Tag: music

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Today, from the Bond on Vinyl archives, we’re moving ahead and listening to music featured in From Russia With Love!

Kenneth Daniel Ball was born in Ilford, Essex, in 1930. By 1944, Ball left school to work as an advertising clerk and began learning to play the trumpet. He continued improving his trumpet skills at night while working for the ad agency. In 1953, he left to play trumpet professionally in multiple bands. By 1958, Ball led his own Dixieland jazz band: Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.

The UK experienced a bit of a jazz revival in the early 1960s, and Kenny Ball was right in the middle of it. Their 1962 self-titled album went gold, selling over a million copies, and had singles that went as high as #2 on both the UK and US Singles charts.

The band’s success continued for decades, touring with Louis Armstrong during his final European tour, making countless television appearances, and even playing at the wedding reception of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Up until 2002, the Jazzmen were still playing 150 shows a year, remaining active until Ball’s passing in 2013.

Today’s selection comes from his 10th album (only five years into the Jazzmen), the 1964 release: Hello Dolly and 14 Other Big Hits. While I’m not familiar with all the tunes on the album, and Dixieland jazz is not my preferred style, this compilation is a lot of fun all the way until the final track: a jazzy instrumental version of From Russia With Love with a bit more pep than John Barry’s Opening Titles version as heard on the Original Soundtrack two years earlier.

96. Kenny Ball And His Jazzmen – Hello Dolly & 14 Other Big Hits

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Today, from the Bond on Vinyl archives, we’re taking it back the the beginning and listening to music from Dr. No and Goldfinger!

Domenico Monardo was born in a small town in Pennsylvania in 1939 to parents of Italian descent. While the name Miko may be common in Japan, and the name Nico is common in Greece, Italians have a common nickname for boys named Domenico: you’ve heard it as Meco.

Meco’s father was certainly a role model to Meco as he played the valve trombone in a local band patterned after Italian bands that would march in the streets playing for funerals, weddings, and other festivities. Though he showed a musical interest at an early age, hearing his father’s band practice at their home, Meco’s father initially would not allow him to play any instruments until he had taught his son how to fully read music for around a year. It was only then that Meco started playing the slide trombone, being able to read the music on sight.

This early musical education led to Meco getting a full music scholarship at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, by age seventeen. After graduation, he joined the army and played the trombone in the West Point Band for several years. By the mid-1960s, Meco followed his former classmate and friend, Chuck Mangione, to New York City in order to get work as a session musician.

Meco broke the norm by using the trombone in pop hits. He found success playing for some big hits, including Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out.” Meco was an early adopter of the disco scene, forming a production company (with a couple of partners) known as the Disco Corporation of America in 1973.

By the time Star Wars debuted in the US in May of 1977, Meco was poised for his biggest hit. He enjoyed the film so much that he saw it a handful of times within its first days in the theater. Within weeks of the film’s Original Soundtrack by John Williams becoming a hit, Meco released a “space-disco” version of several songs from the score entitled “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk.”

The title track “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band” hit #1 on the singles chart in the US and Canada, kicking off over five years of disco-themed success for Meco. Before retiring from the disco scene in 1983 after 14 albums, Meco put out “Pop Goes the Movies.” This 1982 release is a 27-minute disco medley of soundtrack music, including a disco cover of The James Bond Theme first heard in Dr. No, which rolls right into an equally funky version of the title track from Goldfinger.

95. Meco – Pop Goes The Movies

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Today, from the Bond on Vinyl archives, here’s a bonus video I put together last year to promote the upcoming month of new 007 on Vinyl posts.

The video was meant to tease new content, including source music, foreign releases, deep cuts, & holy grails arriving in just seven days. However, you only have to wait until tomorrow!

Cheers! 🍸😎

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Today, from the Bond on Vinyl archives, we’re listening to music that appeared in No Time To Die! This is also the third time this month we’re talking about Daniel Craig Bond films with Italian music older than anyone alive today.

Born in Naples in 1873, Enrico Caruso was the third of seven children, of which only three survived infancy. There’s an urban legend that his parents had 21 children, but seven is likely a more accurate number. Caruso was encouraged to be a musician by his mother and helped raise money for his family as a street performer in Naples, not adopting the mechanic’s trade of his father. He made his stage debut in 1895, with his operatic tenor voice bringing him immense fame at the major opera houses of Europe and North America. Caruso was one of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, releasing 247 commercial recordings from 1902 to 1920.

His most famous piece of music is likely either ‘O Sole Mio’:

or ‘La Donna È Mobile’:

The song appearing in No Time To Die is actually ‘Che Gelida Manina.’ from Giacomo Puccini’s opera, La Bohème. Yes, this is the same guy I just mentioned to Tosca in Quantum of Solace.

At around nine minutes into No Time To Die, Bond and Madeleine check into their hotel in Matero and head straight for the bedroom. The music coming from the gramophone (which apparently still works in 2020 or whenever the movie is supposed to take place) is ‘Che Gelida Manina’ with vocals by Caruso.

Listening to this 1976 vinyl album was an interesting experience. Many of the tunes were somewhat recognizable. However, I had no idea what the lyrics were.

94. Enrico Caruso – The Best Of Caruso