Vienna to Hollywood: Impressions of E.W. Korngold & Max Steiner

Peter Erskine was first introduced to the music of EW Korngold and Max Steiner - the pioneering early 20th century Hollywood Viennese film composers that he pays tribute to on his new recording - by one of their homeboys: the late great keyboardist Joe Zawinul.

Erskine caught him playing a beautiful melody by Korngold on the keyboard after a soundcheck one time while on tour with Weather Report. Erskine was hooked and became a fan, collector and transcriber of Korngold and the earlier Steiner's repertoire and more recently over schnitzel and beer, made a decision to record a selection of their film themes with Vienna's Jam Music Lab All-Stars.

The theme to Korngold's 'Violin Concerto' - the piece out of which Zawinul made an impromptu sketch that originally inspired Erskine - finds its way onto the recording, its stirringly romantic theme played by flute and is divertingly remade into a kind of bossa nova chamber music. As well as Korngold's concert music, Erskine presents groundbreaking film themes from Steiner's Gone with the Wind score through to Korngold's The Adventures of Robin Hood. Sweeping orchestral marching music morphs into Latin rhythms and swinging bop; a cue from The Prince and the Pauper is reimagined as a kind of George Shearing-esque vibes-led third-stream piece, and a lieder as a piano trio ballad remodelled by pianist Danny Grissett (who shares arranging duties with Erskine) into tasteful Mehldau-ish contemporary improv.

Erskine, who lives on the West Coast and has been involved in film music work himself since the late 1980s, only plays percussion on two tracks but regenerates this 'classic' studio Hollywood film music to speak in a quaint mainstream idiom. Though it's one that shines through with the language of love.