I was born in December of 1946 and became a film music fan (probably just like you) at an early age. Henry Mancini was an early favorite, one of the reasons being the readily availability of HM's music on LP and 45's. I first heard a score by JG when I went to the Esquire Theater in Stockton, California to see the film "Lonely Are the Brave". This score has been recently released for the first time (thank you Varese Sarabande) on CD. In the early '60's if you wanted to hear this score you had only one choice. Go sit in the theater and listen. When JG's first score (4 tracks from The Prize) made it to LP I was a devoted fan. I purchased every LP by JG ever released. Thanks to Night Crossing I now have a copy of The Prize on my wall signed by Jerry. As the '60's and '70's passed by I was devoted to Jerry and his music which touched a nerve within me. When I reached a point where I was going to co-produce one of his scores it was one of the highlights of my life. It was the summer of 1987 and hot in L.A.

Disney maintains the long term rights to the score. In reproducing the music for album, rights to the music and the score itself has to be paid for and obtained from the Studio. The up front fees collected by the Studios are the fees for re-use of the music for a purpose other than music to accompany the film. As I recall we paid approximately $15,000 so Disney would be assured of covering the costs of the Union Musicians who have to be repaid for their work. Since the music was recorded in England the re-use fees were much smaller than if done in the USofA. If the score had been recorded here the re-use fees would have been closer to $70,000 and along with production fees the album would not have been released. This is why Goldsmith, Williams and major composers recorded their scores with overseas orchestras knowing that this meant their work might make it to LP, Cassette, or CD.

Disney Studios were unfamiliar with Intrada and refused to release the original masters. Jerry who had not worked for Disney for years had no influence to obtain the originals and claimed he no longer knew anyone there who had any influence to trust him or us with the original master tapes. This is one of the reasons that when Intrada re-released an extended Night Crossing CD several years later the sound quality improved as by then then they allowed use of the original master tapes. Also at that time (1987) there were problems in how much music could be used without paying more and more money in re-use fees to the Musicians Union. More on this including a great incident with Jerry and Sidney Sax (Manager of the National Philharmonic Orchestra). Re-use fees have always been a big problem in getting soundtracks released in any quantity. That's why even today you see so many limited releases. The less income projected the less you now have to pay for the re-use of the music. While this situation has improved, it didn't help us at the time we were trying to release Night Crossing in a full version. Disney maintains a vault in the Midwest where original negatives and scores are kept in safe areas from earthquake and other possible natural disasters. They flew out the originals and made us a 1 to 1 copy of the original session masters. This is what we had to use for the dubbing sessions and had some problems with the Dolby encoding. More on this later. While at the Studios Doug and I had the good fortune to tour the sets for the movie Big Business which was being filmed at the time. After obtaining the rights and tape copy we went on to Len Engels home in Bel Air.

Len Engel's residence and Contempo Recording
 

The late Len Engel was a long time film music fan, music editor and mastering genius. He worked for many years at 20th Century Fox and his name appears on many TV shows and movies. he worked with Jerry on many albums and scores. Len created his mastering studio and Contempo Recording Company out of the large living room of his Bel Air, CA home. As you review the pix you will see his living room and its contents. Not seen are his garage where he had Rachmaninoff's actual practice piano. Also he had a lot of tapes from the 20th Century Fox archives which he brought home and worked with. Len was the reason I bought my first CD player. He had taken home the original master tapes for The Blue Max and began mastering them for CD release. As I recall this was the first JG score released on CD and I had no reason to buy a player until this score was on CD. The remarkable story about how Len found these tapes and their mastering and release on Varese Sarabande is told in his excellent notes which accompany the CD.
 

At one end there are a pair of massive speakers and at the other end the mastering center. It is cleverly disguised as a bar. When behind the bar Len can mix a drink or an album with equal ease. Behind the bar a roll up panel exposes the mastering unit where he takes 16 track tapes and mixes the sound down to a stereo master. Behind him are more panels which open up to expose the cassette and reel-to-reel 16 track tape players. The panels contain sheet music all with autographs by composers he has worked with over the years. As I recall he had an original sheet by Jerry, John Williams and Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini all signed and given to him with their thanks. There is another room behind the equipment with about 10,000 miles of wire and a separate cooling unit. The area behind the bar became very hot when he was at work. Behind that room was the garage with the piano and tapes.
 

Night Crossing Mastering Sessions July and August 1987

I was sitting at the bar of Len Engel's home in Bel Air with Doug Fake of Intrada Records, Tapes and CD's. I was acting as co-producer of the Night Crossing project as Doug Fake had expended quite a bit of cold hard cash in producing their first two projects; namely Red Dawn by Basil Poledouris and Poltergeist II by Jerry Goldsmith. I became involved after visiting Doug's soundtrack shop in San Francisco. They specialized in soundtracks and co-occupied a space with a movie poster salesman. I was in the banking industry and floated the idea of releasing Night Crossing while browsing the LP's. Once Doug learned I would be willing to venture capital and, with the fact that he liked me, we struck a quick deal. He made the calls, I wrote a check and we ended up waiting for the 4th member of the party, the man himself, Jerry Goldsmith.

Jerry came in wearing a blue and white striped shirt and blue jeans. I almost passed out shaking hands with him the first time, somewhat speechless. Doug had met Jerry before but the Poltergeist II sessions excluded his participation and his meeting was apparently brief and formal. This time around things were quite different. Jerry brought his copies of sheet music of Night Crossing and spread them on the bar while mixing was underway. As I recall the 1 to 1 copy we were working with had orchestra sessions that were overly pronounced. The trumpets were overbearing but Len's mastery brought them into submission for the stereo mix down.
 

Early on an almost heated argument occurred when Jerry thought the main title should be excluded from the album as the music in a different form would be heard later on anyway. Doug almost had to plead for its inclusion. Jerry let him have his way (which was correct speaking from a fan's point of view) and peace returned to the atmosphere. A couple of great weekend days went by listening to the tapes and watching Len make his corrections and cuts. Jerry and Doug spent a lot of time studying the sheet music while I took a few pix. Jerry was a tennis player and a big tennis tournament was on TV.
 

Jerry often would sit in front of the TV enjoying the matches while Len labored. In 1987 Jerry was purported to be receiving $250,000 per score. While watching a big match that came to a close and the trophy was awarded the player on top also received the victor's check which came to $250,000 for a couple of days work. Jerry laughed at this commenting that it took him six weeks to make money like that! He also found it amusing that I told him I had been working since I was 16 (I was then 41) and probably hadn't made $250,000 yet. I have been known to have a quick wit and a strange sense of humor but I don't think I was far off the mark. (Follow the link to the archives of my movie reviews for the Santa Clara Weekly and you might understand what I am talking about.) In the above pix I took of Jerry and Len you can see their reaction to one of my quirky remarks. Jerry had an especially good sense of humor. On the Sunday afternoon we finished the project Jerry left for home and Doug and I stayed while Len made us each a cassette copy of the Night Crossing score yet to be released. We dropped one off at Jerry's home in Beverly Hills and went out for a movie. It was great driving around listening to that score in my car knowing that I was the only one in the world currently capable of the act.


Night Crossing and Rent-a-Cop

Rent-a-Cop was a movie released in 1987 with Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli. Along for the ride were Dionne Warwick and Robby Benson. Jerry London, long time neighbor of the Petri's on The Dick VanDyke Show, directed. This was a cop thriller that at the time was supposed to be Liza's "comeback" film. It was a stinker. Only one good thing came out of the film. Jerry's score. His trumpet led theme was lush and gorgeous. While working on the pending Night Crossing album release, Intrada also decided to take on a newer project (Night Crossing the movie came out in 1981) so Doug saw Rent-a-Cop as a current project while Night Crossing was for devoted fans of Jerry who long wanted the Night Crossing music available. We made a second trip to LA to finish up the Night Crossing left overs like album cover and liner notes. Rent-A-Cop allowed us to get together a 2nd time at the Len Engel residence and work on mastering the new album.
 

During this time we had a little controversy as the Night Crossing album was going to run slightly longer than Union arrangements would allow without writing out another check to them. Sidney Sax was the Manager of the National Philharmonic and their leader. Jerry heard our plea for help.....mainly that we didn't have any more money to give to the Union in England for a couple of more minutes of music. He borrowed Len's phone and made a call to Sidney. Unable to reach Sidney, Jerry made it clear that no more money was on the way and that we were including all the music we wanted anyway. Whoever did talk to Jerry on the phone got the message when Jerry, being belligerent with a touch of humor, said "If they think they are getting any more money for this you can go tell Sidney he can go CENSORED himself". No more money was sent. We included the music on the album. Len Engel also used a noise reduction system to reduce tape hiss that wasn't in line with the common Dolby B or A or whatever encoding the pro's used at the time. This sent me running around Hollywood picking up equipment so the album could be completed.
 

In the above and below picture you see Jerry in shorts and a red/blue/white striped shirt that was from our 2nd time down when the Rent a Cop project was in the works. At that time wireless phones were fairly new to home use and Len had just bought a new one that Jerry was very impressed with. Often he would borrow the phone to call pals and chat. He was big on Thai food at the time and I recall that he was chatting about a Thai restaurant when I took the candid shot. Len also disclosed that for some reason Jerry was having problems sleeping at the time. He looked a little tired.
 

Jerry had already conducted well over a hundred scores and performed before National and International audiences with large orchestras. Len told us that Jerry was disappointed with his conducting abilities and was taking classes to improve them. Go figure. While working on Rent-a-Cop we got word that John Huston (8/28/1987) died. This was very upsetting to Jerry because of the potential harm the news would do to his close friend and mentor Alex North. Alex was 76 at the time and would live another 4 years. The death of Huston brought North's wife to Len's home in hopes of getting Jerry to help break the news to her husband. Jerry was 58 at this time and indicated that because of the large number of people he knew in Hollywood he spent a lot of time going to funerals. Next up Jerry's home and studio. Pictures that as far as I know only about 6 people have ever seen. Up to now.


At Jerry's place
 

Jerry lived at a beautiful home in Beverly Hills not far from Len Engel's home in Bel Air. Doug and I figured out a way to visit Jerry's home and studio since Jerry had no reason to invite us on his own. We invited his secretary to lunch! I parked my VW van on Jerry's drive way. We didn't get to park there long though as Jerry's wife Carol showed up and asked us to move the van so she could park. I told her not until I take a picture, I told her very politely. When we rang the doorbell Jerry's Secretary, Elaine Dabick, allowed us to enter then took us through the home to Jerry's studio in back. In a room off the front entry, Jerry had a grand piano and a small version of it where his youngest son was being taught to play.

The office picture above shows Elaine on the phone and all of Jerry's Oscars, Emmys and other award nominations on the wall. It took three shots to get them all in. Posters of his films fill out the decor as well as a couple of concerts he had conducted. He had a poster from Patton which he pointed out with pride had been autographed by Director Franklin Schafner. Years later I would obtain a copy of the Patton LP autographed by George C. Scott that I would have happily given to Jerry had I owned it then.

While waiting for Elaine to be free for lunch Arthur Morton (Jerry's long time orchestrator and collaborator) and Ken Hall (Jerry's long time music editor) showed up for lunch with Jerry. I took a picture of them with Doug. As we waited we found that Jerry was upstairs in his studio doing a photo shoot for a keyboard manufacturer promotion. Not being shy I decided to go upstairs and see what I could see. The pictures show Jerry and the guy doing the photography. The lights were hot and bright. Jerry was sweating out the session and not happy with the outfit he had on. The pictures I took were done without his knowledge. After I went downstairs he soon followed then went into his house and came back in a red sweater. He apparently liked this sweater as he wore it in numerous publicity appearances. See Gallery 2 for a picture of Jerry in this sweater on a poster which has been autographed. As it turns out I had the exact same sweater with me on the trip.
 

The next day when we were back at Len Engel's I wore the sweater. Jerry looked at it and then at me and with a big smile on his face, he made no comment. We took Elaine to a Hollywood hot spot called Ed Debevic's. It had been a long time waiting to have lunch and Doug was admittedly very hungry. Elaine had a bemused look on her face seeing Doug with two (count em' two) large sandwiches he had ordered. He definitely did not want me taking a picture of him with all this food but well....nothing had stopped me so far. During our first trip Doug and I took Arthur Morton out to a long lunch and had him ready and eager to talk about his years in the film music business. With his permission Doug taped the interview and conversation but to my knowledge has never made the tape public. Arthur was very impressed when I was familiar with his original theme for the little known TV show Apple's Way as most of his career was spent as an orchestrator not a composer.

Jerry enjoyed talking about his work although, as I have pointed out elsewhere, he tended to talk about music he composed in the 3rd person. I was always amazed that he could produce the greatest music of the 20th century and look back on it as if he were not sure where the inspiration came from, almost as if it was done by another individual. While working with him at Len Engel's home and after the "day's work" was done Jerry would stay beyond the working session to chat and enjoy the company. One late afternoon he talked about the Suites and Themes album he had recorded in March of 1987 which would be his first non- score album. It is the famous one with the wonderful Robert Peak painting of Jerry on the cover. He was very proud and happy with this album. He had Len play selections from his reel to reel copy. If you own it you know what a great album this is. I asked him who did the arrangements which were gorgeous and he almost popped a button with pride when he claimed personal credit. He was truly an honest and unassuming individual whose persona belied the extraordinary talent that lay just under the surface. His body of work proves me right on one count and I am fortunate enough to be able to attest to the other claim based on rare and unusual personal experiences.
 

The Next Time I Saw Jerry

In April 97 Jerry came to San Jose for a concert. We joined him back stage after the concert. I have a very rare album which is from the World Premiere of In Like Flint. The album is Orange with the Fox In Like Flint Logo. It says Special Souvenir Album. World Premiere. San Juan, Puerto Rico. March 4, 1967. Inside the jacket is a mono copy of the same album that was released for sale in the regular album jacket. I asked Jerry if he had attended this event but he said that he was not invited. Wow. Unbelievable. This copy is the only one he had ever seen. I assume it is the only one in the World with his autograph on it.
 

Very special thanks to Karl for his candid look back and his fantastic photo collection on such an important moment for Jerry Goldsmith's many fans.

Karl Scott writes movie reviews for the Santa Clara Weekly