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Art of the Score

Episode 18: James Bond - Part 1

Art of the Score

Nicholas Buc

Education, Tv & Film, Music

5624 Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2018

⏱️ 109 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 18 we begin one of our most ambitious musical projects yet – the music of the James Bond franchise. Over the next three episodes, we’ll be looking at the sounds of Bond, James Bond, across 50 years, 24 films, and a great many composers, theme songs, and one-liners. In this first episode, we’re covering everything from the birth of the cinematic Bond to the end of the Sean Connery era, with a particular focus on how John Barry created that classic – and timeless – Bond sound. Episode notes: 4:45 – Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass make an unscheduled appearance 6:35 – The evolution of the Bond franchise and its importance in film history 10:23 – “The best Bond film is the next Bond film” 12:40 – The birth of the Bond theme, with Monty Norman’s sitar 15:30 – John Barry’s swinging ‘60s style 22:23 – Monty Norman’s Dr. No score 24:10 – ‘Three Blind Mice’ and Norman’s Jamaican grooves 26:30 – Bond and orchestra swat a bug 31:12 – Lionel Bart’s ‘From Russia With Love’, the first title song 38:15 – John Barry’s 007 theme 42:11 – John Barry’s idiosyncratic action cues and quotations of the main theme 45:47 – James Bond’s travelogue music 51:13 – Goldfinger’s swinging ‘Into Miami’ 55:55 – ‘Alpine Drive’ and ‘The Raid on Fort Knox’ 1:00:34 – Thunderball’s alternate themes 1:07:14 – Barry’s underwater fight scenes 1:10:05 – The brass-fanfared evil lair 1:13:08 – You Only Live Twice’s slow-moving villainous space capsule 1:20:48 – Nancy Sinatra’s ‘You Only Live Twice’ 1:23:05 – The ‘Japanese’ music in You Only Live Twice 1:27:43 – On Her Majesty’s Australian Service 1:31:09 – ‘We Have All The Time In The World’ 1:35:04 – “This never happened to the other synth” 1:41:00 – The horny saxophone 1:43:11 – Diamonds Are Forever 1:46:33 – The creepy saxophone We love to hear from our listeners – get in touch via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and if you like The Art of the Score, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and comment.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Art of the Score, the podcast that explores, demystifies and celebrates some of the greatest soundtracks of all time from the world of film,

0:21.3

TV and video games.

0:23.0

I'm Andrew Poxson.

0:24.2

And in each episode, we'll be joined by Daniel Golding and Nicholas Buck,

0:27.7

as we check out a soundtrack we love, break down its main themes,

0:31.3

explore what makes the score tick,

0:33.3

and hopefully impart our love of the world of soundtrans.

0:53.3

Music and hopefully impart our love of the world of Soundtrans. In episode we tackle one of the largest franchises in movie history.

0:58.4

There it is, James Bond.

1:00.8

Bond has been capturing the imaginations of audiences for over 50 years via a full 24 films.

1:07.8

And across the next three episodes, we're going to look at all of it.

1:17.7

It worked. Whether you're a fan of John Barry, David Arnold, Thomas Newman, or God forbid, Eric Sarah,

1:26.1

we have you covered over the coming episodes as we squeeze all of the juice out of this amazing, amazing franchise.

1:33.3

And joining me in full tuxedo. I'm not even joking, this guy has an actual tuxedo on, we should get a photo.

1:41.3

He's a composer, he's an arranger, orchestrator, conductor, and man with the golden pun.

1:47.3

It's Nicholas Buck. How you doing, Nick?

1:49.3

Buck, Nicholas Buck. I'm so pumped for this episode, guys, or three episodes, rather,

1:54.5

as we are going to dive into really what is my favourite franchise.

1:58.9

It's the franchise that got me into film scoring.

2:01.8

John Barry is my musical hero from a young age, and I can't wait to dissect all of these

2:07.5

great scores. Absolutely. This is really going to be quite the ride through the next three

2:12.1

episodes, and I'm really looking forward to it. And of course, there is always three, three episodes,

...

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