...this may be of interest to some of you[ A Nairn for one]...from the phinnweb list::
Gil Melle
Composer
By JON BURLINGAME
Gil Melle, the pioneering electronic-music composer who scored "The
Andromeda Strain," "Night Gallery" and "Fatal Vision," died of a
heart attack Oct. 28 in Malibu. He was 72.
Funeral services for Melle will be held at 4 p.m. Monday at Our Lady
of Malibu church in Malibu.
Melle, who was also a jazz saxophonist and respected visual artist,
was perhaps best known as a cutting-edge creator of electronically
generated music.
His 1970 theme for "Night Gallery" was the first all-electronic main
title for a TV series, and his music for 1971 sci-fi thriller "The
Andromeda Strain" became the first all-synthesizer score for a
featurefeature film.
In the 1970s and '80s, Melle also composed traditional orchestral
music for TV. He scored the TV movies "My Sweet Charlie," "That
Certain Summer," four early episodes of "Columbo" and the first four
episodes of the cult series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker."
His music lent itself to sci-fi and horror projects, including
orchestral scores for the pilot of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and
the four-hour "Frankenstein: The True Story" (1973), which he
recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Melle created landmark electronic scores for sci-fi TV movies
including "A Cold Night's Death" and the four-hour "World War III."
He wrote and performed music for several telefilms dealing with
sensational murders, including "Fatal Vision," Ted Bundy story "The
Deliberate Stranger" and "The Case of the Hillside Strangler."
He was born in 1931 in Jersey City, N.J., and signed with Blue Note
Records as a jazz performer at age 19. His artistic abilities also
led to album-cover paintings for Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and
Sonny Rollins, as well as art-gallery showings in New York.
Melle and his group, the Electronauts, debuted electronic jazz at the
1967 Monterey Jazz Festival. The following year, Verve released
his "Tome VI," the first all-electronic jazz album. His last album
was "Mindscape" in 1991.
He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Denise; a daughter and three
sisters.
― william (william), Sunday, 7 November 2004 04:53 (twenty-one years ago)
That's sad news; he wasn't that old. I'd bought a VHS copy of "Gold of the Amazon Women" just to hear his score, and I haven't seen it yet. I'll watch it when I get my things set up again so I can spend some time with his music. He's been overlooked for CD issues so far, I think, especially given the seeming popularity of early electronic composers.
― Pangolino (ricki spaghetti), Sunday, 7 November 2004 07:16 (twenty-one years ago)
Mindscape (Blue Note 1989, not 1991 as stated in the obit above) is an obscure little gem too, a sort of 4th world collage affair, the record Jon Hassell might have made if he'd taken up the synth rather than treated trumpet. Used to clog up cut-out bins in the mid-90s but now much harder to find just when it's needed, typically. RIP Gil.
― marco (marco), Sunday, 7 November 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)
Mindscape has some good writing, maybe heavy on digital presets for the arrangements, the inevitable shakuhachi sample. which I only quibble over because the sound design & structure on
Andromeda Strain is such a work of genius.
Want to hear the theme from "Night Gallery" now.
― (Jon L), Monday, 8 November 2004 08:03 (twenty-one years ago)