Concert Music Archives - Phillip Johnston

Jazz Goes To The Movies is a special project of Playing With Monk.

Dasent and Johnston perform jazz interpretations of beloved themes from classic Hollywood films.

From romantic standards that originated as film themes (The Shadow of Your Smile, As Time Goes By), to varied styles ranging from James Bond, Judy Garland, Walt Disney and Federico Fellini, Jazz Goes to the Movies will be a joy for the lover of film music.

Co-leaders Peter Dasent and Phillip Johnston both have careers as jazz musicians and composers of film music.

Dasent is known for Peter Jackson’s early films Heavenly Creatures, Meet The Feebles and Dead Alive.He has arranged six suites of music from Fellini’s films including the Academy Award-winning La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 1/2 (1963). The music has been released on the CD Bravo Nino Rota, performed by his group The Umbrellas with guest mezzo-soprano Michelle Agius-Hall.

Johnston has scored Hollywood films starring Cher and Ryan O’Neal (Faithful), James Spader and Mandy Patinkin (The Music of Chance) and Tim Robbins and William Hurt (Noise), as well as independent films, documentaries and shorts. Johnston is also a lecturer on film music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he teaches composition for film, and the University of Sydney, where he teaches the history of film music. His book Silent Films/Loud Music (Bloomsbury) was released in paperback last year. His early film music has been released on the CD Music for Films on Tzadik Music.

Here are a few samples of great film themes as performed by Playing with Monk:

Main Theme from Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994) by Peter Dasent

Main Theme from Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 by Nino Rota

“The Godfather Waltz” by Nino Rota from The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)

“If I Only Had A Brain” (Arlen/Harburg) from The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Main Theme from Fedrico Fellini’s Amarcord by Nino Rota

“Addio A Cheyenne” from Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time in The West (1968) by Sergio Leone

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Phillip Johnston phillip@phillipjohnston.com 0424 655 317

Peter Dasent peterdasent@mac.com

Phillip Johnston’s Page of Madness: Suite for Improvisers had its Australian premiere at SIMA’s Summer Series at The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre in February 2016. This large ensemble piece had its US premiere as the finale of Johnston’s one-week residency at John Zorn’s venue The Stone in New York in March of 2015.

The music is based on Johnston’s original score for Teinosuke Kinugasa’s 1926 Japanese silent film, Kurutta Ippēji (A Page of Madness) which was premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 1998 and later had its Australian premiere at The Sydney Film Festival in 2008. The Suite for Improvisers was created from themes used in the film score and some of the structures which applied improvised music to silent film scoring, combining them into a long form music composition. The music functions without the film, as a vehicle for a group of stellar Sydney improvisers, in the spirit of large ensemble music such as Carla Bley’s Escalator Over The Hill for the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, or the music of The New York Composers Orchestra, of which Johnston was an originating member in the late 1980s. This film-score-without-a-film is both haunting and exhilarating.

John Shand wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald: ★★★★½

“If a sense of surprise courses from the heart of much good music, then Phillip Johnston sliced open an artery to flood this work with the stuff. Composition and improvisation have shared a bed since music was born, but often the former has constrained the latter or the latter has rendered the former redundant.

The Holy Grail has been to find a way to create contexts and structures within which improvisers may be given their heads, so the piece is completely different with each iteration, yet remains recognisable.

Johnston plays composer in the conventional sense of strewing enchanting themes through the work, and in the less conventional sense of calling for free improvisations of specified durations and instrument combinations. While playing soprano saxophone he also conducted, controlling dynamics, density, intensity and entry and exit points for individuals.

It was a rendition that bounced between highlights as happily as a child in a toyshop. Among them were Farrar’s alto saxophone exploding with look-mum-no-hands daring and thrilling improbability, Robson tearing the music’s surface apart with his baritone, McMahon summoning up a churning ocean of sound, and a Swanton solo of understated sorrow that was as good as anything I’ve heard the bassist do in 37 years of hearing him.”

Full review

SMH showcase article

Photo credit: Angeline Marmion