Lalo Schifrin Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Clarence Avant, the judicious manager, entrepreneur, facilitator and adviser who helped launch or guide the careers of Quincy Jones, Bill Withers and many others and came to be known as the “Black Godfather” of music and beyond, has died. He was 92.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Clarence Avant, whose unofficial title of the “Black Godfather” spanned the worlds of music, sports, entertainment and politics, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from his family. No cause of death was provided; he was 92. “It is with a heavy heart that the Avant/Sarandos family announce the passing of Clarence Alexander Avant,” the statement from his children, Nicole and Alexander and son-in-law Ted Sarandos.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Back in the 1970s, when Korea was closed to the outside world, locals relied on black market dealers to get their hands on everything from American cigarettes to Ritz crackers. Though this illicit import racket was run mostly by men, it wouldn’t have been possible without half a dozen uniquely talented women — skilled divers known as haenyeo who fished the loot from the sea.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One stars Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson have revealed the secret Morse Code meaning behind the franchise’s theme.Speaking to NME, the pair shared that they were recently made aware of the secret while appearing the Today FM show Dermot & Dave, hosted by Dermot Whelan and Dave Moore.“This is an amazing fact,” began Pegg. “Dave from Dermot & Dave, an Irish Radio show told us that when Lalo Schifrin wrote the original music, the theme, [he put in] two dashes, two dots [which translates to] ‘MI’,” the actor explained while sounding out the tune.“Stop it, it’s true!” interjected Ferguson, who was equally as excited to share the little-known fact.Lalo Schifrin, an Argentine composer, recorded the M:I theme in 1967.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor It took over 555 musicians with sessions around Europe — including in Rome, Vienna, Venice, Switzerland and London — to put together the score for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” composer Lorne Balfe tells Variety. The composer started writing the music almost three years ago, and “at last count, there was over 14 hours of music recorded,” Balfe says. However, only two-and-a-half hours or so made it into the final cut of the film. The storyline sees Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt take on a new villain, The Entity, a sentient Artificial Intelligence. Ethan’s mission is to defeat The Entity with a metal key. And while the film features an array of mind-blowing stunts, including Ethan driving a motorcycle off a cliff or a climatic fight atop a moving steam engine train, there was also plenty of emotion for Balfe to root his score in.

Jon Burlingame editorMike Lang, one of the preeminent pianists in Hollywood history, died of lung cancer Friday morning at his home in Studio City. He was 80.Lang played piano (or organ, harpsichord or celeste) on an estimated 2,000 film and TV scores dating back to the mid-1960s, including scores by virtually every great film composer of the past 50 years: John Williams (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Catch Me If You Can”), Jerry Goldsmith (“Gremlins,” “The Russia House”), John Barry (“Body Heat,” “The Specialist”), Henry Mancini (“10”), Alex North (“The Shoes of the Fisherman”), Elmer Bernstein (“The Rainmaker”), Miklós Rózsa (“Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”) and many others.Composer Lalo Schifrin (“Mission: Impossible”) was among Lang’s earliest champions in Hollywood, adding Lang’s piano to what eventually became the Grammy-winning Paul Horn album “Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts” in 1965.

Jon Burlingame editorArtie Kane, Grammy-nominated pianist and composer of film scores including “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” and “Eyes of Laura Mars,” died Tuesday at his home on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Wash.

Jon Burlingame editorThere’s a classic sound to heist films, especially of the ’60s and ’70s – a little jazzy, a little stealthy, occasionally raucous and wild – and composer Daniel Pemberton cleverly channels it throughout “The Bad Guys,” the DreamWorks Animation action comedy that opens today.“The film in some ways is an homage to classic caper movies,” says the English composer, “and it’s a world I really love playing in. You get to be really bold: big breaks, big brass sections, big tunes and big grooves.”Pemberton’s high-energy music sets the mood and drives the action in Pierre Perifel’s animated adventure about a notorious criminal gang (a wolf, a snake, a piranha, a shark and a tarantula) that considers going straight after they cross paths with a guinea-pig philanthropist and their red-fox governor. “At its core, it’s a very joyous score, even though there’s sneakiness, tension, all that kind of stuff,” he notes.

Toto, died Monday at the age of 90.Over a decades-long career, Porcaro performed on scores of albums for the likes of Madonna, Boz Scaggs, Glen Campbell, Glen Campbell and Barbra Streisand, and cut a string of records with Rosemary Clooney and Lalo Schifrin.Porcaro’s musical talents clearly rubbed off on his boys, who repaid their gifts by inviting their dad to guest on several of their albums in the ‘80s and ‘90s.The late artist contributed percussion for Toto’s iconic 1982 album Toto IV, which