Marvin Gaye – Trouble Man

Marvin Gaye was extremely proud of his pioneering film score for the “blaxploitation” film “Trouble Man”. In 1982, he commented: “The “Trouble Man” film score was one of my loveliest projects […] And put to a symphony, if someone took my album and did a symphony on it, I think it would be quite interesting.” Gaye’s use of wah-wah guitars, funky rhythms,, saxophones, and synthesizers juxtaposed with orchestral brass, reeds, and strings laid the template (along with contemporaries such as Isaac Hayes & Curtis Mayfield) for much seventies music, as well as every cop show on TV in that era. American musician Daniel Zelonky (AKA “Low Res”) had been captivated by this record for decades. Given the opportunity to recreate and conduct the entire film score live with a 36 piece orchestra at Voouit, a beautiful classical venue in Gent, Belgium, he set about meeting this daunting challenge; to create arrangements faithful to the feeling of the original and yet to create something “new”, to expand upon certain elementts – in a formal way – no “jamming on the themes, Auditions were conducted and following 9 days of rehearsal, the funkiest orchestra to ever exist in Belgium took to the stage.

After a successful performance, Zelonky augmented the resulting recordings in studio with additional instrumentation, and with the vocals of Blackwolf, singer of “Kings Go Forth” .

​There are 12 selections on the album, including an imagined additional piece, “Chalky”, composed by Zelonky

We think that the crate-digging fans of the original soundtrack and curious Marvin Gaye fans alike will find much to enjoy in this 50th Anniversary celebration of Marvin’s blaxploitation masterpiece.

These French vinyl pressings are extremely good, and are protected by a poly-lined inner sleeve.