Spooks

Lalo Schifrin has been composing music for television and films for decades. Perhaps his best-known TV score is for Mission: Impossible, but he also wrote for Starsky and Hutch, Mannix, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and others. Movies? Bullitt, Cool Hand Kuke, THX 1138, Magnum Force, The Amityville Horror, The Dead Pool and many, many others. Now he's helped compose the score for the graphic novel Spooks, and ... wait, what? Lalo Schifrin? The guy who wrote for Dizzy Gillespie and Xavier Cugat?

Well, yes. Spooks is a graphic novel scripted by Larry Hama (who got his start working for premier comic-book artist Wally Wood, back in the day—Woody immortalized him as Big Hama, a heavy in one of the Cannon tales) and ... Ryan Schifrin. Get it now? In any case, the work is being adapted for the silver screen by Men in Black producer Barry Josephson. So it may well be that at least some of this music will be repurposed, as they say. This album was originally released on iTunes in May of 2008. The current release is offered exclusively by Aleph Records, through their Web site. The first 100 copies—which are probably long gone as you read this—will be autographed by Schifrin père.

The runtime here is pretty short, just over 20 minutes, and the maestro shares the composing credits with Andy Garfield, but let's face it: This is Lalo freaking Schifrin we're talking about! Even a musical doodle like this contains treasures for the listener. It can't be said that Schifrin skimps with his talents here. Just listen to the opening cue, "The Forces of Darkness." It opens with some serious percussion and a wordless choir, melting immediately into a martial throb laced with high brass and woodwinds. A skirl of strings and cymbals and the intensity is ramped up yet again. It's astonishing how much energy he crams into this short cue. The trademark fractured Schifrin time signatures are on display here to splendid effect.

Half of an incredible CD

Andy Garfield, who scored Men in Black, among other films, acquits himself well enough here, but he's up against some stiff competition. He wisely takes a more melodic tack than Schifrin, which lends some depth and cool texture to his cues. He can't match Schifrin's intensity, but he clearly knows a few things about generating excitement.

His first cue, "The Department of Supernatural Defense (SPOOKS)," has a refreshing breadth of scope that contrasts nicely against Schifrin's frontal attack. But who are we kidding? It's Schifrin who generates the real excitement, and that's evident from the first notes of Cue 3, "Omega Team," which is so reminiscent of the old "Mission: Impossible" theme in tone and excitement (it's even got the bongos!) that I am sitting here tapping my feet and nodding my head to it as I write. This is the one to download. The man knows how to write an action cue. Listen to the modulation at 2:50 and tell me this isn't one of the best pieces of music you've heard this year. With the very next cue, 4, "Zach and Felicia," however, his touch becomes more noirish and thoughtful. You might be watching a movie scene in a smoky waterfront bar with a clandestine meeting between lovers with cool jazz in the background.

The last Schifrin cue, 8, "The Final Battle," has some surprising touches of sitar and synthesizer, but it's the master's piano that really keeps this one cooking.