Bullitt

Schifrin, Lalo

album cover

Coolness in Every Scene

Much film music of the late 1960s and early '70s carried a distinct echo of the music "the kids" were digging a few years before. It was easy to spot the opportunistic soundtracks, larded as they were with gimmicky, poorly executed attempts at rock and roll. At the same time, there were films that used rock and other pop elements successfully, integrating them in ear-stretching amalgamations that moved to the beat of contemporary life. Lalo Schifrin's Bullitt is one of the best.

Schifrin, who was born in Argentina, had provided music for several hit TV shows—that syncopated Mission Impossible theme is his—when he got the call for this 1968 Steve McQueen vehicle, which was shot on location in San Francisco. The music catches the wild wide-openness of the hilly city, and also helps underscore McQueen's famously calm demeanor: Everything smolders, nothing boils over. Schifrin is thinking chase scene right from the title theme, but it's the cue named "Shifting Gears" that establishes the pace, with dissonant strings cascading over a jarring groove. Hear this and you can almost see a battered coupe come flying over a hill, wheels well off the pavement.

Moods change suddenly in Bullitt, and so does the score: Even though the brass and string textures are plush, everything feels wound tight. Whether sketching a mod underworld, offering a moment of bossa nova calm (the muted-trombone tone poem "The Aftermath of Love"), or turning out a hard-swinging jazz boogaloo (check the kicky organ solo in "Hotel Daniels"), Schifrin doesn't merely appropriate trendy beats. He transforms them into vivid, eternally hip sounds.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1968, Warner Bros.
Key Tracks: "Bullitt Main Title," "Shifting Gears," "The Aftermath of Love."
Catalog Choice: Dirty Harry, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Black Widow.
Next Stop: Cliff Martinez: Traffic, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
Book Page: 676

Buy this Recording

Share this page:

Comments:

Post a Comment:

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


Note that your comment will be reviewed by an editor before it appears on the site.


About 1,000 Recordings

Celebrate the joy, the revelation, the mystery, the fun, the sheer shivers-up-the-spine pleasure of great music.

Essential operas. Milestone rock albums. An education in the blues. The world of world. Classical from Bach to Bartók to Beethoven to Brahms. And dozens of unexpected gems, surprising discoveries, and long-lost masterpieces.

This is an online version of the list (published alphabetically in the book). The entries in the book break down genre bias and broaden every listener’s horizons—think Miles Davis to Claude Debussy to the melodic story-songs of The Decemberists. And the writing is passionate, informed, opinionated.

More about the book

site design: Juxtaprose