Alex North
Born Isadore Soifer
(1910-12-04)December 4, 1910
Chester, Pennsylvania
Died September 8, 1991(1991-09-08) (aged 80)
Los Angeles, California
Spouse Gladlynne Sherle Treihart (1941–1966)
Annemarie Hoellger
Anna Sokoloff

Alex North (December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer who wrote the first jazz-based film score (A Streetcar Named Desire) and one of the first modernist scores written in Hollywood (Viva Zapata!).

Born Isadore Soifer in Chester, Pennsylvania to Russian Jewish parents[1], North was an original composer probably even by the classical music standards of the day. However, he managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes. One of these became the famous song, "Unchained Melody". Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, North is one of only two film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the other being Ennio Morricone. North's frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde composer Henry Brant. He won the 1968 Golden Globe award for his music to The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968).

His best-known film scores include The Rainmaker (1956), Spartacus (1960), The Misfits (1961),The Children's Hour (1961) Cleopatra (1963), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Devil's Brigade (1968), and Dragonslayer (1981). He composed the music for "The Wonderful Country" in a Mexican and southwestern US motif.

His commissioned score for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is notorious for having been discarded by director Stanley Kubrick. North reused themes from the rejected score for The Shoes of the Fisherman, Shanks (1974), and Dragonslayer, but the score itself was unheard until composer Jerry Goldsmith rerecorded it for Varèse Sarabande in 1993. In 2007, Intrada Records released North's personal copies of the 1968 recording sessions on CD.

North was also commissioned to write a jazz score for Nero Wolfe, a 1959 CBS-TV series based on Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe characters, starring William Shatner as Archie Goodwin and Kurt Kasznar as Nero Wolfe.[2] A pilot and two or three episodes were filmed, but the designated time slot was, in the end, given to another series.[3][4] North's unheard score for Nero Wolfe and six recorded tracks on digital audio tape are in the UCLA Music Library Special Collections.[5]

Though North is best known for his work in Hollywood, he spent years in New York writing music for the stage; he composed the score, by turns plaintive and jarring, for the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman. It was in New York that he met Elia Kazan (director of Salesman), who brought him to Hollywood in the '50s. North was one of several composers who brought the influence of contemporary concert music into film, in part marked by an increased use of dissonance and complex rhythms. But there is also a lyrical quality to much of his work which may be connected to the influence of Aaron Copland, with whom he studied.

His classical works include a Rhapsody for Piano, Trumpet obbligato and Orchestra. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his score for the 1976 television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. North is also known for his opening to the CBS television anthology series Playhouse 90 and the 1965 ABC television miniseries FDR.

Awards [link]

The American Film Institute ranked North's score for A Streetcar Named Desire #19 on their list of the greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list:

References [link]

  1. ^ [1], Alex North Biography
  2. ^ The Billboard, April 20, 1959, pp. 38 + 40
  3. ^ Shepard, Richard F., The New York Times, April 9, 1959
  4. ^ Ewald, William F., Television in Review (syndicated column), April 9, 1959
  5. ^ Wrobel, Bill, Film Score Rundowns, "CBS Collection 072 UCLA," Blog 42, June 25, 2010. The film score researcher identifies 30 CBS digital audio tapes in the UCLA Music Library Special Collections (p. 168), with tracks 86–91 of DAT #11 being the Nero Wolfe music of Alex North (p. 174). The score, CPN5912, is in Box #105 (p. 51).

External links [link]


https://wn.com/Alex_North

Days of Our Lives characters (2000s)

A list of notable characters from the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives that significantly impacted storylines and debuted between January 1, 2000, and the end of 2009.

J.T. Brady

John Thomas "J.T." Brady was the "adopted" son of Abe and Lexie Carver, but after an infant switch by Stefano DiMera he was believed to be the second son of Hope Brady and Bo Brady.

After years of trying for a baby the natural way, Abe and Lexie Carver decide that they will adopt a child. When Lexie's father Stefano DiMera hears about the news, he is over joyed at the prospect of finally becoming a grandfather and asks that Abe and Lexie adopt the child of one of his distant relatives. The birth mother Marlo is in fact the niece of Dr. Rolf, Stefano's longtime assistant. However none the wiser to Lexie and Abe, Stefano is planning a plot whereby Marlo's baby would be switched with the baby of Bo and Hope's who Stefano at the time thought might be his or John Black's. After the births of the babies, Stefano has Dr. Rolf switch Hope's and Marlo's babies birth tags. So, the baby is instead taken home by Bo and Hope Brady and named John Thomas, getting his names from family friend John Black and "his" Great-Grandfather Dr. Thomas Horton.

OK Computer

OK Computer is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released in 1997 on Parlophone and Capitol Records. OK Computer was the first self-produced Radiohead album, with assistance from Nigel Godrich. Radiohead recorded the album in Oxfordshire and Bath between 1996 and early 1997, with most of the recording completed in the historic mansion St Catherine's Court. The band made a deliberate attempt to distance themselves from the guitar-oriented, lyrically introspective style of their previous album, The Bends. OK Computer's abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and wide range of influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead's later, more experimental work.

OK Computer received unanimous critical acclaim and has since been cited by critics and musicians as one of the greatest rock albums of the 1990s. The album was nominated in the Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Performance categories at the 1998 Grammy Awards, ultimately winning the latter. The album initiated a shift away from the popular Britpop genre of the time to the more melancholic and atmospheric style of alternative rock that would be prevalent in the next decade. Critics and fans have commented on the underlying themes found in the lyrics and album artwork, emphasising Radiohead's views on rampant consumerism, social alienation, emotional isolation, and political malaise; in this capacity, OK Computer is often interpreted as having prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life, and many critics have described it as one of the greatest albums ever released.

Exit Music

Exit Music is the seventeenth crime novel in the internationally bestselling Inspector Rebus series, written by Ian Rankin. It was published on 6 September 2007. The title was released simultaneously by Rankin himself at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and by a special promotion featured on internet music networking site last.fm, arranged by the publisher to celebrate the theme of music which has run throughout the series. The cover was also revealed on the site. Rankin has mentioned that his character Siobhan Clarke may in some way continue the franchise. The book is named after the Radiohead song "Exit Music (For a Film)".

Plot summary

Just a week before Rebus’s retirement, Rebus and Clarke are investigating the death of a famous Russian exile poet who was mugged and beaten to death on King's Stables Road. Then a sound recordist with close ties to the dead Russian poet turns up dead. Rebus searches for the killer of both men but is suspended for his over-enthusiastic interrogations and getting on the wrong side of powerful Scottish bankers and politicians. His last three days before retirement are spent working from his flat, trying to solve the case.

Podcasts:

Alex North

ALBUMS

Born: 1910-12-04

Died: 1991-09-08

PLAYLIST TIME:

Unchained Melody

by: Alex North

Oh, my love, my darling,
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time.
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much,
Are You Still Mine?
I need your love,
I need your love,
God speed your love to me!
Lonely rivers flow to the sea,
To the sea,
To the open arms of the sea.
Lonely rivers sigh,
"Wait for me, wait for me!"
I'll be coming home, wait for me!
Oh, my love, my darling,
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much,
Are You Still Mine?
I need your love,
I need your love,
God speed your love to me!
Lonely mountains gaze at the stars,
At the stars,
Waiting for the dawn of the day.
All alone, I gaze at the stars,
At the stars,
Dreaming of my love for away.
Oh, my love, my darling,
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time.
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much,
Are You Still Mine?
I need your love,
I need your love,




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