Meeting Lalo

I was sad to see the news of Lalo Schifrin's passing. He was a legend.

He wrote the music for Bullitt, Cool Hand Luke, Mission: Impossible (the original TV show), Kelly's Heroes, The Amityville Horror, Enter the Dragon, Dirty Harry, and his less famous but always imaginative titles like The Hellstrom Chronicle, Joe Kidd, and THX-1138.

In 2004, I took Mum and Dad to see Lalo play with jazz trumpeter John Faddis and a 40-piece band in what at the time was a pretty small venue, Catalina’s Bar and Grill in Hollywood. They played Lalo’s Gillespiana –– a suite of music in tribute to his mentor Dizzy Gillespie –– and it was electrifying.

After the show, Mum and Dad and I hung around because Dad wanted to ask Lalo if he knew a mutual friend, Jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball (who also knew Dizzy). Lalo was mobbed by Hollywood music industry folks, but he saw us waiting, broke away and came over to talk to Dad. I was so impressed by that (and, yes, Lalo did know Kenny).

We bumped into Lalo again in 2015, at a very posh event on the lot at 20th Century Fox. My friend Nick Redman invited us to the launch of his Twilight Time video portal. Mum, Dad and I arrived early in the studio's giant art deco studio executives' commissary, so we grabbed a table in the corner where Mum’s wheelchair would be out of the way, before the place filled up, and Patti joined us later. What do you know, Lalo and his wife came in and sat right next to us, so of course he and Dad got chatting again. This time, I captured it on camera. It was a magical evening.

A wonderful artist, and a true gentleman.