Film noir playlist

[Gillian]

Hi everyone,

Have you ever had this mood when you feel like a lonely detective walking through dark streets in an old "film noir"? Here are some melancholic and relaxing tunes to go with your blue states. Dark jazz playlist.

Spotify : 

 

Youtube : 

 

[Milestones]

You may want to add some tracks from Haden's Quartet West, especially Haunted Heart and Always Say Goodbye.

I'd also recommend Bob Belden's Black Dahlia.

 

 

[Gillian]

Thanks for your recommendations!

 I already put "Always say goodbye".   I could add Haunted heart too. But I try to put no more than 2 times the same artist in the playlist. 

I added Bob Belden's Black Dahlia. Thanks!

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2017 by Gillian

[crisp]

Two tracks that sound noirish to me are Soul Eyes by John Coltrane and Chocolate Shake by Freddie Hubbard. And of course All Blues from Kind of Blue.

[Milestones]

Where is the Payton's version of "Chinatown" to be found?  I really like Terence Blanchard's.

 

 

[kinuta]

I'd add the themes from Taxi Driver and Don't Smoke In Bed from The Two Jakes.

Edited January 17, 2017 by kinuta

[JohnJ]

'The Big Nowhere', 'The Long Goodbye' and other tracks from this CD have a definite film noir feel.

[jlhoots]

Jazz In Polish Cinema: 1958-1967 (4 CD set)

[Gillian]

16 hours ago, Milestones said:

Where is the Payton's version of "Chinatown" to be found?  I really like Terence Blanchard's.

 

 

On his album "Into the blue". Here : http://www.allmusic.com/album/into-the-blue-mw0000783324

 

14 hours ago, kinuta said:

I'd add the themes from Taxi Driver and Don't Smoke In Bed from The Two Jakes.

I already put this one from taxi driver : http://www.allmusic.com/album/into-the-blue-mw0000783324

And for the other one, I'd like to keep the playlist instrumental, but maybe I will put it in my "Femmes fatales & Detectives" playlist. But it's not perfectly the same theme. I drive a hard bargain, I know... The Carly Simon's version is perfect for its atmosphere. 

11 hours ago, JohnJ said:

'The Big Nowhere', 'The Long Goodbye' and other tracks from this CD have a definite film noir feel.

Thank you for this discovery. I feel that I will like the whole album. But as I said, I would like to keep my playlist in an instrumental mood. I will surely use these songs elsewhere.  

 

Edit : I know, my playlist on youtube is not up-to-date compared to the spotify version. Finally, I deleted the few songs with lyrics and I put them in the other playlist I was talking about. I will fix this. 

Edited January 17, 2017 by Gillian

[mikeweil]

This is music pianist Ulrich Gumpert composed for Germany's leading crime tv series, "tatort", taking place in Berlin shortly after the reunion, with a slightly melancholy, partly resignative feel. Excellently played in a postmodern cool style, with Günter Baby Sommer brushing as coolly as it can be.

[Teasing the Korean]

I've always found it fascinating that noir came to be associated with jazz.  All the original films noir had dark, heavy European scores.  I suppose the jazz scores for late-1950s and early-1960s TV detectives must have played a role. 

[Milestones]

Of course Miles did a soundtrack for a French noir.

[Teasing the Korean]

3 hours ago, Milestones said:

Of course Miles did a soundtrack for a French noir.

I think that is included on her playlist. 

[Big Beat Steve]

11 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I've always found it fascinating that noir came to be associated with jazz.  All the original films noir had dark, heavy European scores.  I suppose the jazz scores for late-1950s and early-1960s TV detectives must have played a role. 

That's what I like about those compilations released by Fantastic Voyage that I linked to in the other thread. They pick up music that might be more in tune with the subject and plot of some of these noir movies. A sort of back alley hangout jukebox.

Generally speaking, I've listened in to several of the modernish/recent tunes from the Youtube Playlist. Nice feel and nice late/after hours tunes for various occasions and quite imaginable as film soundtracks but for an "old" (meaning 40s) "film noir" quite a few of them IMHO just don't have the overall instrumental "period" feel. Just too modern and it just doesn't jell the way those 40s/50s tunes (or even the original non-jazz scores) do. But the approach is nice. OTOH, if you want to use the playlist for a modern movie with a "noir" setting then that's an altogether different thing.

BTW, not all the music to those "film noirs" did come along at a balladesque snail's pace. IMO in the long run all those "slows"  strung together sound a bit too much like a sequence of theme music from the opening sequences of (imaginary) movies. So a bit more pronounced change of pace here and there (to account for the evolution of an - imaginary - plot) would not have been out of place.

I know, YMMW (as some are apt to say around here ), but that's my stance on it.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[Gillian]

Hey!

Thanks for this good feedback.

Actually, I'm not a purist. I didn't want to follow the jazz history or stay loyal to a genre in particular. I called my playlist "film noir" but what was really important for me was to create a dark/noir mood ; the one of the lonely detective walking alone through dark streets. I wanted to put some tracks together to inspire a long, lonely and melancholic ride. I agree with you, it's something out of my mind and my imagination (but maybe a collective imagination also) and who has never existed.

I'm making another jazz playlist who will be called "L'heure du crime/the time of the crime" (excuse my French).  Inside I will put other tracks, more frightening, more striking and more dynamic. It will be a different face of the "film noir". As I created "Femmes fatales & Detectives" with warm women voices. What is important for me when I listen to music is to see pictures, scenes and to travel through notes...  I love music when it takes me for a ride. 

If you look to my profile picture, you will see a smoking cat who's called Blacksad and who is a character in a "noir" comic strip. And so, you would say : "oh! that's not correct, in a true film noir, there aren't speaking and smoking animals...". The creators took the genre's codes and did something else with them. 

As Alexandre Dumas once said: "Yes, I'm raping History, but I make so beautiful babies with".  

(Sorry for my poor English...)

 

23 hours ago, Milestones said:

Of course Miles did a soundtrack for a French noir.

Yes "Ascenseur pour échafaud" and I put the "generique" in my playlist. The whole album is very good but I had to choose.   

Edited January 18, 2017 by Gillian

[Teasing the Korean]

2 hours ago, Gillian said:

... I called my playlist "film noir" but what was really important for me was to create a dark/noir mood ; the one of the lonely detective walking alone through dark streets. I wanted to put some tracks together to inspire a long, lonely and melancholic ride. I agree with you, it's something out of my mind and my imagination (but maybe a collective imagination also) and who has never existed.

I did not intend to be critical with my post.  I know and like much of what you included in your playlist.  I just think that the evolution of associating jazz with noir is an interesting one, because only a very few of the late films noir had jazz scores (and some purists do not even consider some of these later titles as film noir).  I read a fascinating piece in which a film professor showed classic films noir to his class.  The films all had orchestral scores by the likes of Miklos Rozsa, Adolph Deutsch, etc. After the films were shown, he asked the class about the music.  Many of the students used words like "jazz" and "saxophone" to describe the music, even though there was no jazz or sax.  

 

[Gillian]

I know it.  You were kind and BBS too. Maybe I seemed offended but I'm not. ( I'm no so fluent in English, sorry). I only wanted to clarify my way of thinking and my approach about this playlist.

The experience you speak about is very interesting, indeed.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Gillian

[Big Beat Steve]

In fact I did like the mood conveyed by most of your tunes I've listened to on Youtube. It's just that even jazz music you imagine with 40s "noir" films often has a somewhat different overall sound to it that is very much linked to that period. But I do see your point that you wanted to do a timeless playlist.

BTW, as for this ...

10 hours ago, Gillian said:

If you look to my profile picture, you will see a smoking cat who's called Blacksad and who is a character in a "noir" comic strip. And so, you would say : "oh! that's not correct, in a true film noir, there aren't speaking and smoking animals...". The creators took the genre's codes and did something else with them. 

  

... I wouldn't be that much of a purist anyway: In fact I found that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" toon movie and its 40s "film noir" setting quite amusing and it could have benefitted from some jazzy "film noir" music scores, including maybe some of yours.

However, a long string of one "générique" after another (which is what your playlist might be interpereted as) lacks a bit of dynamics. Like I said, the pace of such a movie can and does vary enormously and it cannot do any harm reflecting this in the music. 

In fact I did like the mood conveyed by most of your tunes I've listened to on Youtube. It's just that even jazz music you imagine with 40s "noir" films often has a somewhat different overall sound to it that is very much linked to that period. But I do see your point that you wanted to do a timeless playlist.

BTW, as for this ...

10 hours ago, Gillian said:

If you look to my profile picture, you will see a smoking cat who's called Blacksad and who is a character in a "noir" comic strip. And so, you would say : "oh! that's not correct, in a true film noir, there aren't speaking and smoking animals...". The creators took the genre's codes and did something else with them. 

  

... I wouldn't be that much of a purist anyway: In fact I found that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" toon movie and its 40s "film noir" setting quite amusing and it could have benefitted from some jazzy "film noir" music scores, including maybe some of yours.

However, a long string of one "générique" after another (which is what your playlist might be interpereted as) lacks a bit of dynamics. Like I said, the pace of such a movie can and does vary enormously and it cannot do any harm reflecting this in the music. 

[Gillian]

Yes. To be honest I understand the inconvenient of my playlist. It's not a  "long string of one générique after another", but it's the repetition because every music is in the same calm mood with same instruments. But I like it so.

And here are two other playlists more dynamic.

L'heure du crime :

 

Spy game :

[GA Russell]

On 1/18/2017 at 7:06 PM, Teasing the Korean said:

I did not intend to be critical with my post.  I know and like much of what you included in your playlist.  I just think that the evolution of associating jazz with noir is an interesting one, because only a very few of the late films noir had jazz scores (and some purists do not even consider some of these later titles as film noir).  I read a fascinating piece in which a film professor showed classic films noir to his class.  The films all had orchestral scores by the likes of Miklos Rozsa, Adolph Deutsch, etc. After the films were shown, he asked the class about the music.  Many of the students used words like "jazz" and "saxophone" to describe the music, even though there was no jazz or sax.  

 

Here is a new Criterion Channel article about Miklos Rozsa and his film noir music.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7812-the-rule-breaking-maestro-behind-noir-s-trademark-sound

[medjuck]

Does the 1946 Big Sleep count as noir? I love Max Steiner's score.  And what was the first Noir to use actual jazz in the score?  The Man with the Golden Arm?  

[Teasing the Korean]

7 hours ago, medjuck said:

Does the 1946 Big Sleep count as noir? I love Max Steiner's score.  

Yes, Raymond Chandler.

7 hours ago, medjuck said:

And what was the first Noir to use actual jazz in the score?  The Man with the Golden Arm?  

Not sure if Man with the Golden Arm qualifies as noir.  As far as jazz, maybe an example of late noir, like Touch of Evil?

[Bluesnik]

To me the noirest of jazz records is Miles Davis' soundtrack to Ascenseur sur l'echafaud.

[porcy62]

Duke Pearson’s After The Rain is a perfect noir theme. Sorry I am unable to post the link from my cell.

[Teasing the Korean]

Blue Martini by Plas Johnson and John Neel.