HERBIE HANCOCK — Blow-Up (OST) (review)

HERBIE HANCOCK — Blow-Up (OST) album cover Album · 1966 · Jazz Related Soundtracks Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
When all of the focus of the jazz purists’ hatred was focusing on Miles Davis, it seems that most of those “specialists” couldn’t have cared less of what Hancock was doing. Already with Watermelon Man in the early 60’s, then the present soundtrack of Antonioni’s mega-important and seminal movie Blow-UP, a sort of testimony of the Swinging London’s revolution

Much of the (sometimes very short) tracks are pulled from moments where there were images that needed sound illustrations, like the main theme opening up the soundtrack. There are some fairly standard jazz like Verushka, Jane’s Theme (although electric guitar and organs are used, it’s standard jazz), The Kiss, Curiosity or The Bed and more. Other tracks are avant-garde like the tremendous Naked Camera and its poignant piano/sax interplay. Some more tracks are much less “jazz” like the R’nB Bring Down The Birds and The Thief.

Not of Herbie’s doing are three tracks from then-young artistes, like The Yardbirds with Stroll On, (you can see the group in the movie playing, with both Beck and Page) which resembles Train Kept a Rollin All Night Long, with screaming buzzing guitars, but also Steve Howe’s then group Tomorrow (not seen or heard in the movie, but commissioned for it) with two closing tracks.: Am I glad To See You and the Blow-Up “title track, tat was not to be”.

A very important and somehow often overlooked Hancock album (although this soundtrack holds three tracks from different artistes, it is just as essential to progheads as the movie is. Indeed, Antonioni’s movie is one of counter-culture most important statement to movie-making as well, following on the French “Nouvelle Vague” and preceding many more films about drugs and hippydom, including Antonioni’s next movie Zabriskie Point, holding music from Floyd and The Dead. If you’re looking at more names of such type of movies, you’ll have Barbet Shroeder’s More and La Vallée (both holding Floyd music as soundtrack and respective albums, but Peter Fonda’s The Trip and Easy Rider, and some years later Nicholson’s Cuckoo’s Nest.. In the meantime, Hancock’s Blow-Up soundtrack is excellent.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

LIVE WOUND RESPONSE [OUT​.​FEST 2013] Jazz Related Improv/Composition
RHODRI DAVIES
Buy this album from MMA partners
Dominic Lash, Josh Sinton, Alex Ward Jazz Related Improv/Composition
DOMINIC LASH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Dominic Lash, Pat Thomas : Elements and Properties Jazz Related Improv/Composition
DOMINIC LASH
Buy this album from MMA partners
El Camino Sigiloso Jazz Related Improv/Composition
PAULA SHOCRÓN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Lucky All Along Post-Fusion Contemporary
LISA HILTON
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Chicago - Hard to Say I'm Sorry / Get Away [Live At 55]
CHICAGO
snobb· 18 hours ago
John Coltrane's iconic Parker Blues: "Freight Trane" w/ Tobias Meinhart, Rick Rosato & Jesse Simpson
TOBIAS MEINHART
js· 18 hours ago
Yo Viné Para Echar Candela
SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRA
snobb· 23 hours ago
Joe Armon-Jones - Sorrow (feat. Liam Bailey) (Official Audio)
JOE ARMON-JONES
snobb· 1 day ago
Ambrose Akinmusire - muffled screams
AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE
snobb· 1 day ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed