13 black artists' covers of white artists' music that surpass the originals (to close out Black History Month)

Quincy Jones and Sarah Vaughan (Photo source: Jazzinphoto)

The following list was inspired by both Harry Allen the Media Assassin's irritated response to the latest of Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake's "History of Rap" medleys during the first week of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon...

... and Andrew Ti's similar response to the "History of Rap" medleys.

1. Sarah Vaughan, "Peter Gunn" (both Vaughan's 1965 version and the dope Max Sedgley remix)
"According to the liner notes, we can thank Quincy Jones for the recording. Hank Mancini says he never thought the song would work with lyrics, but Jones kept pestering him to try it. So, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote some lyrics and Bill Holman arranged the song. Vaughan provided the fireworks. Vaughan infuses the song with the same kind of slinkiness found on Peggy Lee's 'Fever,' but Vaughan manages to sound sultry at a much faster tempo."--Cahl's Juke Joint, 2008

2. The Skatalites, "Guns of Navarone"
"The song itself is an adaptation of the theme song to the 1961 film of the same name, and there are in fact two different versions of The Skatalites interpretation. With one clocking in at more than six minutes, it is the shorter, two and a half minute version that exemplifies everything that makes ska so fantastic."--The Daily Guru, 2010

3. Earth, Wind & Fire, "Got to Get You Into My Life"
"In 1978, Earth Wind & Fire appeared in another motion picture, the Beatles movie tribute Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the film, the band played themselves, performing 'Got To Get You Into My Life' at a concert hall. The film itself was a commercial bomb... Yet despite musical performances on the soundtrack from Aerosmith, Peter Frampton, the Bee Gees and Alice Cooper, Earth Wind & Fire's remake of the Beatles classic was the highest charting pop single from the soundtrack. 'Once more, we had a movie that flopped on us,' said Maurice White, 'but we had a #1 hit out of it... We actually recorded our parts on the set.'"--Goldmine magazine's profile of Earth, Wind & Fire, 1997

"Robert Stigwood called us and asked if we wanted to be in a movie... We said okay, it could be interesting. At that particular time, you didn't see a lot of musical blacks in movies--there was The Wiz, but that was a horrible movie. We had three songs to choose from--'Got To Get You Into My Life' and two ballads. We just did the song Chicago-style. Some people thought George Martin produced the song, but Maurice produced it."--Verdine White, Goldmine, 1997

4. Stevie Wonder, "We Can Work It Out"
"... it's worth mentioning that Stevie's soulful reworking of the original--no doubt powerful in its own glory--makes it sound more searing; indeed, converting it into a freedom song/black power amalgamation. In short, Stevie Wonder's version of 'We Can Work It Out' is nothing short of a magnificent transformation. And to a certain degree, you could say that Stevie Wonder 'flipped' the Beatles original. Does that mean that Stevie Wonder's version of 'We Can Work It' is better than the original? I'm not sure if that's a question worth entertaining."--Amir Said, 2010

Uh, it's a question I'm willing to tackle: hell yes, Wonder's version trounces the original.

Get to know "The Big Score" by Richard Sala

At their house, my parents want me to get rid of stuff I've left behind there and don't use anymore, like stacks of manila folders I stored inside their house's overhead cabinets. The folders contain press kits for albums like DJ Kool's Let Me Clear My Throat CD and movies like The Big Lebowski; old scripts of segment intros I typed up for the terrestrial radio version of AFOS; and newspaper/magazine article cutouts I enjoyed reading and had saved so that I could read them again someday (whatup, early 2000s Mercury News interview with De La Soul about the Art Official Intelligence "trilogy") or use one of them as the basis for some script for either TV, a film or a comic. For example, there was a folder from the early 2000s that I labeled "Jigsaw." It consisted of articles about crime in San Francisco I collected and saved as research for a San Francisco crime show idea I wanted to call Jigsaw (for a while, I wanted to create the Sucka Free equivalent of Homicide: Life on the Street and populate the cast with a few Asian American detectives).

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was only able to empty one cabinet by throwing away a whole bunch of cutouts I don't need to save anymore--like the Jigsaw clippings (yeah, I don't think that show's ever going to get made). But there are some items from the folders in that cabinet that I don't want to dunk into the basura, so I've taken them along with me. They include a few issues of Scud: The Disposable Assassin I've held onto since college--one of those issues was written by a pre-Channel 101/Community Dan Harmon!--and a comic strip I snipped from a 1994 issue of Pulse! magazine.

Pulse! was a music review magazine the now-defunct Tower Records published and handed out for free in its stores. The final page of each Pulse! issue always featured a music-related comic strip. My favorite of those Pulse! strips is "The Big Score" by cartoonist Richard Sala, whose serialized 1991 "Invisible Hands" mystery shorts during Liquid Television were a favorite of many fans of the MTV animation anthology show. (Sala's horror comics are full of old-fashioned movie monsters and hot heroines. Cartoon Network is too dunderheaded to allow it, but I'd rather see the network's Adult Swim/Williams Street department produce a new Scooby-Doo animated series with character designs by either Sala or someone equally offbeat and not-so-kid-friendly instead of CN and Warner Bros. Animation rehashing the same old Scoob for kids.) "The Big Score" takes place in a noirish nightclub and cleverly replaces all the dialogue with names of classic crime movie scores that Sala thinks would be appropriate for each moment.

"At the time I was listening to a lot of movie soundtracks, particularly the cool, atmospheric soundtracks of thrillers and spy movies, which I found to be inspiring background music to play while I wrote," said Sala in a 2010 blog post about "The Big Score." I don't have a Mac-compatible scanner with me to digitally preserve "The Big Score," so good thing Sala--whose latest work is the digital-only Fantagraphics graphic novel Violenzia--scanned his own 1994 strip and posted it on his blog.

(Photo source: Richard Sala)

Thanks to YouTube and Spotify, I can now take that 1994 strip and post it alongside the exact same audio Sala envisioned when he drew it. Vertigo and Our Man Flint are the only film titles from "The Big Score" that contain themes that are currently in rotation on AFOS. I've streamed cues from Touch of Evil, The Ipcress File, Experiment in Terror, Arabesque and Psycho on AFOS before, and after first catching Kiss Me Deadly on TCM, it's hard to forget that batshit crazy Robert Aldrich flick, but I'm not familiar with the other movies Sala references in "The Big Score." I actually still haven't seen The Third Man. There are a couple of Ida Lupino flicks mentioned in there that I need to check out after hearing Greg Proops devote an entire segment to her work during The Smartest Man in the World.

Panel 1: Touch of Evil

Panel 2: The Ipcress File; The Third Man; Experiment in Terror; On Dangerous Ground

Close to "Rome"

(Photo source: Poetic and Chic)

"Rome, Italian Style," which I named after one of my favorite SCTV sketches, is an hour-long block I launched on A Fistful of Soundtracks last summer as a way to give some airplay to the badass and lush Rome album, the '60s Italian film music-inspired project produced by superduperproducer Danger Mouse and Magic City composer Daniele Luppi and featuring Jack White and Norah Jones on vocals. Besides the Rome tracks, the 11am block (which airs every weekday except Friday) also features '60s and '70s film and TV theme covers and tracks from outside the film and TV music world that were modeled after '60s and '70s film and TV scores.

The following tunes that I found on Spotify aren't currently part of the "Rome, Italian Style" playlist, but they ought to be.

Jones' new breakup-themed album Little Broken Hearts, which was produced by Danger Mouse, feels like a companion piece to Rome.

Both the Blue Harlem and Lena Horne tracks are covers of "Meglio Stasera" from the first Pink Panther. For some reason, the shots of Selina Kyle atop the Batpod in The Dark Knight Rises made me flash back to the first few seconds of this:

"Rome, Italian Style" Track of the Day: The Wondermints, "The Party"

Song: "The Party" by the L.A. power pop band The Wondermints
Released: 1996
Why's it part of the "Rome, Italian Style" playlist?: For the Henry Mancini tribute album Shots in the Dark, which is best known for featuring a Scream-era Rose McGowan on its artwork, The Wondermints covered Mancini's psychedelia-lite main theme from The Party, the mostly improvised 1968 Blake Edwards comedy that thumbs its nose at Hollywood douches and SoCal stuffed shirts. (They didn't call anyone "douches" back then, so what did they say instead? "Hey, don't be such an un-groovy female sanitary napkin!"?)

(Photo source: DVD Beaver)

Although I really like the brilliantly directed silent movie-style slapstick in The Party, especially any set piece involving the practically mute waiter who gets himself plastered (Steve Franken, cousin of Sen. Al Franken), I can't get past Peter Sellers' aggravating brownface act (even though his docile Indian outsider character was written to be one of the few sympathetic and likable people in the movie, it's still brownface). The late Edwards was full of odd contradictions as a filmmaker. For instance, he'll emasculate Asians in one movie (either in Breakfast at Tiffany's or, to a lesser extent, in The Party) but then give an Asian American a pretty progressive role for its time in another (James Hong's dramatic role as a surgeon wrongly accused of murder in 1972's The Carey Treatment, a much-maligned but interesting and Roy Budd-scored whodunit that Edwards disowned after directing it for MGM).

(Photo source: Nanó Wallenius)

The 1996 Shots in the Dark take on "The Party," which is slightly updated with '90s production trickery and opens with a clip of the film's most quoted line, is a faithful rendition of one of Mancini's most underappreciated themes. In '96, Brian Wilson's future backing band was about to get some recognition the following year for its Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery song "Austin Powers."

All the other "Rome, Italian Style" Tracks of the Day from this week:
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, "Her Hollow Ways"
Parodi/Fair, "James Bond Theme (GoldenEye Trailer Version)"
Goldfrapp, "Lovely Head"
The John Gregory Orchestra, "The Avengers"

This is the final "'Rome, Italian Style' Track of the Day" post. The "Rome, Italian Style" block on A Fistful of Soundtracks airs Mondays through Thursdays from 11am to noon.

Starting next Monday, May 23: "Rome, Italian Style," a new block on A Fistful of Soundtracks

Rome, the intriguing Danger Mouse/Daniele Luppi/Jack White/Norah Jones tribute to '60s and '70s Italian film music that Capitol released this week, has inspired me to start a new hour-long block on A Fistful of Soundtracks. "Rome, Italian Style" will stream both film score-inspired tracks like Luppi's tunes from Rome and An Italian Story and covers of '60s and '70s film and TV themes. The mission statement of the block is basically "how musicians outside the film and TV music world interpret film and TV music."

"Rome, Italian Style" airs Mondays through Thursdays at 11am.

Here's one of the covers that will be part of the "Rome, Italian Style" playlist. It's "La Pantera Mambo," a 2004 cover of the Pink Panther theme by the Colombian band La-33:

Five killer samples that most people didn't know originated from film score music

Cee-Lo recently dropped his new single "Fuck You" on the Internet, and the delightfully profane break-up anthem, which originated from a song idea that Bruno Mars and Philip Lawrence of "Nothin' on You" fame pitched to Cee-Lo, has become a viral sensation. Before "Fuck You" (which has spawned a lame radio edit called "Forget You"), the Gnarls Barkley singer and former Goodie Mob MC's most popular track was his 2006 Gnarls hit "Crazy." Even though I got sick of hearing "Crazy" all over the place back in '06, I loved how Danger Mouse, the beatmaker half of Gnarls, sampled an obscure spaghetti western score during "Crazy." Not many people knew that the catchy bass line and strings were copped from Gianfranco Reverberi's "Nel Cimitero di Tucson," a score cue from 1968's Preparati la bara!, a.k.a. Viva Django. Here are five other killer samples that many listeners--including myself in some instances--didn't know came from film score music.

1. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind" drum break, 2009 (from Isaac Hayes' "Breakthrough" from Truck Turner, 1974)
The opening drum solo in "Breakthrough" is the Betty White of drum breaks: old and ubiquitous but reliable and entertaining every time. H.O.V.A.'s biggest hit of his career is the latest of many joints to sample "Breakthrough," an instrumental you can now check out during the daily "Assorted Fistful" block on A Fistful of Soundtracks.

2. Sneaker Pimps' "6 Underground" harp melody, 1996 (from John Barry's "Golden Girl" from Goldfinger, 1964) [WhoSampled comparison page]
If you were in college in the late '90s, you probably made out to "6 Underground." Did you know you were actually making out to the music from the dead-naked-chick-covered-in-gold-paint scene from Goldfinger?

3. Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water" wordless melody, 1996 (from Ennio Morricone's "Sospesi Nel Cielo" from Malamondo, 1964) [WhoSampled comparison page]
One of my favorite videos from the '90s is the Michel Gondry-directed video for "Sugar Water" (a.k.a. the song that soundtracked Buffy's sexy dance with Xander during her "Joan Collins 'tude" phase). My recent discovery that the duo sampled Morricone's Malamondo score made me love "Sugar Water" even more.

4. Ghostface Killah's "Alex (Stolen Script)" bass line and strings, 2006 (from Henry Mancini's Thief Who Came to Dinner theme, 1973) [WhoSampled comparison page]
MF Doom's sense of humor really comes through in his choice of the theme from the Ryan O'Neal/Jacqueline Bisset caper movie The Thief Who Came to Dinner (when's Warner Archives going to release that flick?) for Ghostface's How to Make It in America-esque tale of a Hollywood thief who comes to dinner--or to be more exact, a P.F. Chang's pitch meeting with the song's title hustler, who's pitching to him the script for Jamie Foxx's Ray biopic--and proceeds to steal Alex's copy of the Ray script. As music critic Jeff Weiss once wrote about this Ghostface chune, "Aspiring MC's should study this like the Rosetta Stone."

5. Wu-Tang Clan's "Rushing Elephants" brass riffs, 2007 (from Morricone's "Marche en La" from Espion, lève-toi, 1982) [WhoSampled comparison page]
My favorite film composer and my favorite experts on martial arts cinema "unite."

Shows I Miss: Phil Ramone's The Score

I usually don't enjoy listening to musicians talk in interviews because most of the ones whom I've heard gab at length about themselves have tended to be inarticulate or boring (no wonder they're more at ease when they express themselves through their music), but film composers like Danny Elfman and Quincy Jones are an exception. They're always great interviewees, which is why another show I miss seeing on the air is The Score, an insightful interview series about both film scoring and pop song soundtracks that esteemed record producer Phil Ramone (Frank Sinatra's Duets, Michael Sembello's "Maniac" from Flashdance) hosted and produced for the now-defunct Trio cable channel in 2002.

In front of a studio audience, Ramone interviewed directors like Rob Reiner and Taylor Hackford together with composers they've frequently collaborated with (Marc Shaiman in Reiner's case, James Newton Howard in Hackford's case). The directors and composers discussed the craft of film music and played on piano a few themes from their scores. Other guests on The Score included Elfman, Lalo Schifrin, Christopher Young, Dave Grusin, the late Sydney Pollack, Matthew Sweet, Darius Rucker and singer Monica Mancini, who performed a few of her late father Henry's movie theme songs.

Not much of The Score has been archived online, other than a lengthy promo for the show on Ramone's site and a CNN transcript of Ramone talking briefly about The Score with then-CNN anchor Kate Snow. No clips of The Score have been posted on YouTube. Ovation TV currently airs reruns of a similar show about film music, the British-made 2001 documentary series Music Behind the Scenes, but The Score was a little less stuffy about its subject, and it benefited from the involvement of film/TV music historian and frequent soundtrack album liner notes writer Jon Burlingame, who wrote incredible booklets for Film Score Monthly's Man from U.N.C.L.E. score CDs.

Because The Ref is my favorite Christmas movie, The Score was also noteworthy (no pun intended) for featuring a Ref mini-reunion between Kevin Spacey, who discussed his favorite scores, and his Ref director Ted Demme, who made what ended up being one of his final public appearances on Ramone's show before his death.

The Score was basically Inside the Actors Studio for film composers, but without the pretentiousness or the creepy, funereal Angelo Badalamenti theme music. Speaking of Badalamenti, he would have been a great guest on Ramone's show because I bet he's full of colorful anecdotes about working with a guy who defines normal, David Lynch.

AFOS: "The Inmates Are Taking Over the Asylum" playlist

Airing this week on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel is the 2008 Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "The Inmates Are Taking Over the Asylum" (WEB96), in which I compiled my favorite selections from scores to films that were distributed by United Artists, which turns 90 years old this May.

1. Elmer Bernstein, "The Street (Main Title)" (from Sweet Smell of Success), Crime Jazz: Music in the First Degree, Rhino
2. Adolph Deutsch, "Main Title - Theme from The Apartment," The Apartment, United Artists
3. Elmer Bernstein, "Main Title and Calvera," The Magnificent Seven, Rykodisc
4. Elmer Bernstein, "Main Title," The Great Escape: The Deluxe Edition, Varèse Sarabande
5. The London Studio Symphony Orchestra, "Theme from The Fugitive," The Fugitive, Silva Screen
6. John Barry, "Opening Titles," From Russia with Love, EMI
7. Henry Mancini, "The Pink Panther Theme," The Pink Panther, RCA
8. Ennio Morricone, "L'Estasi Dell'Oro," Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo, GDM
9. Quincy Jones, "Shag Bag, Hounds & Harvey" (from In the Heat of the Night), In the Heat of the Night/They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!, Rykodisc
10. Henry Mancini featuring the Party Poops, "The Party (vocal)," The Party, RCA
11. John Barry, "Midnight Cowboy," Midnight Cowboy, EMI-Manhattan
12. Al Kooper, "Love Theme," The Landlord, United Artists
13. Bobby Womack & Peace, "Across 110th Street," Across 110th Street, Rykodisc
14. Jack Sheldon, "The Long Goodbye," Fitzwilly/The Long Goodbye, Varèse Sarabande
15. David Shire, "End Title," The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Retrograde
16. Bill Conti, "The Final Bell," Rocky, EMI-Manhattan
17. The Gap Band, "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Arista
18. Mellow, "Seek You," CQ, Emperor Norton

Repeats of A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series air Monday night at midnight, Tuesday and Thursday at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm, Wednesday night at midnight, and Saturday and Sunday at 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.

AFOS: "Bottomless Party" playlist

Airing this week on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel is the 2008 Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "Bottomless Party" (WEB95), in which I compiled my favorite selections from comedic film and TV scores. jim.aquino.com is no longer online, as are all the pre-WEB97 playlists I posted on that site, so I'm reposting each playlist as each pre-WEB97 ep reairs.

1. George S. Clinton, "The Merkin Medley," Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Lakeshore
2. George S. Clinton, "Soul Bossa Nova" (from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery & The Spy Who Shagged Me: Original Motion Picture Scores, RCA Victor
3. Hans Zimmer, "Release the Hounds," The Simpsons Movie, Extreme Music
4. Craig Wedren, "Stella Theme," www.craigwedren.com
5. John Barry, "Main Title," The Knack... And How to Get It, Rykodisc
6. Henry Mancini, "Party Poop," The Party, RCA
7. Henry Mancini, "A Shot in the Dark," Trail of the Pink Panther, EMI-Manhattan
8. Quincy Jones, "Main Title," The Hot Rock, Prophesy
9. John Morris, "Titles (Main Title and Credits)," The Producers, Razor & Tie
10. Kid 'n Play, "Kid vs. Play (The Battle)," House Party, Motown
11. Michael Giacchino, "The Glory Days," The Incredibles, Walt Disney
12. Michael Giacchino, "100 Mile Dash," The Incredibles, Walt Disney
13. Elmer Bernstein, "Stripes March," Stripes, Varèse Sarabande
14. Elmer Bernstein, "I Respect You," Ghostbusters: Original Motion Picture Score, Varèse Sarabande
15. Shary Bobbins, Bart, Lisa, Wiggum, Apu, Homer & Marge, "Cut Every Corner," Go Simpsonic with the Simpsons, Rhino
16. Saddam Hussein, "I Can Change," South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Atlantic
17. Theodore Shapiro and Craig Wedren, "Higher and Higher" (from Wet Hot American Summer), www.craigwedren.com
18. Lyle Workman, "SuperWhat?," Superbad, Lakeshore
19. Michael Giacchino, "End Creditouilles," Ratatouille, Walt Disney

Repeats of A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series air Monday night at midnight, Tuesday and Thursday at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm, Wednesday night at midnight, and Saturday and Sunday at 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.