Created for the first film in the saga, “James Bond against Dr No” (1962), the music version of Monty Norman does not convince producers, who ask John Barry to retouch.
Le Monde with AP and AFP
It was he who composed the original frame of James Bond music, not John Barry. Monty Norman, the British singer and composer, author of the James Bond Theme died on Monday July 11, at the age of 94, announces its official website .
“It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of Monty Norman, on July 11, 2022, after a brief illness”, can be read on the site, which opens in a big photo Black and white of the composer, displaying a frank smile.
The site returns to the genesis of James Bond Theme. He explains that Monty Norman left Bad Sign, Good Sign, a piece inspired by the funeral march Jazz Nightmare, by Artie Shaw (1938). Bad Sign, good sign, which is played in Sitar, in the style of Indian music, had been composed for a musical taken from the novel A house for M. Biswas (1961).
But little packed by the pace of the song, the producers call on John Barry to fix, orchestrate and record the theme. The song was recorded in London in June 1962, by the Big Band Jazz Symphonique The John Barry Seven and Orchestra. “The rest, as they say, is history,” recalls the site of Monty Norman.
In 1962, after the release of James Bond 007 against Dr No, the composer was caught up in the patrol: he is sentenced to pour $ 45,000 in damages to Artie Shaw.
For his part, John Barry claims the paternity of the work, but in March 2001 Monty Norman won a defamation trial against the Sunday Times, who had attributed it to John Barry. Monty Norman had condemned the newspaper to 30,000 pounds (48,000 euros at the time) of damages, for this article published in October 1997.
born MONTY NOSEROVITCH in eastern London in a Jewish family who left the British capital in the first days of Blitz at the start of the Second World War, he had his first guitar at the age of 16, offered by his mother. In the 1950s and the early 1960s, he sang for jazz groups, notably those of Cyril Stapleton, Ted Heath and Nat Temple, and participated in varieties. In addition to the theme of James Bond, he wrote for the Musicals Expresso Bongo or Irma the sweet.