Lalo Schifrin

Fairly recently, Lalo Schifrin, a composer who has worked in many genres of music, published his autobiography, which is a really fascinating book. Schifrin belongs to the composers who made big name in the 1960s with music for both film and television.

Lalo's best work? Well that depends really on your point of view as he has done a lot outside of film music too. For me his thematic material for Mission Impossible and Mannix is top of the line, as well as his film scores for COOL HAND LUKE, COOGAN'S BLUFF, DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE and CHARLIE VARRICK. However he has also been scoring films more recently such as RED DRAGON and the RUSH HOUR films with Jackie Chan.



Born in 1932 in Buenos Aires, Schifrin studied and worked from Paris, France to Los Angeles, USA, playing jazz, scoring films and giving many concerts. His music is generally very vivacious and is sometimes rather jazz-based but for films such as Dirty Harry, this works very well. For the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE films his original theme was again dusted off and reorchestrated but Schifrin had no personal input for the films. Nevertheless, the original theme is undeniably his.

Schifrin has released a great many albums of his own music as well, such as There's A Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On, on which he experiments with jazz and other genres. He has also conducted a number of classical music concerts all over the world. As a composer, within or outside the realm of film music, Schifrin has earned himself enough respect from within the composing community that he can retire. I am glad though we sometimes still hear from him. For his music is Cool!!!