Last Tango In Paris: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack

Last Tango In Paris: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack

Steeped in controversy upon its release in 1973, director Bernardo Bertolucci's <I>Last Tango in Paris</I> has since been called everything from nonutilitarian pornography to a cinematic masterpiece. Two key elements that Bertolucci utilized to breath life into <I>Tango</I>'s nihilistic themes and the dark, obsessive relationship at its core were Marlon Brando's harrowing, largely improvised performance and the erotically charged jazz score of self-taught Latin sax virtuoso Gato Barbieri. While the musician's main theme has become a much-covered jazz standard, it's but a tantalizingly sexy sample of the cross-cultural stylings at work in this masterful score. While Barbieri rerecorded the core of his <i>Tango</i> music in lush, fleshier arrangements for the soundtrack album's initial release, this Ryko edition (nearly twice the length of the original) augments those tracks with a compelling half-hour suite of cues culled directly from the film's scoring sessions. By turns stark and sentimental, erotic and experimental, these previously unreleased cues form a revelatory new "second movement" to Barbieri's hauntingly familiar score. <I>--Jerry McCulley</I>