Tuesday, May 31, 2011

FF010 LEGENDS OF LIBRARY - SYD DALE




Part 1

Track 1 - Disco-Tek
Track 2 - Quite Contrary
Track 3 - Knock On Wood
Track 4 - Let Me Take You There
Track 5 - March On The Run
Track 6 - Secret Service
Track 7 - Night Raider
Track 8 - Miss World
Track 9 - The Hellraisers
Track 10 - The Explorers
Track 11 - Lucky Seven
Track 12 - The Washington Affair
Track 13 - Portobello Market
Track 14 - Piece Worker
Track 15 - Sunshine Express

Part 2

Track 1 - The Penthouse Suite
Track 2 - London Life
Track 3 - Boogaloo Blues
Track 4 - Not So Private Eye
Track 5 - Walk In A Nightmare
Track 6 - Minor Crisis
Track 7 - Number One Spy
Track 8 - Come One Come All
Track 9 - Looks Like Trouble (B)
Track 10 - Base Line
Track 11 - Impending Danger
Track 12 - Beauty Parade
Track 13 - The Groupie
Track 14 - Forewarning (C)
Track 15 - Shank's Pony

There is no questioning Syd Dale's place amongst the legends of library music. From his days at KPM through to the founding of Amphonic, his lavish big band inspired compositions were quickly brought to the public's attention through their use in countless t.v shows and advertisements. Much of his work could be classed as easy listening however Dale was also adept at incorporating elements of funk and spy jazz. This collection has been put together using tracks found on his Amphonic releases along with several soundtracks and compilations ( a number have been sourced from the excellent "Crime Jazz Vol.9: Syd Dale In Action" which was put together by THXjay at The Crime Lounge ).

Having listened to this again the first part is more orientated towards easy listening while the second has a number of excellent spy / soundtrack style numbers. The one thing these 30 tracks have in common is a dedication to grooviness and a keen sense of what works musically. I'll be posting a number of Syd Dale related albums in the coming months. I hope you enjoy this compilation as much as I did putting it together. For more Syd click here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Top compilation from one of the best.
Disco tek is a killer track. One of the three best from my collection of european library with "throng" from the big beat's Ingman and "soft wind" from Gary pacific orchestra.
great job

thanks a lot for all unknown gems

chris

Joel kemp said...

Such a stellar collection you have.A real library all on it's own.And I don't even need a card to check out the books!Thanks mane

Anonymous said...

Syd Dale's stuff was always my favourite part of the old Spiderman cartoon Thanks

Mr. Craig said...

That's good to hear. I've got the Spiderman Kpm collection and will be posting it sometime in the next month or 2.

lecolhector said...

I looked for a way to discover this artist :) great compilation

aceha1 said...

Once again, thanks for all you do homie! I LOVE this blog!!!!

THXjay said...

Syd Dale is one of the true legends of library music (and easy music in general) and it's always great to see another collection of his works.

Though he wrote some absolutely incredible spy themed tunes, I must admit that I always preferred the softer Syd. I love the early seventies compositions that could easily have been written for comedy films or sit-coms.

A true musical legend that is still under-appreciated. Maybe one day we will see some official releases of his work!

Keep up the great work FF