Accompanying Gloria Swanson in 'Zaza' (1923)—Kino Lorber's Blu-ray reissue gets good marks

Gloria in a rare introspective moment from 'Zaza.'

Wednesday, June 6 marks the official release of Kino-Lorber's Blu-ray reissue of 'Zaza' (1923). It's a Gloria Swanson vehicle that's been unavailable for home viewing until now.

I recorded a piano score for 'Zaza' earlier this year, and it's gratifying to see comments now coming in as the release gets reviewed.

From Mike Gebert of the Nitrateville vintage film discussion group:

"Jeff Rapsis contributed the piano score, based on the original cue sheets, and it's pretty much ideal, moving adroitly between comedy and tasteful Continental melodrama."

And this is from a review on the www.silentera.com Web site:

"The film is accompanied by an entertaining piano music score by Jeff Rapsis."

From Brian Orndorf of www.blu-ray.com.

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix contains a score composed and performed by Jeff Rapsis, and he brings a hearty piano mood to the feature, doing a considerable job supporting onscreen activities. It's a simple track, but clear and commanding, with ideal balance and presence, without any dips in quality.

This is from Matthew Hartman of High-Def Digest:

"With a DTS-HD MA 2.0 piano score from composer Jeff Rapsis that follows the original 1923 cue sheet, this is a pretty fantastic score for the film. The piano work gives the film a nice old-time feel with the right blend of jaunty entertainment and hitting the lower dramatic tones. It never feels overly dramatic or too wild and fits the tone of the film perfectly."

And here's one from www.moviessilently.com:

This release features an enthusiastic piano score by Jeff Rapsis, which was adapted from an original 1923 cue sheet. The score makes liberal use of the 18th century French ballad Plaisir d’amour, which the film states is the favorite song of H.B. Warner’s character. Modern viewers will likely be more familiar with Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love, which uses the same melody. Just be assured that everything is quite correct and the movie has not developed Elvis fever.

Let me know if you see any others!

On that last one: I'd forgotten about how similar 'Plaisir d'amour' is to the tune of 'Can't Help Falling In Love,' so I'm glad that got mentioned. I'm not a stickler for period authenticity, but I wouldn't use a signature Elvis tune for a Gloria Swanson film set in post-World War I France!

I'm collecting these here not to toot my own horn (well, maybe a little) but to thank the writers for commenting on the music. Getting feedback of any kind is useful, and it's always great to see the music considered as part of a silent film's total package.

I also want to thank Rob Stone at the Library of Congress and Bret Wood at Kino Lorber for giving me this opportunity.

The Library of Congress has a 35mm print of 'Zaza,' and Rob invited me to accompany a screening of it at the Packard Campus Theatre in 2016.

This led to Rob introducing me to Bret at Kino, who asked me to put together a piano score based on the original cue sheet, which was obtained from the George Eastman archive.

And I would be remiss without mentioning all the efforts of Bill Millios, a filmmaker here in my New Hampshire home base who has been supportive of so many film/music projects.

In this case, Bill graciously gave up a few Saturday mornings to act as engineer in recording the score, which was performed on a Yamaha grand piano in the recital hall of the Manchester Community Music School way back in January. (Brrr!)

And on that note, I need to thank Judy Teehan and Valerie Gentilhomme at the music school for their assistance as well. Thank you, ladies!

Until now, I've focused on live performance as a way to improve my accompaniment technique and develop a working musical vocabulary, if vocabulary is the right word for vocabulary. (What a paradox!)

But I was excited at the chance to lay down a track for such a high profile flick (Gloria Swanson!), and I feel ready to do more.

So we'll see. Part of my capacity to do more depends on my ability to create and edit professional quality sound files, which is sorely lacking.

Changing that was one of my New Year's resolutions, and I'm afraid not much has been done in that direction. But there's always 2018!

Before we get there, however, some good screenings await, including a Buster Keaton program on Thursday, June 1 at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth N.H.

The film is 'Seven Chances' (1925), and the start time is 6:30 p.m. Hope to see you there!

Buster and a bevy of would-be brides in 'Seven Chances' (1925). None of them appear to be Gloria Swanson.

Two recording projects in the works: 'Homecoming' (1928) for ReelClassicsDVD, and 'Zaza' (1923) for Kino-Lorber

Original promotional art for Gloria Swanson in 'Zaza' (1923).

Excited about something unusual for me: not one but two separate silent film score recording projects coming up.

Tomorrow (Saturday, Jan. 14), I'll record music for a re-release of 'Homecoming' (1928), a German drama about World War II that will soon be re-issued on DVD by ReelClassicdvd.com.

And then next Saturday (Jan. 21), I'll lay down tracks for 'Zaza' (1923), the Gloria Swanson film being re-issued this spring in Blu-Ray by Kino-Lorber.

In both cases, I'll be recording the music in the recital hall of the Manchester Community Music School in Manchester, N.H. Many thanks to Judy Teehan, Valerie Gentilehomme, and the entire staff of the music school for making the space (and the nice grand piano!) available.

Also, I need to thank N.H. filmmaker Bill Millios in advance for helping me engineer the recording. I'm in the process of putting together my own set-up to record and edit music files, but I'm not quite there yet, and Bill is willing to help bridge the gap.

All this is unusual for me because until now, I've generally resisted having my film score work recorded.

Why? I don't know if this is something people can understand, but let me try to explain anyway.

I've found when I create live music in the moment, largely through improvising while a film is playing, it takes about 10 minutes or so to get into what I call the "silent film accompaniment zone."

What I mean by that is that it takes about 10 minutes for me to settle into the mental place where the music seems to flow naturally and freely from wherever it comes from.

This is the time needed for all the self-editing and self-consciousness and critical judgmental functions to fade away, at least for me. After that, the music seems to come easily.

In other words, I get to a place where my critical faculties are minimized and I stop second-guessing myself. And that's when the magic starts.

However, I've found that when I'm aware that I'm being recorded—when I'm aware that every note will be preserved for posterity—it's been difficult for my critical self to fade away.

Really. The presence of a live microphone really makes my self-conscious. And it never seems to subside, and so it's much tougher to reach that "silent film accompaniment zone" where everything comes so easily.

If one thing goes wrong, I overreact. I overthink. I question myself all the more. And so on.

So rather than record anything, I've gotten along for quite awhile now thinking of myself as a "live performance" artist only: one whose work exists only in the moment, in one place, and in one way before a certain audience. To get it, you had to be there.

So what's with this sudden spurt of recording projects?

Well, a couple of things. For one, I think I've been doing silent film accompaniment long enough to have a good sense of my own style and how to use it effectively. At the risk of sounding too full of myself, I have something to contribute, however minor.

But also, I'm at a point where I sense it would be good to stretch myself—to push into areas that I've shied away from, if only for the satisfaction of making an attempt.

Writing down music (as in my Kilimanjaro Suite) is one way.

And recording it is another.

I was having these thoughts last fall when Mark Roth from ReelClassics contacted me about doing music for 'Homecoming' (1928) and a companion short, 'France and the Great War.'

So it seemed like fate or chance or whatever was in agreement that I should try to get more comfortable with recording.

After agreeing to score 'Homecoming,' I was contacted by Bret Wood at Kino-Lorber at doing music for 'Zaza' (1923), which I had accompanied earlier in 2016 at the Packard Theatre at the Library of Congress campus in Culpeper, Va.

'Zaza' was pretty big news because it's a Gloria Swanson picture that's never been reissued in modern times. So I need to thank Rob Stone at the Packard Center for bringing me in to accompany the film last year, and then for recommending me to Bret.

But Bret upped the ante by asking that I create a score using as much as possible music from an original cue sheet for the film that he'd found at the George Eastman House.

As an accompanist who specializes in creating my own music to score silent pictures, I've found that having to pieces from other people, no matter how good, is another barrier to me being able to reach that "silent film accompaniment" zone.

Even if I memorize music so that I could play it while reciting the alphabet backwards, the scoring of a film just doesn't happen naturally for me when it's someone else's stuff.

But Kino-Lorber had a vision for this, and had already paid for the cue sheet. So I gave it a look and found that every single melody in it (just the opening phrase, and no supporting chords) was something I'd never heard of in my life!

Ouch! Undaunted, I contacted the one person in the silent film world I thought would know where I could find at least a few of these pieces: Rodney Sauer, the founder and pianist of the famed Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, based in Boulder, Colo.

And I'll be darned if Rodney didn't reply almost instantly with word that he had sheet music for about a dozen of the cues, accompanied by his own cheeky observation that some of them "are actually good music."

So Rodney sent what he had to me—a mix of obscure tunes, sentimental ballads, and "photoplay music" written specifically for silent film musicians to use. And for the past week, I've been reading through it and trying to "make it my own" as much as possible in advance of the recording session a week from tomorrow.

Well, wish me luck on these two recording projects. I would like to do more, but that will only happen if I can get through these without completely screwing them up.

And the trick to doing that, I think, is to somehow forget that I'm being recorded at all, and hope that the music flows naturally.

Can I do it? We'll find out soon enough!