John Barry: Moviola II: Action and Adventure

This has the the problem of sounding more exciting that it is. Action and adventure are not things you associate with many of Barry's modern scores, more along the lines of his James Bond efforts. Suitably, these kick off the CD, but all seem rather slowly, if technically well performed. I suppose they all suffer from being songs, but not having the lyrics in this case. Goldfinger seems to drag on quite a lot as it is far too slow and misses Shirly Bassey's energetic voice to enliven it. The James Bond theme (credited to Monty Norman, so just who did write it?!) is a fraction on the unethusiastic side and missed the electric guitar that drives it along. The same is true of On Her Majesty's Secrect Service, but this is otherwise a pretty good rendition. The highlight of the James Bond selection is undoubtedly All Time High from Octopussy, which suits been taken at a cerebral pace and is a singularly beautiful song and this rentdition suits it perfectly. Until September is quite nice, if rather non-despcript, but has a nice saxophone solo that would improve the track no end if used a little more often. King Kong is just dull and I can't remember much about it even after I've just heard it. Zulu is a classic John Barry theme and the rendition here is good, although I'm not that fond of it I have to say. The Dances With Wolves suite rather surprisingly misses out the concert version of the John Dunbar theme, but it doesn't matter all that much as all the major themes are reprised in the good selection that is contained. It has the unfortunate problem of starting with Pawnee Attack, a track that I am not overtly keen on, the almost random drum outburst get tiring after a while. The rest of the suite is very well performed and there is probably enough music here to satisfy most people that the soundtrack is not essential. The tracks from the Specialist aren't anything special really and I found them to be dull. I think that calling it 'Action and Adventure' was somewhat of a mistake and most tracks rather stretch the credibility of that name. Although it seems dumb to criticise a composer's own rendition of his music, in this case, I don't think Barry did himself any favours with the tempos he uses.