Improvising the Score: Rethinking Modern Film Music through Jazz

In 1957, Miles Davis revolutionized film soundtrack production with his improvised score for Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. This film was a cinematic harbinger of the French New Wave and challenged mainstream filmmaking conventions. During the late 1950s to 1960s, a brief golden age for jazz in film, many independent filmmakers valued improvisational techniques, featuring soundtracks from seminal figures such as John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington. Improvising the Score: Rethinking Modern Film Music through Jazz provides an original investigation of innovative collaborations between renowned contemporary jazz artists and prominent independent filmmakers. The book explores how these integrative jazz-film productions challenge us to rethink the possibilities of cinematic music production. In-depth case studies include collaborations between Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee, Dick Hyman and Woody Allen, Antonio Sanchez and Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Mark Isham and Alan Rudolph. The first book of its kind, this study examines jazz artists' work in film from a sociological perspective, offering rich, behind-the-scenes analyses of their unique collaborative relationships with filmmakers. It investigates how jazz artists negotiate their own creative labor, examining the tensions between improvisation and the conventionally highly regulated structures, hierarchies, and expectations of filmmaking.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 27 June 2022
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

On December 4, 1957, Miles Davis revolutionized film soundtrack production by improvising the score for Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. This cinematic harbinger of the French New Wave challenged mainstream filmmaking conventions, emphasizing experimentation and creative collaboration. During the late 1950s to 1960s, a brief golden age for jazz in film, many independent filmmakers valued improvisational techniques, featuring soundtracks from seminal figures such as John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington.

However, what of jazz in film today? Improvising the Score: Rethinking Modern Film Music through Jazz provides an original, vivid investigation of innovative collaborations between renowned contemporary jazz artists and prominent independent filmmakers. The book explores how these integrative jazz-film productions challenge us to rethink the possibilities of cinematic music production. In-depth case studies include collaborations between Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee (Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke), Dick Hyman and Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters), Antonio Sanchez and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman), and Mark Isham and Alan Rudolph (Afterglow).

The first book of its kind, this study examines jazz artists' work in film from a sociological perspective, offering rich, behind-the-scenes analyses of their unique collaborative relationships with filmmakers. It investigates how jazz artists negotiate their own creative labor, examining the tensions between improvisation and the conventionally highly regulated structures, hierarchies, and expectations of filmmaking. Grounded in personal interviews and detailed film production analysis, Improvising the Score illustrates the dynamic possibilities.

Weight: 350g
Dimension: 152 x 228 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781496840844