‘Bumper Bundle’, De Wolfe Library (DW/LP 3185, UK, 1971)

Great little record from the hugely productive Wardour Street music library, De Wolfe. They’re still going actually, and if a recent article in free rag ‘Metro’ is on the money, they were recently advertising for people who could break wind impressively enough to be recorded for library use. Quick, apply now. Think of the pride you will feel when, watching a film or TV programme, the sound of escaping gas reduces a hapless audience to tears; and it’s yours!

Anyway, back to Bumper Bundle. It’s a bold, brassy affair with The London Studio Group performing fourteen swinging, mod flavoured big band numbers by De Wolfe regulars Reg Tilsley and Peter Milray (AKA Jack Trombey, real name Jan Stoeckart). It’s the kind of record that drains the hatred for my fellow humans right out of me, so I tested it on headphones whilst visiting the supermarket today. Result? Despite a very full car park, and crowded isles, I succeeded in having an extremely pleasant shopping experience that even included a little shoulder swaying, sauntering and head nodding. I probably looked like an arse, but at least I didn’t get trolley rage.

Listen to ‘The Cop Show Themes’ LP by Henry Mancini, (RCA, UK, 1976).

There’s not a lot to say about this extremely pleasing record. It’s a powerful collection of well known television police drama theme tunes, two by Mancini himself. It was released the same year as Johnny Gregory’s much loved ‘The Detectives’ album (on Philips) and there is considerable overlap in the material. But while Gregory’s arrangements are good, Mancini makes the Englishman sound puny by comparison. (By the way, did you know that Johnny Gregory is Chaquito in disguise?).

Henry Mancini’s big band orchestrations, featuring heavy drum breaks, wah-wah, bonkers electric bass lines, harpsichords and even a theremin ensure that the album moves at breakneck speed, which is a bit of a shame as it only lasts 25 minutes. Never mind, quality vs. quantity, and all that.

So, if Steve McGarrett, Kojak and Jim Rockford are your kind of guys (or if you think they’re tossers but still like the tunes), pick this album up, in it’s wonderfully cheap looking washing powder pop art sleeve, for nine themes that (mostly) out-do the originals.

Listen to three tunes from the OST to ‘Breezy’ (MCA, 1973, USA) composed by Michel Legrand.

If you are even only slightly diverted by film soundtracks you will be aware of Legrand, a towering figure in jazz and cinematic music for many decades. However, if you find yourself in the camp that doesn’t know its Pinocchio from its Piccioni, then Michel Legrand (or ‘The Big Michael’ as he is known round here), is the composer of ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’ and ‘The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg’. So, now you know.

His score to this 1973 Clint Eastwood directed movie about an older man finding solace through the love of a nubile young hippy chick (yawn), isn’t an OST one sees around too often, so when it appeared on a very, very long list of soundtrack records being auctioned on ebay a few months back, I picked it out, along with a few other cherries.

To be honest, it doesn’t set the world on fire, which is most likely why it has never  aroused much attention. However, it does have a, dare I say it, breezy, pastoral appeal, which makes for particularly successful, lazy summer listening, experienced at its best on the Shelby Flint sung title song (Flint was once cited by Joni Mitchell as the singer that she most wanted to sound like during the embryonic stage of her career). And of course, it also has a wonderful, long Legrand trademark big band jazz number, subtly fuzzed guitar, dancing electric bass,  horns a-blazing and the man himself at the piano.