The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles - Volume 3

This third album of Young Indiana Jones scores is rather different to the others. Although apparently weighted heavily toward Joel McNeely, closer inspection reveals that The Scandal of 1920 contains generous helpings of Gershwin and The Mystery of the Blues features various ragtime & Dixie jazz tunes, all of which is arranged by McNeely and woven into his score. Your enjoyment of this album therefore depends on your enjoyment of American musical theatre and ragtime.

I am a great fan of Gershwin's orchestral music which probably stems from my love of Woody Allen films; Allen of course forever associated Rhapsody in Blue with New York when he used it and many other Gershwin tracks to underscore Manhatten. Obviously the producers of Young Indy didn't want to do anything too unexpected and so we start off with that famous clarinet opening and then various parts of the piece are fitted in and around the rest of the score. Sadly my expertise of Gershwin's music is still rather limited and so most of the songs featured are rather unfamiliar. They are very much period songs that quite perfectly capture the spirit of the era probably better than McNeely could have done on his own. There are a few moments of original underscore such as in Kate the Poet which bring back fond memories of Randy Newman's gorgeous Avalon. The melody and arrangement being quite close to the piano and strings original. Its understatement nicely balances the exuberance of Gershwin's music and provides more dramatic weight to the story.

The Mystery of the Blues features an even greater proportion of arranged rather than original music. There are period bluesy songs as well as lively ragtime tracks. In this case McNeely's own score is more like the period pieces with tracks such as Warehouse Battle starting with a bustling orchestral rag although this soon gives way to something a little more serious and dramatic on occasion. I do happen to be rather fond of ragtime although this mainly extends to the king of ragtime Scott Joplin, but the arrangements of ragtime pieces are very enjoyable and the performance of some difficult music is top rate.

Even though there is probably more original music composed by Rosenthal than McNeely, it does seem that Rosenthal got the thin end of the wedge here. His score to Princeton 1916 is a pleasing New England pastoral effort. However, after the often frenetic and attention grabbing music of what comes before it comes along as a bit of an afterthought. On any other of the albums it would have made for a nice change in between two very dramatic scores as a nice change in pace, but here it is so different in pace and style that it simply doesn't work. I wonder whether it might have been best programmed in the middle where it could have provided a change of pace midway and separate the two period scores.

This was the first Young Indy album that I purchased and my feeling is that it is not a good one to start with! The extensive inclusion of traditional music whether used as source music or underscore means that your enjoyment will be basically gauged on your enjoyment of either 1920's American musicals or Dixie and associated blues and ragtime styles. If you do, then the mixture in both cases is very pleasing and as mentioned, the performances are first rate. It is just a shame that Rosenthal's effort doesn't fit in terribly well; otherwise another fine album.