Parker by David Buckley

Parker, by Taylor Hackford and John J. McLaughlin, was a favourite film of mine from 2013. It was based on one of the classic Parker novels by Richard Stark, and was splendid fun. 

Since I'm a film music lover it was only natural that I picked up a copy of the CD of the Parker score by the British composer David Buckley, which is on the Varese Sarabande label. 

My memory of the music from the film was a dense electronic score, fast moving and menacing. And this was certainly what was apparent on my first playing of the CD. It's the kind of music which is highly effective in thrillers (in fact, it's the kind of music I listen to when I'm writing thrillers) and some recent classic examples would be the soundtracks to the Bourne movies by John Powell and, now, James Newton Howard.

But on further listening other textures began to emerge in David Buckley's music. Noticeably some very groovy electronic keyboard themes (sounds like a Fender Rhodes to me) on tracks like Leslie in Boca. This is lovely stuff, reminiscent of classic thrillers and cop movies of the 1960s and 70s by composers like Lalo Schifrin and Quincy Jones, or Michael Small (Klute).

I've been listening to the Parker CD constantly and it's steadily growing on me. I bought it initially as a souvenir of the film but now I'm beginning to realise that I lucked out with a great collection of film music.

I'll be looking into David Buckley's other work, pronto. In fact, I've just ordered From Paris With Love. I didn't think a great deal of the movie, but I'm more than ready to adore his music.

(Image credits: The front and back cover art for Parker are from Varese Sarabande.)