Some of the most enduring music in movies and television shows was composed by Lalo Schifrin.
Filmmakers and directors paid their respects to the renowned jazz musician and composer Schifrin, who passed on Thursday in Los Angeles due to complications from pneumonia.
Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Schifrin was born Boris Claudio Schifrin. He was nominated for six Oscars and won an honorary Academy Award in 2018.
His work, which included the theme from the 1966 debut of the Mission: Impossible television series, earned him four Grammys.
Through the Mission: Impossible movies, his recognizable theme song endures.
For the films Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1967), The Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979), and The Sting II (1983), Schifrin received an Oscar nomination for best original score.
Additionally, he received a nomination for People Alone from the Competition (1980) for best original song.
He first worked with jazz great Dizzy Gillespie as a composer.
Later, he wrote music for TV shows in the 1960s, including Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Medical Center, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (for which he used a Moog synthesizer), as well as the 1970s series Starsky and Hutch and Most Wanted.
Bruce Lee was so moved by Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme that he began training to the music and asked Schifrin to provide the music for his 1973 movie Enter the Dragon, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Additionally, Schifrin’s composition credits include Dirty Harry films starring Clint Eastwood and Bullitt (1968), which starred Steve McQueen. Beginning in 1998, he also composed the soundtrack for the Rush Hour trilogy, which starred Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan.
Sour Times (1994), a trip-hop success that expanded on Danube Incident from his More Mission: Impossible album (1967; listen below), was another song from the 1990s that sampled Schifrin’s film music. Danube Incident was also sampled by Brooklyn hip-hop group Heltah Skeltah in their 1996 song Prowl.
Listen to Schifrin’s songs in greater detail here.
Stories by
Amy Kuperinsky
-
Bill Moyers, PBS journalist and White House press secretary, formerly of N.J., dies at 91
-
Nicole Byer on comedy, podcasting, GLP-1s, Nailed It! and heading home to N.J.
-
N.J. Spider-Man actor dies at 96
