Fallen Angel

The Bob Sneider & Joe Locke Film Noir Project: Fallen Angel (Sons of Sound SSPCD031) I once heard someone say that in film noir, even the furniture is menacing. I’d add to that, “and sad”. Melancholy and menace: those are the feelings that all film noir seems to exude like a vapor. I’ve thought about this a lot, because, as for so many other lovers of film, noir stands at the center of that love. Why is that? What is the seductive power of noir? It begins, of course, with that pungent and irresistible noir atmosphere, often made of shadows, rain-slicked streets, blinking neon signs and dimly lit rooms, shrouded by heavy drapes. This strange, yet familiar world has the uncanny quality of seeming to belong to some eternal, imagined past, like a memory of a life you never lived. This paradox, I believe, is the source of the sadness and menace that invariably attaches itself to the noir film: at its heart, noir resembles the world as seen through the eyes of a child. To the very young, the world is utterly mysterious, filled with inexplicable events and ceaseless enigmas, where the possibility of menace and romance lurk in the darkened corners: the lingering smell of a strange perfume; moving shadows on a wall; whispers from behind a door; the distant whistle of a train. This haunting child’s world, whose meaning and content is the atmosphere, is the stuff of film noir. It’s also the very soul of a lot of jazz. Like film noir, jazz moves in a world whose meaning exists in a mood, where story and content cannot be separated from the palpable atmosphere in which they exist. It’s here where the parallel universes of jazz and noir collide: in the tension and suspense of an unknown and uncertain journey; in the melancholy air of something just out of reach; in the darkly romantic allure of the pursuit of the forbidden. No other music so naturally embodies these qualities and so effortlessly sends them back out into the world, drawing the listener ever more deeply into the noir vortex. This is where Fallen Angel succeeds so brilliantly. Starting with impeccable choices of classic noir scores, it then turns the extraordinary Bob Sneider/Joe Locke Septet loose to improvise around the themes. This alchemy, the inspiration of producer Frank Aloi, brings together the best of both worlds and results in something that, like all great ideas, feels at once strikingly original and at the same time, utterly inevitable—a classic simply waiting to be discovered. — Allen Coulter Director Allen Coulter resides with his wife Kim, in NYC; he is the director of many of the most critically acclaimed episodes of the Sopranos, and numerous other TV series episodes and pilots, as well as the upcoming feature film for Focus Films, "Truth, Justice and the American Way", a drama focusing on the mysterious death of actor George Reeves, TV's "Superman". The darkly beautiful scores of film noir touch a universal - the yearning to be anywhere but in one's own skin, to turn the corner and find the dangerous love of a lifetime, and the big score — but always, the evocative themes have the aftertaste of menace. And the jazz of the Bob Sneider/Joe Locke Septet is the perfect vehicle to convey this mood — improvising inside, and outside the core melody, around it, all the endless variations, new melodies on the main theme, as if it is the hero assessing his chances, and then like John Sneider's brilliant arrangement of Chinatown, the bullet that simply could not be dodged, a due bill that blind fate must collect, in the coda of the arrangement, a dirge-like shuffle to the boneyard, and the epitaph with the finality of an ending rim shot "It's Chinatown Jake!" I know this music will take you away. Joe Locke's matchless playing and writing bring life to Fallen Angel, a love that involves a line not to be crossed, the bitter-sweet pleasure of it all, and the gut wrenching pain of knowing that before the dawn she'll be gone, with another. Paul Hofmann's "Last Kiss" takes up where Joe Locke leaves off — she's gone again, the fading filmstock of a love for a lifetime that was but a snap shot, and now nothing. The unique voicings of Bob Sneider's guitar and Joe Locke's vibes playing over and in the traditional instrumentation of the be-bop quintet — an artistry that perfectly fits the frame of each noir portrait to be painted. Bob Sneider, already a master among his peers, but a talent deserving far greater recognition among jazz fans, can walk the walk in both solos and arranging; in his thematic statements — feel the Parisian cabaret of the 20's in his “Le Modernes” arrangement, and solos, in the idiom, always great jazz improvisation, outside the box. Joe Locke's arrangement of “Mulholland Falls,” complex, compelling, a massive conspiracy in the desert at the genesis of the nuclear age after WW II, and the cover up of radiation sickness, and then the smaller, personal, and more devastating conspiracy of the investigating cop, a cheating husband, undone by blind chance in the apparently unrelated homicide case that propels the action. Phil Flanigan's bluesy boozy portrait of Phil Marlowe in “Farewell My Lovely,” perfectly portraying Robert Mitchum, the quintessential private eye, standing behind a dirty window in a flea-bag hotel in pre-war LA, staring out at the neon washed boulevards, lamenting a lifetime of tilting with the windmills of human frailty at the price of growing old with nothing more than a snap brim hat, trench coat, and .38. John Sneider's re-harmonizing of the Diva theme, the night walk in Paris, the "diva", and the bike-messenger, finally in one surreal moment, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, walking as one, lost in an all too brief moment that insulates them from inexplicable murder and mayhem. The playing is superlative, every arrangement darkly beautiful — the irresistible honey trap of “Body Heat,” the danse macabre of “Farewell to Maria,” the gambler's soliloquy to love lost in “Hurricane Country.” John Sneider's trumpet laments perfectly capturing the gorgeous melodies. Grant Stewart, a post bop tenor, comfortable in the idiom, but with the big tone reminiscent of Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Coleman Hawkins, carrying forward the after-hours themes with short but memorable solos. And Paul Hofmann, Mike Melito and Phil Flanigan propelling every piece and perfectly complementing the front line. Listen, no happy endings here, but a bittersweet beauty nonetheless — let the Bob Sneider/Joe Locke Film Noir Project take you away — ENJOY! — it was a pleasure being a part of this project. — Frank Aloi