2008 three CD collection of soundtracks from classic movies of our time. With a generous playing time of over three hours, this stunning set offers something for everyone: fromthe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's 'Pirates of the Caribeean-Dead Man's Chest' and 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' to other orignial perfromances as heard in the classic films like, The Godfather, Cinema Paradiso, Taxi Drive, Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands to name but a few! Enjoy unforgettable movie themes from a wide range of famous composers from Yo Yo Ma, John Williams, John Barry and more.

Jazz music from great italian movies composed by the famous film composers Piero Umiliani, Piero Piccioni Armando Trovaioli, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Michel Legrand, Manuel De Sica, Benedetto Ghiglia and Goffredo Petrassi as well as pioneering musicians such as Giorgio Gaslini, Chet Baker, here are some of the earliest jazz soundtracks that emerged from the golden age of 'Commedia All'Italiana' through to cult experimental cinema.

Featuring compositions and arrangements by film composer and jazz buff Michel Legrand, Stan Getz's Communications '72 is one in a long line of strings-and-voices albums the tenor saxophonist recorded. Starting with a Gunther Schuller-arranged session from 1955, Getz produced some impressive work in this context, with the incredible Eddie Sauter collaboration Focus standing out in particular. And even in the midst of some not-so-incredible backing on a few sets, Getz always comes up with impeccable solo statements. For his part, Legrand strikes an expert balance here among jazz combo, strings, and chorus, but the frenetic Swingle Singers-style choral parts don't always come off. While overpowering Getz on the otherwise lovely "Redemption," the vocal interjections sound too overarching in their mix of avant-garde and straightforward phrasing on "Outhouse Blues" and "Bonjour Tristesse"…

Billed as both a Barbra Streisand album and as an original motion picture soundtrack, Yentl contains the songs, sung by Streisand and written by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, that the character played by Streisand sings as internal monologues in the film, sometimes with spoken dialogue interspersed. (The album is filled out by "studio versions" of two of the songs, "The Way He Makes Me Feel" and "No Matter What Happens," played on contemporary electronic instruments, rather than in the orchestral settings used for the rest of the songs.) With such a thematic base, the music has an unusual consistency, and written specifically for Streisand, it makes use of her emotional expressiveness, phrasing, and timing as a singer. But it was also written as a complement to the film and on its own comes across as a group of isolated musical plot highlights rather than as a coherent song cycle. (Yentl won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.)

First time on CD. Composed & Conduted by the legendary Legrand including his "Picasso Suite". This nostalgic coming-into-manhood fantasy features a gorgeous Oscar-winning score by Michel Legrand ("Yentl", "The Thomas Crown Affair"). Director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) evokes the period with double-dip ice cream cones, paddleball, saddle shoes, packages of Fels Naptha and the mist of memory in which the hero's thoughts are enwrapped. Herman Raucher's screenplay is a discerning and appreciative translation of one boy's trip along a trajectory of psychological and sexual change.

'Lumieres' marks the first UK release for this critically acclaimed performer, exclusively signed to Decca. The album showcases Muraji's distinct guitar arrangements of magnificent piano standards such as Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No.1 and Gymnopédie No.3, Ravel's Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte and The Summer Knows by the famous film composer Michel Legrand, all of which convey themselves as original guitar repertoire. Muraji's core repertoire is reflected with the inclusion of Pierre de Breville's Fantaisie Pour Guitare, and the prolific Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu's Water Color Scalor. She also plays homage to one of the guiding lights of the guitar, Roland Dyens, with her version of Suade No.3. The result is an album of imagination and originality- an innovator interpreting innovators.

Quartet Records and MGM are proud to present the world premiere release of Michel Legrand’s complete original soundtrack from the highly sophisticated 1968 thriller The Thomas Crown Affair, the story of a Boston millionaire who puts together an insurance scam by committing holdups against himself. Brilliantly directed by Norman Jewison (Fiddler on the Roof, In the Heat of the Night, The Cincinnati Kid), and starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, the film enjoyed great critical and commercial success and has become an icon of sixties style—known for its agile and surprising editing (by Hal Ashby), Pablo Ferro’s designs, the hot chemistry between Dunaway and McQueen, the costumes, and, of course, the music. Having just moved to Los Angeles after the success of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Michel Legrand (The Young Girls of Rochefort, Summer of ’42, Yentl, Never Say Never Again), infused his music with a new, fresh and never-before-heard style, mixing influences of jazz, pop, Baroque and Stravinsky. It was sophisticated and chic—and worked perfectly with the film.

Reynold da Silva's Silva Screen Records has been constructing a series of "essential" collections of major film composers' scores usually by making new recordings of portions of those scores or compiling recordings previously made for other projects, most often employing the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. For this Michel Legrand album, the label has actually enlisted Legrand as conductor of the Flemish Radio Orchestra (whose contributions are not noted until you examine the CD booklet), with a few additional jazz musicians, plus Legrand himself on piano and (during the extended suite from The Go-Between) harpsichord. Still, these are new recordings, made in December 2004, and should not be confused with actual soundtrack recordings. Legrand oversees excerpts from some of his most popular scores, leaning heavily on the major themes, such as "I Will Wait for You" from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, "Theme from Summer of '42," and "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair.

This Tribute is a poetic voyage, a secret garden in which blooms more than fifty years of two immense musical careers. Use it to remember, to retrace their paths. “Walk in the rain, take tea at midnight, walk on the sea, dance around the earth, swing in the air.” And never forget that yes, you really can “do anything when you love each other.” A 2 CD 34 track homage to a wonderful musical relationship.

Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere CD release: "ODE TO BILLY JOE" Composed and Conducted by Michel Legrand. “Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”. In 1967, Billie Joe jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge was one of the hottest topics of that summer, all over the world. The fact that it all had to do with a surprise number one hit song shows the power of great storytelling. Everyone was conjecturing what it was that was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge and why Billie Joe had killed himself. It became part of popular culture almost instantly. The song garnered eight Grammy nominations, winning three for Gentry and one for arranger Jimmie Haskell. Nine years later, Warner Bros. decided to turn the song into a feature film and hired author Herman Raucher (Summer of ’42) to do so. Max Baer, Jr. directed and produced the film – he was, at the time, best known for playing Jethro Bodine on the hit TV series The Beverly Hillbillies. Young actors Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor were cast in the leads, along with Joan Hotchkiss, James Best (giving a sensitive and wonderful performance), and others. Raucher changed the spelling of Billie to Billy and his screenplay fleshed out the events of the song, and gave the audience the reason for Billy Joe’s jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Though it emerged from the artistic rebelliousness and formal innovations of the French New Wave, Jacques Demy’s kaleidoscopic world was like nothing of its time. The director’s signature style—a Hollywood-inspired blend of candy-colored imagery, infectious tunes, and swooning romance—was most famously showcased in his beloved musicals The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). A key ingredient in these two landmark films is Demy’s close collaboration with composer Michel Legrand, who became an international icon following the success of Cherbourg’s soundtrack and went on to win three Oscars for his work in Hollywood.

Michel Legrand has spent most of his life as a composer in the studios and for films, but this release is a jazz classic. Legrand took 11 famous jazz compositions and arranged them for three different groups. Tenor great Ben Webster, flutist Herbie Mann, four trombonists, and a rhythm section perform pieces by Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Django Reinhardt ("Nuages"), and the Count Basie-associated "Blue and Sentimental." A big band with trumpeters Art Farmer and Donald Byrd and altoist Phil Woods plays "Stompin' at the Savoy," "A Night in Tunisia," and Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist." The most famous session has Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Phil Woods, Herbie Mann, pianist Bill Evans…

Near the beginning of his career, Michel Legrand was primarily known as a jazz pianist, so it shouldn't be surprising to learn that none of his compositions are present on these 1959 studio sessions, which were issued by Phillips. With bassist Guy Pederson and drummer Gus Wallez, Legrand covers songs by French composers of the day along with the ever-popular "Moulin Rouge" and a somewhat upbeat arrangement of Edith Piaf's usually maudlin "La Vie en Rose," as well as standards from the Great American Songbook by Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Vernon Duke, and Mack Gordon. Most of the songs have a Parisian theme to them…