The strategy guiding the music for The Long Goodbye is intriguing because it forced Williams to adapt the same song melody into every moment of the narrative and thus adapt its personality accordingly. The core personality of this theme remains rooted in 1970's jazz and blues, with constant hints of 1940's roots. Aside from the standard instrumental representations of that genre, there are few deviations of distinction in the score, a harmonica only factoring at the very end despite playing an outsized role in the narrative of the film. The Latin instrumentation representing the Mexican settings doesn't attempt to blend in with the rest of the ensemble, each mode of performance compartmentalized. In one version of the song, Williams performed his own piano solos for the theme with a small jazz ensemble, later handing over the duties for this mode to Dave Grusin for extended, lively performances from his trio. Some listeners may find these straight jazz performances to be somewhat redundant. Williams then provided three vocal versions of the song with this core personality utilizing lyrics from Johnny Mercer. These performances range from a more romantic, sultry rendition by Clydie King to the defeated alternative by Jack Sheldon and a party source version provided by Irene Kral with even more contemporary stylings. The song and its lyrics are appropriately matched to Marlowe in this incarnation, haunted by the noir-like romanticism of the past but clearly tired and fragmented. By the time Williams dives further into the score-like material for The Long Goodbye, more interesting variations emerge. The most substantial offshoot results for the Latin-influenced portions for Mexico, a tango variant of the song and several cues pushing the melody into mariachi territory and sometimes dissolving it to a solo acoustic guitar. This material, interestingly, is the arguably the most engaging in the whole work. Williams cannot resist conveying the theme with more longing and diffused jazz, though, in "Night Talk" and "Love Theme From The Long Goodbye," the latter a bit misleading in that there is really zero romance in the picture for Marlowe. The most fascinating score cue is "Finale," where Williams finally adapts the melody into a straight suspense representation of moral defeat, punctuated by Marlowe's harmonica source overlay to close the work. These cues form no coherent narrative because of how Altman inserted each performance into scenes in a continuous steam of changing emotional needs.

The opening ten minutes of The Long Goodbye alternate between the various recordings while maintaining their position in the song, shifting between lonely instrumentals and the vocalizations with no attempt to smooth over the wild differences in recording quality. A cue like "Night Talk" also intentionally distorts the soundscape to force it into a wet dissolve for effect. On screen, these techniques are commendable intellectually, because the song sounds like it's playing uninterrupted from different sources depending on what we're seeing on the screen, but they make the experience almost impossible to appreciate on album. This technique in "Main Title Montage" is a startling reprise of the general idea Altman had in mind for the insanely disparate musical tones tossed together in the opening scene of Images. While there is some merit to how this strategy plays out in the film, this usage makes the album presentation highly problematic. Only one definitive album has existed for the full range of the song variants as applied to the score, but prior to that Quartet Records attempt at summarizing the movie's music, Varèse Sarabande issued several of the song variations (badly mislabelled) alongside its release of Williams' Fitzwilly score on a limited product in 2004. The first expanded Quartet alternative came in 2012 and supplied eight variations on the song, both instrumental and vocal, along with 24 minutes of music that essentially functions as the score via instrumental explorations of that same tune. The label didn't make an attempt to emulate the exact chronological edits made by Altman except for the aforementioned 10-minute opening in "Main Title Montage" that gives listeners a good idea about how the director pieced together Williams' recordings for on-screen use. That album presentation also provides 12 minutes of rehearsals during the recording sessions, but they are only marginally interesting. The album's arrangement of the core song renditions first and then the auxiliary variants thereafter is probably best, though consolidating the Mexican-related cues may have been a better option. The soundtrack as a whole has its strategic merits but inherently suffers as an experience on its own. Just like in the film, it's really easy to become sick of hearing that one melody over and over again, and if you don't find merit in its original jazzy incarnation to begin with, then you're doomed from end to end. The 2012 album was also limited but enjoyed a re-issue from Quartet in 2015 that remained in print for years. Approach this work on album only if you've seen the film and appreciate the intent behind the music's unconventional use.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download