George Nelson

Synthesizer player George R. Nelson, with the occasional help of flutist Lori Bell, recreates three- to five-minute excerpts from a series of big-budget movies of the early and mid-'90s on this album. One may object that a few of them -- Schindler's List, Batman Forever, The Shawshank Redemption -- are not, strictly speaking, thrillers, even if they may have some suspenseful moments, and that, for example, the theme from Jurassic Park is a typical piece of warm-hearted, vaunting melody from John Williams, not a thrilling composition at all. Nelson reduces the symphonic sweep of such cues to the available sounds on his own synthesizer, so listeners may prefer the real thing. But anyone who thought the mass-market movie fare of 1993-1995 was particularly inspiring, especially musically, can have bite-sized pieces of it here. Be warned, however, that there are a couple of ringers, "Sudden Fear" and "Fog Lake," that you will be hard pressed to find listed in a movie reference book. Their composer, not surprisingly, is George R. Nelson. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi