Sketches on Star Wars

Star Wars (Related Recordings), Trotter Trio | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 11, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Varese Sarabande
• ASIN: B00000150S
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,704 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Star Wars (Main Title)

2. Yoda's Theme

3. Princess Leia's Theme

4. Ewok Celebration

5. The Imperial March

6. Han Solo And the Princess

7. Jabba The Blues (Han Solo At The Court Of Jabba The Hut)

8. Luke And Leia

9. Cantina Band

10. May The Force Be With You

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Jazzy version of the STAR WARS Score??? Cool, man..., September 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sketches on Star Wars (Audio CD)

How could you not enjoy a Jazz version of STAR WARS? This rendition by the Trotter Trio is highly enjoyable - favorites include "Imperial March" and "Title Theme". A must for any Star Wars fan. Play it at your next get together and see how long it takes listeners to realize that it's the STAR WARS score.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting...., August 6, 2005

By 

One World "One World" (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sketches on Star Wars (Audio CD)

I had to test-play a copy of this cd to check for any problems so it afforded me a chance to listen to these jazz renditions of some Classic Star Wars theme music.

Well there WAS a disco version by Meco which I absolutely loved as a kid, not too long after the first movie came out. In just under 16 minutes this disco anthem boogied it's way through the entire movie's storyline. The Bar Scene was my favorite part.

Ok, I got a little side-tracked there. Anyway, I have to agree with a previous reviewer that the musical pieces are hard to tell that they are Star Wars' immediately. Of course the signature sound is not here as the Orchestral element is absent but some of the melodies are just, perhaps too different. Now on the disco rendition, you could still tell what was what in pretty much a few seconds.

Aside from that, this is pretty good. It is cute as a rendition from another genre. Just like songs get "remixed" from one genre to another, with convincing results - most of the time - here we have music getting "rendered" from one genre to another and that is convincing - most of the time... and sometimes it's just....interesting.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars There was potential here..., April 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sketches on Star Wars (Audio CD)

A spotty attempt to transcribe Williams' orchestral score down to a jazz combo. Oscar Peterson succeded with "West Side Story", but Bernstein's score was rooted in jazz anyway. I think Trotter played it safe here. The Main Theme is pretty much what you'd expect. Princess Lea's Theme does work as a sax ballad, and the Ewok tune (done like upbeat Art Tatum) is catchy but ends up sounding like the original Sesame Street Theme.

Trotter TOTALLY blows it with the Cantina Band Theme. I mean, here's the one piece that really lends itself to jazz exploration and Trotter does almost nothing interesting with it. The one true success is May the Force Be with You... arranged as a solo piano piece, it has a yearning tone-poem quality you would not expect from the original melody. If he had applied the same approach to the rest of the recording I think it could've been a good exercise in jazz arranement, rather than the novelty CD it is.