As with every aspect of his legendary work, Alfred Hitchock's use (and non-use) of music in his 50-odd feature films is always essential and invariably masterful. One of the most influential filmmakers of all time, The Master of Suspense messed with us through our ears as much as he did through our eyes and his sounds are often as burnt indelibly on our minds as his scenes.
It wasn't all through music -- he did it through dialog, incidental sounds, and, markedly, through silence. But a huge amount of the aural fabric
is music. At times it is at the center of the story, at others it is the atmosphere. Often it is background, exquisitely crafted by the likes of Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, Miklós Rózsa, or Dmitri Tiomkin; just as often it is diegetic…from wisps of familiar melody wafting in and out our and his characters' earshot to complete songs and even symphonies. And always, with it, he manipulates us -- into a lull, into anticipation, confusion, horror.
Himself a longstanding lover of Hitchcock who has always been fascinated by the master's use of music, OFAM music director Chuck Redd takes his Festival jazz unit and all of use on a journey through the music-laden alleys and byways of Hitchcock's world, from 1934's The Man Who Knew Too Much to 1960's Psycho, with many stops along the way.