Not a CTI artist, not produced by Creed Taylor but something that has evolved from an instrumental movie track, to a jazz classic, to an amazing soulful song and a chillout classic. Today’s post looks at Love Theme from the film Spartacus by Alex north, how it lasted for 38-years before Terry Callier added a lyric to it. Today marks the anniversary of Callier’s passing.
The mix starts with the original track, from the soundtrack album. Alex North was nominated for an Academy Award. North’s soundtrack album was a winner of a Golden Globe for original score, also nominated for an American Film Institute greatest film scores. Segued in next is Yusef Lateef, the first jazz artist to cover and re-interpret the track. Lateef’s 1961 version would stand alone until 1963, when Bill Evans would include it on his extraordinary “Conversations with Myself” album. Evans interpretation is so much more delicate, a pianist alone with himself who moves into an almost ragtime freeform style; that leads to the guitar intro from Terry Callier’s version and into the Zero 7 remix. It is in the remix we first hear Callier’s both beautiful and haunting lyrics, finally Callier’s stripped back vocal track comes in at the end, alone.
Other versions, not included here, are The Ramsey Lewis Trio on their 1965 “In Crowd” album; Santana included a version on his 1980 “The Swing Of Delight“; Gabor Szabo on his 1982 album “Memorabilia” and The Earl Klugh Trio on their surprisingly good, 1991 covers album, “Volume One“.
William John Evans was an American jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords, and trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines continues to influence jazz pianists today. Wikipedia
Stanley Kubrick was brought in as director after Kirk Douglas had a major falling out with the original director, Anthony Mann. According to Sir Peter Ustinov, the salt mines sequence was the only footage shot by Mann.
The original version included a scene where Marcus Licinius Crassus (Sir Laurence Olivier) attempts to seduce Antoninus (Tony Curtis). The Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency both objected. At one point Geoffrey Shurlock, representing the censors, suggested it would help if the reference in the scene to a preference for oysters or snails was changed to truffles and artichokes. In the end the scene was cut, but it was put back in for the 1991 restoration. However, the soundtrack had been lost in the meantime and the dialogue had to be dubbed. Curtis was able to redo his lines, but Olivier had died. Dame Joan Plowright, his widow, remembered that Sir Anthony Hopkins had done a dead-on impression of Olivier and she mentioned this to the restoration team. They approached Hopkins and he agreed to voice Olivier’s lines in that scene. Hopkins is thanked in the credits for the restored version.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054331/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
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