Tag Archives: David Shire

Quinn Martin Collection, Vol. 1: Cops and Detectives

Together with The Film Music Society and La-La Land Records, I have launched a new series of albums of classic TV music we are calling The Quinn Martin Collection. Martin was one of TV’s top producers in the 1960s and ’70s, and he enjoyed considerable success in the law-and-order arena. Volume 1 is subtitled “Cop and Detective Series” and features the pilot scores for Barnaby Jones (1973-80, by Jerry Goldsmith), Most Wanted (1976-77, by Lalo Schifrin), Dan August (1970-71, Dave Grusin) and Cannon (1971-76, John Parker). Rounding out the two-disc set are additional scores by Bruce Broughton, Grusin and Parker (for Barnaby Jones, Dan August and Cannon, respectively) and themes from other ’70s QM series including The Manhunter (Duane Tatro), Caribe (Nelson Riddle), Bert D’Angelo / Superstar (Patrick Williams) and Tales of the Unexpected (David Shire). In the colorfully illustrated 16-page booklet, I discuss all of the series and the circumstances of these top composers working in series television.

Memorable music for newspaper movies

With the opening of The Post, Steven Spielberg’s new newspaper drama with its score by the legendary John Williams, I thought it might be a good time to look back at past movies with a newspaper setting and the music that accompanied them (and added a bit of information and commentary for each). So for this week’s online Variety, I found YouTube videos of music from Citizen Kane, Sweet Smell of Success, The Front Page, All the President’s Men, The Paper and Spotlight. Comments from composers Elmer Bernstein, David Shire and Howard Shore are included.