Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme. Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme. John Barry's arrangement of the James Bond theme. These iconic melodies have remained a part of the pop culture landscape since their debuts in the late 1950s and early '60s: a "golden decade" that highlighted an era when movie studios and TV production companies employed full orchestral ensembles to provide a jazz backdrop for the suspenseful adventures of secret agents, private detectives, cops, spies and heist-minded criminals. Hundreds of additional films and television shows made during this period were propelled by similarly swinging title themes and underscores, many of which have (undeservedly) faded into obscurity. This meticulously researched book traces the embryonic use of jazz in mainstream entertainment from the early 1950s--when conservative viewers still considered this genre "the devil's music"--to its explosive heyday throughout the 1960s. Fans frustrated by the lack of attention paid to jazz soundtrack composers--including Jerry Goldsmith, Edwin Astley, Roy Budd, Quincy Jones, Dave Grusin, Jerry Fielding and many, many others--will find solace in these pages (along with all the information needed to enhance one's music library). The exploration of action jazz continues in this book's companion volume, Crime and Action Jazz on Screen Since 1971.

Silent Films/Loud Music discusses contemporary scores for silent film as a rich vehicle for experimentation in the relationship between music, image, and narrative. Johnston offers an overview of the early history of music for silent film paired with his own first-hand view of the craft of creating new original scores for historical silent films: a unique form crossing musical boundaries of classical, jazz, rock, electronic, and folk. As the first book completely devoted to the study of contemporary scores for silent film, it tells the story of the historical and creative evolution of this art form and features an extended discussion and analysis of some of the most creative works of contemporary silent film scoring. Johnston draws upon his own career in both contemporary film music (working with directors Paul Mazursky, Henry Bean, Philip Haas and Doris Dörrie, among others) and in creating new scores for silent films by Browning, Méliès, Kinugasa, Murnau & Reiniger. Through this book, Johnston presents a discussion of music for silent films that contradicts long-held assumptions about what silent film music is and must be, with thought-provoking implications for both historical and contemporary film music.

Although Vince Guaraldi's playful jazz piano themes for the early Peanuts animated television specials are well known, the composer himself remains largely unheralded. More than merely "the Peanuts guy," Guaraldi cut his jazz teeth as a member of combos fronted by Cal Tjader and Woody Herman, and garnered Top 40 fame with his Grammy Award-winning hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." This career study, extensively updated, gives Guaraldi long-overdue recognition, chronicling his years as a sideman; his attraction to the emerging bossa nova sound of the late 1950s; his collaboration with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete; his development of the Grace Cathedral Jazz Mass; his selection as the fellow to put the jazz swing in Charlie Brown's step; and his emergence as a respected veteran in the declining Northern California jazz club scene of the 1970s. Ironically, his place in the jazz universe has grown exponentially since this book's initial 2012 publication, and this second edition acknowledges such honors and features a wealth of new material.

Camp TV of the 1960s offers a comprehensive understanding of all of the many forms camp TV took during that critical decade. In reevaluating the history of camp on television, the authors reconsider the infantilized conceptualization of sixties television, which has generally been characterized as the creative and cultural ebb between the 1950s Golden Age of television and the networks' shift to "relevance" in the early 1970s. Encompassing contributions from a broad range of media and television scholars that (re)consider programs like Batman, The Monkees, The Addams Family, Bewitched, F Troop, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, chapters closely examine beloved 1960s American prime-time programs that drew significantly on aspects of camp, many of which were widely syndicated and left continuing imprints on popular culture. Other chapters consider key TV precursors from the early sixties; British camp television programs such as The Avengers; the use of musical codes to convey camp humor (even on black-and-white sets); the role that the viewing strategies of queer communities played - and continued to play even decades later; and how camp's multivalence allowed for more conservative readings, especially among older audiences, which were critical for the move to "mass camp" throughout American culture by the early seventies. Camp TV of the 1960s is essential reading for students and scholars in television studies and others interested in the history and theory of camp, the 1960s, or popular culture, as well as fans of these well-known but generally understudied television programs.

Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme. Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme. John Barry's arrangement of the James Bond theme. These iconic melodies have remained a part of the pop culture landscape since their debuts in the late 1950s and early '60s: a "golden decade" that highlighted an era when movie studios and TV production companies employed full orchestral ensembles to provide a jazz backdrop for the suspenseful adventures of secret agents, private detectives, cops, spies and heist-minded criminals. Hundreds of additional films and television shows made during this period were propelled by similarly swinging title themes and underscores, many of which have (undeservedly) faded into obscurity. This meticulously researched book traces the embryonic use of jazz in mainstream entertainment from the early 1950s--when conservative viewers still considered this genre "the devil's music"--to its explosive heyday throughout the 1960s. Fans frustrated by the lack of attention paid to jazz soundtrack composers--including Jerry Goldsmith, Edwin Astley, Roy Budd, Quincy Jones, Dave Grusin, Jerry Fielding and many, many others--will find solace in these pages (along with all the information needed to enhance one's music library). The exploration of action jazz continues in this book's companion volume, Crime and Action Jazz on Screen Since 1971.

Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme. Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme. Isaac Hayes' theme from Shaft. These iconic melodies have remained a part of the pop culture landscape since their debuts back when movie studios and TV production companies employed full orchestral ensembles to provide a jazz backdrop for the suspenseful adventures of secret agents, private detectives, cops, spies and heist-minded criminals. Hundreds of additional films and television shows made from the mid-1950s and beyond have been propelled by similarly swinging title themes and underscores, many of which have (undeservedly) faded into obscurity. This meticulously researched book begins with Hayes' game-changing music for Shaft, and honors the careers of traditional jazz composers who--as the 1970s gave way to the '80s and beyond--resolutely battled against the pernicious influx of synth, jukebox scores and a growing corporate disinterest in lavish ensembles. Fans frustrated by the lack of attention paid to jazz soundtrack composers--including Mort Stevens, Laurie Johnson, Mike Post, Earle Hagen, David Shire, Elmer Bernstein and many, many others--will find solace in these pages (along with all the information needed to enhance one's music library). But this is only half the story; the saga's origins are discussed in this book's companion volume, Crime and Action Jazz on Screen: 1950-1970.