At any given moment, he might be scoring a film; preparing and then performing another of his classic horror movie evenings; composing catchy themes to back TV advertisements for clients such as Rolex, Bombay Sapphire gin, or automobile manufacturers Hyundai and Škoda; or preparing arrangements for Warren Ringham’s Q the Music band, justifiably billed as “the world’s leading concert tribute to the music of James Bond.”
And, toward the end of each year, Jason assembles a fresh set of Vince Guaraldi Peanuts melodies for his trio’s annual Charlie Brown Christmas-themed show at the UK’s Colchester Arts Centre.
This post, however, is prompted by another of his passions: crime and spy jazz, which led to The Jason Frederick Cinematic Sound’s 2015 release of Mods & Coppers, a 15-track tribute to the jazzy film and TV themes that mesmerized his childhood self.
“It all started when we got cable television,” Jason recalled, during a lengthy recent chat. “It was 1983, and I was 12. We had only three channels, and one was in French. We got some upstate New York stations, and they’d play movies and TV shows all night. I watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, strange Japanese films, Hammer horror films and Italian spy stuff. I started taping what I watched, and I was infatuated with the soundtracks. It was a big deal when James Bond movies appeared, and my copy of Thunderball was taped off the French broadcast; it was called Opération Tonnerre. All of my cassettes were of stuff from the late 1950s to the early ’70s, and I thought it was all great.
“We lived in Sudbury, Ontario, and I had to take a bus to get to Toronto, which took 4-1/2 hours, because that’s where all the record stores were. It blew my mind, the first few times, because their soundtrack sections were as large as the entire record stores in our town!”
Today, Jason plays various keyboards, transistor organs and old electronic organs, as well as guitar, bass and drums. (“Whatever seems to be the right instrumental solution to what I’m doing at a given moment, I follow it.”)
