flavored colors featuring an alternate Kolchak theme with a dominant psychedelic electric guitar: over-used during the show), “They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be…” (the most esoteric of the four due to its alien contact nature), “The Vampire” (slightly baroque). Actually, his Kolchak theme was derived from a previous 1974 unsold pilot created by Gene Roddenberry: “The Questor Tapes”. Finally, as a John Williams replacement, he achieved a last memorable score for Universal, the 1977 horror film “The Sentinel” which included voices and eighty classical musicians.

More Music, More Studios

For other Studios, Mellé composed the 1971 Neo Noir “The Organization” (a jazz-oriented MGM score), two science-fiction films for Warner Bros.: the 1975 anticipation film that ended up Yul Brunner’s trilogy: “The Ultimate Warrior” (with a Kolchak musical leaning) and the 1977 jazz-fusion “Starship Invasions”; the 1976 biological horror film “Embryo”, starring Rock Hudson (Plura Service Company) and its crossover bent (some chamber music combined with electronics). Because of director Robert Wise and Paramount Pictures and despite the demand of Gene Roddenberry, Mellé failed to score "Star Trek: The Motion Picture": a major commission which could have boosted his career.

At The End of the Road…

Among other things, at the start of the 1980’s, he scored again a film with Lee Majors: the car race/anticipation film “The Last Chase” (his 80's masterpiece featuring some powerful lyrical and funky motifs), a low-grade "Jaws"-like horror film entitled "Blood Beach" for writer-director Jeffrey Bloom -- as well as TV movies: "Jealousy" and "Starcrossed" -- , and collaborated with television director David Greene: the Cold War drama with David Soul “World War III” (a grim minimalistic electronic John Carpenter-like score which was humanized by touches of acoustics: piano, cymbalum, guitar), “Sweet Revenge” and “Fatal Vision”.

Gil Mellé in Store or Gil Mellé CD representation?

Unfortunately, Gil Mellé is mostly and vaguely remembered as a jazz musician -- under the name Gil Mellé Quartet -- because only a selection of off-centered hard bop jazz albums ("Patterns in Jazz" at Blue Note, "Gil's Guests" and "Primitive Modern/Quadrama" at Prestige but re-released thanks to Original Jazz Classics) are available on CD. The internet also labels and files him in the jazz genre. Blue Note records seems to have erased his memory because there're no reissues on CD format -- there used to be a cool "Complete Blue Note 50's Sessions" in 1998 but now gone! Needless to deal with his filmography on CD: the desert of the Sahara. Does Mellé sink into oblivion? That also raises the question: when will Mellé be recognized as a pioneer of electronics and soundtrack? There is a huge educational task to fulfil (explaining his musical philosophy and the detail of his sounds by describing his home-made instruments and his audio collages) in order to spread his work. How does the young generation be in touch with Mellé's music? The solution lies in a massive soundtrack CD releases of his seminal film music (“The Andromeda Strain”, "The Organization", "The Ultimate Warrior", "The Sentinel") and his serious and 'popular' input on Universal television (Steven Spielberg's two titles "The Psychiatrist/Savage", “Rod Serling’s Night Gallery”, “Columbo”, "Frankenstein: The True Story", “The Six Million Dollar Man”, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”). But, who can do this assignment, who will be the champion and, how will this person operate? Until then, keep the hope…

Notes:

Film music critic and Gil Mellé expert James Phillips provides all the informations concerning the articles about Gil Mellé and books mentioning Gil Mellé. Writer James Phillips is also a Lalo Schifrin, Billy Goldenberg and Richard Rodney Bennett expert.

Order and read the booklet of "The Prisoner of Zenda" (Music Composed by Alfred Newman) written by James Phillips:

http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=3805

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Articles about Gil Mellé

Gil Mellé website

http://www.gilmelle.com

webmaster@gilmelle.com

“Gil Mellé: Pioneer, Innovator, Maverick”

by Jon Burlingame

in “The Cue Sheet”, n° 1, January 2005, pp. 3-16

http://www.filmmusicsociety.org

"Gil Mellé 1931 -- 2004"

by Scott Bettencourt

in "Film Score Friday", 11/5/04

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/articles/2...core_Friday.asp

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com

"Music la Mellé "

by Randall D. Larson

in "Cinescape", 11/11/04

http://www.mania.com/42953.html

"Music la Mellé, Part 2"

by Randall D. Larson

in "Cinescape", 11/18/04

http://www.mania.com/43016.html

"Baritone saxophonist, composer, inventor"

by Todd S. Jenkins from the Jazz Journalist Association

in "The Last Post", 2004

http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=1099159235

"Gil Mellé"

by Graham S. Watt

in "Legend - the Official Goldsmith Film Music Society Journal", n° 26, September 1998, pp. 8-11

"Primitive Modern"

by Matt P.

In "Ground and Sky – Music Review", 04/20/05

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/display.php?rev=gm-pm

Music Resources

Original Jazz Classics

http://concordmusicgroup.com/labels/?label...l+Jazz+Classics

Edgar Varèse, the Father of Electronic Music

http://csunix1.lvc.edu/~snyder/em/varese.html

Books

"TV's Biggest Hits: The History of Television Themes from 'Dragnet' to 'Friends' "

by Jon Burlingame

(Schirmer Books, 1996, 342 pages, ISBN 0-02-870324-3)

“Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour”

by Scott Skelton and Jim Benson

(Syracuse University Press, 1999, 398 pages, ISBN 0-8156-0535-8)

http://www.nightgallery.net/

"The Night Stalker Companion: A 25th Anniversary Tribute"

by Mark Dawidziak

(Pomegranate Press Ltd, 1997, 208 pages, ISBN 0-938817-44-2)

[MomsMobley]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1rLbO6RcCg

[Daniel A]

so is dmitry gonna post any pics of this record or what? it's been three days since he said he'd "be back in 10". ah, maybe he meant 10 days...

-e-

Unless his blood turned into salt I'm sure he'll be back in 2016. Watched the film at the age of 10 on TV without parental guidance and it made a lasting impression! However, the score - which is fantastic - did not register with me until second viewing 20 years later. I'm sure there'll be a third time one of these days.