Music Composed by Jerry Fielding
Rating: *** 1/2

Much like Alex North and Leonard Rosenman before him, Jerry Fielding has always been a composer whose uncompromisingly modern and frequently avant-garde sensibilities tend to alienate listeners bred on straight melodies and easy harmonies. Lurking somewhere in the midst of 70’s jazz/funk, impressionism, modernism, and avant-garde experimentation, Fielding’s distinct voice is certainly an acquired taste, but one that listeners tend to embrace feverishly once they’ve acquired it. And Aleph Records’ new release of The Enforcer may just be the score to convert those who haven’t developed the taste yet.

The film was the third entry in the Dirty Harry series, and the only entry that wasn’t scored by Lalo Schifrin. Magnanimous man that Schifrin is, he’s gone out of the way to release Fielding’s score on his own label, and we the listeners reap the rewards. I’m only really familiar with Schifrin’s music for the original film, and brilliant as that score was in context, the album was always just a little too … “dirty” to really engage me on its own terms. I’d never have imagined a world where Jerry Fielding’s entry in a series was more accessible than that of Lalo Schifrin, but that’s exactly what’s happened here. While The Enforcer maintains the uncompromising experimentation and jazz roots of the first Dirty Harry, Fielding manages to invest his music with a heaping dose of hip fun that counterbalances the harsher moments perfectly. And while it doesn’t rewrite the book the way the original did, it presents just about every signature tick in Fielding’s musical makeup in a supremely entertaining fashion.

The first cue (”Prologue – Main Title”) essentially summarizes the dynamic that encompasses the score. It opens with a string-driven assault from Fielding’s signature tone clusters, but somehow in the midst of this dissonance, the cue gradually develops into an funky jazz piece. He doesn’t abandon the dissonance with the transition, but by transferring the dissonance to a jazz ensemble, Fielding manages to turn something agonizingly painful into something hip and laid-back. Throughout the score, the composer manages to oscillate between these two poles without ever giving the score a schizophrenic feel.

Highlights abound in both poles. On the jazz side, “Harry’s World” introduces a Herbie Hancock-inspired piano-and-bass theme for Eastwood’s hero – Dirty Harry by way of Head Hunters if you will. It’s hard to imagine Eastwood’s hard-as-nails character responding to something so upbeat, but it’s a great piece of music that invests the score with sweet grooves every time it appears. The biggest highlight, however, may be the thrilling “Rooftop Chase,” a breathless action cue that showcases Fielding’s big band/funk finesse at full force – think of his music from The Super Cops taken to its most outrageous extremes. And Fielding even gets a chance to write some laid-back Henry Mancini jazz in “Tiffany’s Number Eleven,” by far the most glitzy piece I’ve ever heard from the man.

On the other end of the pole, we have the more unnerving Fielding that made Sam Peckinpah’s films so viscerally brutal. “Warehouse Heist” features some brilliant atonal experiments with synthesizers, while “Alcatraz Encounter” eerily juxtaposes tentative dissonant strings with wild low piano rumblings to great effect. Genuine emotion even pours out in the score’s “Finale (Elegy for Inspector Moore),” as all of the score’s unrelenting tension comes pouring out with raw tonal remorse (twice, in fact, because two separate versions of this piece close the album). It’s a beautifully gut-wrenching piece, just as powerful as anything from the Peckinpah films, and a fine way to conclude a fantastic score.

I would agree with those who cited The Enforcer as Fielding’s most readily accessible CD, as his harsh experiments are much easier to take when balanced out with so much kick-ass 70s jazz. Fielding fans no doubt already have and love it, but anyone else with a predilection for 70s jazz scores or ingenious experimental film music shouldn’t pass this up. Badass film music at it’s finest.

Music Composed and Conducted by Jerry Fielding; Arrangers/Orchestrators/Copyists: Jack Dulong, Daniel Franklin, Joel Franklin, Jack Furlong, Bill Mays, Greig McRitchie, Lennie Neihaus; Album Produced by Nick Redman; Music Remixed by Michael Matessino; Label: Aleph Records, (038); Availability: In-print; U.S. Release Date: June 26, 2007.

01. Prologue / Main Title (3:20)
02. Harry’s World (1:03)
03. Warehouse Heist (5:20)
04. Code Blue (1:16)
05. Rooftop Chase (6:02)
06. Raid on Mustafa’s (1:17)
07. Kidnap Zap (3:46)
08. Tiffany’s Number Eleven (3:18)
09. The Shooting Nun (1:15)
10. Alcatraz Encounter (4:26)
11. Death on the Rock (3:06)
12. Finale (Elegy for Inspector Moore) (3:00)
13. Finale (Alternate) (2:56)

Total Playing Time: 40:05