Program Notes

Whenever my father, Franz Waxman, was asked which of his film scores were his favorites he did not always give the same answer. Most often his first choice would be either Rebecca and some times Sunset Boulevard or Taras Bulba but Crime in the Streets was always his second choice because this score allowed him to bring forth his interest and background in jazz. When you think of Waxman, jazz does not usually come to mind but it was close to his soul and this recording may come as a surprise to many of his admirers who are not familiar with his early career in Europe.

Franz Waxman began his musical career as the pianist, in the Weintraub Syncopaters: a Berlin jazz band of the late 1920s and early 1930s. He wrote arrangements for the band and was soon composing and orchestrating musicals at the UFA studios: the MGM of Germany. This was also the time when he worked with Frederich Hollaender. His love and facility with jazz comes from this period. He maintained a large record collection in Berlin of American jazz greats such as Bix Biderbecke.

By the early 1950s Waxman and his colleagues, Elmer Bernstein (The Man With the Golden Arm, Alex North (A Streetcar Named Desire), Leonard Rosenman (Rebel Without A Cause and Leith Stevens (The Wild One were writing and promoting jazz scores in films. Waxman’s first was He Ran All The Way (1951).

Not many Film Noir fans know Crime in the Streets (Allied Artists 1956) because it is seen rarely on television. When the Museum of Modern Art honored Waxman on the occasion of his centenary in 2006, Crime in the Streets played to SRO audiences.

The Don Siegel film, not unlike West Side Story (1957), is about rival gangs in New York. The amazing cast includes John Cassavetes, Sal Mineo, James Whitmore, Mark Rydell and Virginia Gregg.

Crime in the Streets gave Waxman the opportunity to write contemporary jazz much in the mold of Ellington. Some of the music in this score has the elegant style of Waxman’s last Hitchcock assignment Rear Window (1954). Alexander Courage again co-orchestrated with the composer. The score continued to have an underground following and in the 1980s “The Celebration” was used as background music for several classic Steve Martin/ Dan Ackroyd Saturday Night Live sketches.

– John W. Waxman, July 2009