“The Big Gundown” performed by John Zorn.
If the 13th Floor Elevators are the band I associate most with my dad, John Zorn seems most twinned to my dad’s restless and experimental spirit—and what better example of this than Zorn’s mashup of legendary Spaghetti Western composer, Ennio Morricone!
My dad loves Westerns and Film Noir. Weekend mornings were often schizophrenic with dark alleyways and sundrenched corrals—enthusiasms Zorn must have shared given his 80s run of The Big Gundown, Spillane, and Naked City. Growing up in Texas, my first musical memory is sitting on my dad’s back, while he and my mom harmonized their best Roy Rogers and Dale Evans impersonations each night on the way to bed:
Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ until then.
We had a family mantra to free it up! John Zorn exemplifies this sense of total freedom and possibility. Each musical moment seems self-born, multiplying until cut a with surprise transition—the most divergent soundscapes, styles, and instrumentations heaped together into courageous synthesis. Morricone himself loved the album: “It is a realization on a high level, a work done by a maestro with great science-fantasy and creativity.”
According to the liner notes, Zorn claimed the title track was inspired by “the first dream in his life that was pure music.” This recorded dream is how both the track and the album open. But I have always found the last thirty seconds to be particularly exhilarating, when the stuttered theme finally gallops confidently into full expression. Hi-yah!
NEXT UP… our second of three film scores
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