The Modern Jazz Quartet - "No Sun In Venice"

Sait-on jamais - One Never Knows

 Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

It didn’t last very long, but it was fun while it did.

Movies and TV series with Jazz scores written and performed by prominent composers, arrangers and Jazz combos were all the rage for a while especially in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.

Johnny Mandel’s score to the movie I Want to Live, Miles Davis’ themes and improvised sketches for director Louis Malle’s Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold, and one that has always been among my favorites, pianist John Lewis’ original film score to director Roger Vadim’s No Sun in Venice which he performs with his colleagues on The Modern Jazz Quartet No Sun in Venice LP/CD [Atlantic 1284-2].

A recent listening of this recording prompted me to do a bit of research about the group and how John Lewis came to write and record the film score in 1957.

I must admit that the cover painting by J.M.W. Turner [1775-1851], one of a series of famous Venetian oils he created about la serenissima, may have had a great influence on my purchase of this recording as I had never heard the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet [MJQ], nor had I seen the movie.

Thus began my love affair with one of the most unique groups in the history of Jazz.