In today’s notes at haineshisway.com Bruce Kimmel writes about watching the just released Blu-ray of John Cassavetes’ Too Late Blues. At a certain point he describes the score by David Raksin and hints at an irresistible future release from his label Kritzerland: “The script is very free-flowing, but apparently the actors did not improvise much – it’s very much like the subject of the film – jazz – scenes riff and go in unexpected directions. But the heart of the film is the music. It’s a very interesting score by David Raksin. For the first hour, the music is all used as source music – either being played by the characters in the film or on jukeboxes, and it just works perfectly. And then, when the film’s first of two dramatic scoring cues comes in, it really means something and it’s a stunning cue. The music is all Raksin – there are no standards at all. And the musicians playing on soundtrack were the best of the best – Uan Rasey, Red Mitchell, Milt Bernhart, Benny Carter, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Rowles and others – all giants. Some of the characters like the drummer and bass player have the real first names of the real musicians – Red and Shelly. Raksin’s main theme (in the film the theme is written by Bobby Darin’s character) is one of his most beautiful creations, right up there with Laura and The Bad and the Beautiful, and its various incarnations in the film are wonderful. Growing up, I had the theme on my favorite movie theme album of all time, a Percy Faith album that included Splendor in the Grass. That rendition is gorgeous, too. It’s actually rather shocking that the film never had a soundtrack released but that, I can assure you, will be rectified very soon”.