Lenny (1974)

Composer(s):
Ralph Burns

Released in:
1974

Reviews

by Robert DiMucci (February 14, 2008)
The LP of “Lenny” has three major components. First, is the background score of the film by Ralph Burns, which comprises about 22 minutes of the album’s 37-minute length. Burns’ score is a combination of big band and jazz tunes and makes for pleasant listening. The score is more prominent on the album than in the film, probably because many of the cues play longer on the album than they do on screen.
The second component of the LP is three previously written tunes that are used at critical moments of the film. These run a total of 6 minutes. One is a 38 second snippet of something called “Myrtle’s Tune,” the second is Miles Davis’ take on the Rodgers and Hart classic “It Never Entered My Mind,” and the third, called “Lament,” is the most memorable piece of music in the score. “Lament” is played as background music to a striptease routine that is performed by Valerie Perrine in the film. Reminiscent of David Rose’s piece “The Stripper,” “Lament” has an even sleazier bent, and is particularly heavy on the trumpet, with the sax and drums adding to the decadent atmosphere. “Lament” is a hard-to-forget cue.
The third component of the LP is comprised of Dustin Hoffman’s monologues in which he delivers some classic Lenny Bruce standup routines. One should not confuse these with “comedy” routines, because Bruce was just as likely to riff on serious subjects such as racism and sex acts as he was, say, on “relationships.” As a result, the 9 tracks in which these routines appear (9 minutes total) contain some racial and sexual epithets. (The worst of these, however, can be found only in the film.) Nevertheless, the selections on the LP give a good representation of what Lenny Bruce was all about as a standup performer.
For those who, on principal, are against dialogue of any sort on soundtrack albums, one needs to remember that back in 1974, when home video was just a gleam in the eye of Sony, a film’s soundtrack album was the only way that a filmgoer had to recall at home the experience of seeing a film. Today, of course, one can pop the DVD in the player if they want to hear this dialogue, but having it on LP (and now on CD) allows one to relive the highlights of what is primarily an auditory experience anyway, without being tied to a monitor. Given that the music score is so short, the addition of the dialogue here does not preempt any music, but instead adds to the total entertainment that the album provides.

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