Have you heard about the latest Hollywood sensation?

You don't even need to visit the box office to enjoy the library's newest exhibit, Movie Notes: Composing Music for Hollywood, which is currently on display in the Browsing Area of the San Diego State University Library and Information Access through September 6, 2003. Drop by and learn more about the composers who brought us such memorable tunes as "Stormy Weather," "When You Wish Upon a Star," "Sophisticated Lady" and "Moon River."

The sheet music and record album cover art that star in this exhibit are part of the Vince Meades Sheet Music Collection (which consists of approximately 58,000 sheet music titles) in Special Collections and University Archives.

We would also like to extend a special thank you to Natalie Pastor for the handsome poster she created to accompany Movie Notes: Composing Music for Hollywood.

MEMORABLE THEMES
Hollywood moguls quickly learned that they could profit from both the income from a film and the song used to publicize it. In many cases, a single song associated with a movie took on a life of its own and far outlived the movie with which it was originally associated. These pieces of music may have accompanied the battles, romances, comings of age, marriages, deaths and farewells of celluloid lives but today remain in our memories because of the tale of the human condition they portrayed.

ENDURING SONGS
Composer Irving Berlin said in one of his many classics, “the song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” After the coming of sound in motion pictures in 1927, Hollywood studios began to recognize the value of popular music as a key element in movies. All-star revues, adaptations of Broadway shows, and screen musicals became common movie formats that featured songs by Tin Pan Alley writers, among others. The song standards showcased here--by composers George and Ira Gershwin, David Raksin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Bob Nolan, and Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington--offer examples of musical pieces that proved so lasting that they could be used in more than one film.

A MEDLEY OF LYRICISTS AND COMPOSERS
Prolific songwriter Harry Warren summed up the experiences of Hollywood’s behind-the scenes music makers in this way:

“There were many of us here, lyricists and composers writing words and music for the singing stars. But unlike our colleagues, the greats of the Broadway musical theater, we never got our names above the titles; that place went to the stars or occasionally to a producer or director. We were generally considered part of the equipment: a song-composing machine expected to turn out not just songs, but ‘hits’ at the drop of a whole note, tailored to the style of a certain performer. And after the songs had been created, like as not we were taken off salary!”*

Moviegoers have been and continue to be captivated by the melodies of Hollywood films but tend to know little about the creative talents responsible for them. This display recognizes a sampling of artists--Warren, Dorothy Fields, Bernard Herrmann, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, and John Williams--whose words and music have played key roles in hundreds of motion pictures.

*Warren Craig, The Great Songwriters of Hollywood (San Diego: A.S. Barnes and Company, Inc., 1980), 7.

Quincy Jones (1933- ) is a Grammy Award-winning composer, arranger, producer, and instrumentalist. A native of Chicago, Jones grew up in Seattle. During the early 1950s, he launched his musical career, performing largely as a trumpeter and arranger for jazz artists. His first venture into film composing was The Pawnbroker (1965), at special invitation of the movie’s director Sidney Lumet. Jones has composed scores for more than fifty motion pictures, including In Cold Blood (1967), Cactus Flower (1969), The Getaway (1972), and The Color Purple (1985).

TOON TUNES: MUSIC FOR ANIMATED FILMS
Fish, crickets, puppets and penguins have crooned some of Hollywoods most memorable songs over the years. Often cartoon music was overshadowed by the more glamorous or serious feature film scores, but what was once simply musical accompaniment for on-screen action has grown into blockbuster, Academy Award-winning songs played over radio stations worldwide. Nearly every song represented in this case has been sung over and over again by youngsters and the young-at-heart.

Virtual exhibit created by Elke Zobl

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