Try this out once.
Go to Wikipedia.org (or any other reference search engine) and type in a date. Any date. It could be your birthday. It could be your anniversary. Hell, it even could be the day you got your favorite pet Ringo the one-eyed ferret back from the vet with a clean bill of health. It doesn’t matter, just as long as you leave the year off. Just type it in and hit enter. It is amazing what all special events may have happened on any one particular day.
What does this have to do with today’s musical meanderings? Well, it just so happens that I did that very thing for today’s date, February 10th, within Wikipedia and I found some very important facts.
It was this day in 1763 that the French and Indian war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. It was this day in 1933 that the singing telegraph was first introduced in New York. It was also this day in 1996 that the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time. However, the fact that caught my eye and spawned this week’s article was this. On February 10th, 1929, Jerrald King “Jerry” Goldsmith was born.
Some of you may immediately recognize the name Jerry Goldsmith, such as I. Others of you may not. Not to worry, though, for I am here not only to entertain, but to educate. And…I am quite sure that, although you may not know the name, you have heard some of Jerry Goldsmith’s work. For, you see, Jerry Goldsmith was a composer for approximately 50 of his 75 years of existence and I am willing to bet there is least one of Jerry’s movie or television scores that you heard of before.
Here is just a few of the many television shows and films that Jerry Goldsmith provided scores for:
- The Twilight Zone
- Man from U.N.C.L.E
- Planet of the Apes
- Tora! Tora! Tora!
- The Waltons
- Logan’s Run
- The Omen
- Alien
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Poltergeist
- The Secret of N.I.M.H.
- First Blood
- Gremlins
- Legend
- Hoosiers
- Total Recall
- Basic Instinct
- Air Force One
- The Mummy
- Mulan
Some more interesting facts about Mr. Goldsmith for you. The man was nominated 18 times for the Academy Awards. He only won once, for the music to The Omen, but still…the man was recognized for his impact in movies 18 separate times! And that is not all. Jerry was nominated for 7 Emmy awards….and won all but one. One of his Emmy awards won include composing the main theme title for Star Trek: Voyager. Not too shabby at all.
Speaking of Star Trek, many consider his work in Star Trek: The Motion Picture to be Jerry’s most impressive. Jerry had to represent the whole Star Trek universe with music, resulting in an extremely expansive score. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is also one of the last feature films to have an overture, which featured the love theme for the character Ilia. Influences of this work reflected in future releases, as Jerry composed the music for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis. Even Star Trek: The Next Generation had its main title influenced by Jerry Goldsmith, for it was adapted from the main title of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
So, on this February 10th, do yourself a favor. Watch a movie with a musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. With over 75 films to choose from, there’s bound to be something you like.
Happy birthday, Jerry Goldsmith. Thank you for giving us some of the most memorable music cinema goers have had the pleasure of hearing.
Comments (0)