Lalo Schifrin

 

 

[1932 -] Born in Argentina, Boris Claudio Schifrin has significant place both in jazz history as in film music. Son of a violinist and interested in jazz since adolescence, Schifrin studied at the Paris Conservatoire with the avant-garde composer Olivier Messiaen. Parallel to classical studies he played piano in jazz nightclubs.

 

Back in Argentina, he formed his own band, with 16 members. In 1957 he met trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie for whom he showed arrangements of his own. Gillespie, then without pianist in the band, approved the arrangements and invited Schifrin to join the group. The partnership allowed Schifrin composed pieces that marked the trumpeter's repertoire as Gillespiana, The New Continent and Atlantis, which already pointed to a atmospheric suggestion, anticipating much of what the composer would do for cinema. The beginning of the 60s marked a rise period for Schifrin: he composed and arranged for big names such as Quincy Jones, Count Basie and Stan Getz, recorded bossa nova albums and debuted in movie soundtracks with Rhino! (1963). There was a very active period with soundtracks for Joy House (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Once a Thief (1965), Murdere's Row (1966), Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1967), Coogan's Bluff (1968), Kelly's Heroes (1970) and the documentary Hellstrom Chronicles (1971). Would have more success with the music for TV series Mission Impossible (1967) and Mannix (1969). His work was very influent in action/crime films with soundtracks of Bullit (1968) Dirty Harry (1971), Magnum Force (1973), Prime Cut (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). Parallel works as the cult album Dissection and Reconstruction/Marquis de Sade (1966), which blended baroque music to jazz, had an approximate equivalent in the tracks of The Fox (1968) and The Four Musketeers (1974). Schifrin continued creative in TV series such as Starsky & Hutch and the soundtracks of Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1977) Rollercoaster (1977), The Amytiville Horror (1979), Brubaker (1980), The Competition (1980) and The Osterman Weekend (1983). After some years absent of cinema – when he devoted to the ambitious series Jazz Meets the Symphony – Schifrin retunred films with Rush Hour (1998) and Rush Hour 2 (2001) and the albuns Brazilian Jazz (2000), Jazz Meets the Symphony 5 (2000), and the long-awaited Return of Marquis de Sade (2002). The Aleph Records label, founded by the composer, has released original soundtracks and new recordings of the composer´s large repertoire.