Black Dahlia

Bob Belden | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 27, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B000059Q88
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,054 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

factory sealed and wrapped--cut on the spine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful. Listen to this with headphones., September 18, 2002

By 

Allen_TX_Reviewer (Allen, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Black Dahlia (Audio CD)

I have listened to this CD over and over. I listen to it at
work with headphones. It's very beautiful, haunting, mysterious.
There are lots of levels to the songs; lots going on. The
percussion, the strings, woodwinds, piano, etc. fit together
perfectly.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Music Noir, March 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Dahlia (Audio CD)

Light a few candles. Pour a glass of wine. Or to really get in the mood, make it two fingers of scotch. Put Black Dahlia on the stereo. Now, put your feet up. Close your eyes. Comfortable? Good, because for the next hour or so, this CD will take you on an "interior" journey through post-war L.A.; your own personal Film Noir, with your own cast of characters and the world's best film set. The one you create in your mind. Travel through the sad life of a young woman who brought her hopes and dreams to L. A., and saw them turn to dust by the winds of fate that blow hard there. Innocence and beauty fell victim just as easily in the 40's as they do now, and Bob Belden, the composer of this "opera without words", knows this all too well. The Black Dahlia was a living breathing dreamer who came to L.A. full of promise and left there only in spirit after dying a terrible death, a murder yet unsolved, leaving that dream yet unfulfilled. Belden re-creates this story, painting a musical picture of post-war L.A. just as vivid as any photograph, just as intense as any book. After listening to this CD you will know the whole story, without reading one line. Black Dahlia has it's roots in blues, jazz, and West Coast Swing of the late '40's, but it blooms in the troubled night of lies, secrets, and fear that is, even now, the seedier side of L.A. Great "reading" for a lonely, rainy L.A.-kind of night.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soundtrack for the Film Noire movie that never was, April 29, 2002

By 

rash67 (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Black Dahlia (Audio CD)

As is stated below, Elizabeth Short was a real life actress who came to L.A. with big dreams, and less talent, in the late thirties/ early forties. A striking beautiful, pale woman, she always dressed entirely in black. She had some bit parts. She was out of work. She descended into to twilight L.A. demi-monde. She met a gruesome death, a bizarre murder, still unsolved.

Bob Belden's music is quite successful at evoking the dark mid 40's, murky, moody, boozey environment that surrounded her life like a thick fog. The CD has the feel of a soundtrack for a film noir movie that has yet to filmed. Like "Chinatown", or "L.A. Confidential". But real soundtracks don't have the substance of this set of pieces on a common theme. Evocative. Similar to work by Charlie Haden & The Quartet West.

The trumpet part, as is said elsewhere, is reminescent of the lost-in-a-crowd melancholy of classic early Miles Davis. The orchestration doesn't overwhelm the solo voices. The earlier music starts out perky and upbeat, goes down tempo quickly. The end of the album is a fast Cuban/Latino song, she was last seen at a bar that featured hot latin Jazz, but most songs are dark and moody.

Read up on Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia, turn the lights down, close your eyes, turn on the music and watch your own movie in your head!