Overview

Movie soundtrack music is big business. In both film studios and at major record labels, entire divisions focus exclusively on marketing movie music. Film composers like John Williams have become internationally famous figures, and concerts of their music are regular occurrences. But while interest in movie music has greatly increased, both academically and among the public, focus on individual aspects of the music have been overlooked. Yet what movie-goer can forget the opening scene to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver? Behind the taxicab emerging from a cloud of vapour and the eyes of Robert De Niro, a haunting, yearning alto saxophone melody is heard, and it’s just one example of the power of the saxophone, a presence throughout the history of movie music, from the 1930s to the present day, highlighting scenes of drama, romance, and comedy, and making a vital contribution to the music which can be urgent, immediate, sweet, seductive, intimate, and erotic. Reed Rapture is the first study to describe the background, the history, and the numerous important appearances of the saxophone on movie soundtracks, drawing on both jazz and classical influences, and, as such, makes a vital contribution to film music studies.

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9781805143772

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Reviews

Geoff Wills’s fascinating and detailed study of how the saxophone, and in particular the alto saxophone, became an integral component of movie music … Wills has certainly done an impressive job when it comes to the number and range of films he’s seen … Reed Rapture is a book full of insights into both films and music … an extremely useful piece of research which will appeal to fans of movies and jazz. -- JimBurns * Northern Review of Books *

Author Information

Geoff Wills is a former professional musician and clinical psychologist. He is the author of Pressure Sensitive (1988) and Zappa and Jazz (2015), and has contributed to Psychology of Music, The British Journal of Psychiatry, International Musician, jazz.com, Jazz Journal and the book Frank Zappa and the And (2013). 

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