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Review of The Long Goodbye (John Williams)

2004 Varèse Sarabande

2012/2015 Quartet

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... only if you appreciate the unique strategy employed by the director for the soundtrack of this film, a single bluesy jazz song adapted for nearly every moment of music in the picture, even source material.

Avoid it... if you've heard that one song and receive no emotional response from it, because the bevy of its instrumental variations are unlikely to change your mind.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Long Goodbye: (John Williams) Among the many Raymond Chandler novels of the 1940's and 1950's to feature detective Philip Marlowe as a no-nonsense force of the law, only a few of his later entries were modernized after the author's death. The most notable time-shifting of the Marlowe character came courtesy controversial director Robert Altman in 1973. While the heart, nostalgia, and methodology of the character remained rooted in the early 1950's in Altman's The Long Goodbye, the world around him had progressed into the 1970's. The detective was as weary and tired as his author by this time, and Altman used this "man out of place" strategy to show how a character from a different era would conduct himself in a significantly different society just twenty years later. In so doing, Altman turned the story even darker than its original intent, increasing the desperation and violence for a more brutal time in Los Angeles and across the border in Mexico. The basics of the tale remain the same as those of the novel, though, Marlowe sucked into a convoluted plot involving his friends and their acquaintances, all of them seemingly involved with a gangster in search of a significant amount of missing money. The detective, often ad-libbed by Elliott Gould, unravels the twisted love affairs and criminal activity of this unsavory group, all the while becoming more detached and annoyed with society as a whole. He eventually takes the law into his own hands, executing a major character out of irritation and opportunity prior to walking away in the final frames with a hapless but care-free attitude. The movie didn't impress much upon its debut but has since earned academic recognition as being a savvy examination of the 1970's. The music employed in the picture is highly unconventional, and Altman had been sufficiently impressed by John Williams' excruciatingly bizarre approach to Images the prior year to hire him for this assignment as well. The director very carefully guided Williams by demanding that nearly every piece of music in the movie feature a variation on the same original song, an inventive approach to a psychologically tormented main character. This main tune even informs doorbell chimes, a character's humming while waiting during a scene, and incidental background noise from car radios and the likes. It is simply everywhere in the movie as a tool of maddened tethering.

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.

• Music as Written for the Film: ***
• Music as Heard on Album: **
• Overall: **

TRACK LISTINGS:

2004 Varèse Sarabande Album:
Total Time: 23:49

• 12. The Long Goodbye - performed by Dave Grusin Trio (4:27) • 13. The Long Goodbye (Vocal) - performed by Irene Kral/Dave Grusin Trio (3:04) • 14. The Long Goodbye (Vocal) - performed by Jack Sheldon (3:28) • 15. The Long Goodbye (Vocal) - performed by Clydie King (4:30) • 16. The Long Goodbye - Tango (Trio Version) (2:27) • 17. The Long Goodbye - Mariachi (Trumpet Version) (2:02) • 18. Marlowe in Mexico (Mario in Mexico) (3:34)

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2012/2015 Quartet Albums:
Total Time: 65:04

• 1. The Long Goodbye - performed by John Williams (3:07) • 2. The Long Goodbye - performed by Clydie King (4:35) • 3. The Long Goodbye - performed by Dave Grusin Trio (5:02) • 4. The Long Goodbye - performed by Jack Sheldon (3:32) • 5. The Long Goodbye - performed by Dave Grusin Trio (4:33) • 6. The Long Goodbye - Tango (2:30) • 7. The Long Goodbye - performed by Irene Kral/Dave Grusin Trio (3:11) • 8. The Long Goodbye - Mariachi (2:04) • 9. Marlowe in Mexico (3:37) • 10. Main Title Montage (10:58) • 11. Night Talk (2:08) • 12. The Border (0:34) • 13. Love Theme From "The Long Goodbye" (1:58) • 14. The Long Goodbye - Sitar (1:02) • 15. Guitar Nostalgia (1:01) • 16. The Mexican Funeral (2:31) • 17. Finale (1:08) Bonus Tracks: (12:12) • 18. Clydie King Adlibs Rehearsal (8:25) • 19. Jack Riley and Ensemble Rehearsal (1:39) • 20. Violin Rehearsal (2:06)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The inserts of all the albums include detailed information about the score and film.

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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Long Goodbye are Copyright © 2004, 2012, 2015, Varèse Sarabande, Quartet Records, Quartet Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/22/24 (and not updated significantly since).