Flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny, David Larsen’s jazz band brings brings music of silver screen to life

As esteemed flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny puts it, “Jazz and film grew up together,” and he’ll be taking the audience on a deep dive into the classic music of cinema alongside David Larsen’s stellar jazz band lineup.

“Jazz From The Silver Screen” explores favorites from an array of films, ranging from “Taxi Driver” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner” and even “Barbie.” Many of these jazz renditions will be familiar to the audience at Hamilton Studio Listening Room on Friday night, but there are also a few songs that one may be unacquainted with – even if they’ve heard it before.

“A lot of the incidental music and the other tunes that are kind of in the background of some of these movies, in the scores and in the soundtracks, they’re really great and they’re really great vehicles for improvisation,” Matheny said.

The research and selection process was a difficult one. With over 100 years of film music to sort and sift through, Matheny found himself leaning toward songs that were more melody based (a personal preference of his) and leaning away from ballads. Although ballads are often the most well-known songs within a movie, they are lengthy by nature and only so many can be performed within the program to not only keep the show moving, but to explore even more music as well.

“That’s the most difficult part,” Matheny said on the selection process. “There’s so much great music; the hard part is what do you not play?”

Although a difficult question to ponder, Matheny’s personal favorite might just be “Yoda’s Theme” from the all-time 1980 classic, “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” Matheny grew up on the early “Star Wars” films as they were being released, and it’s difficult to ignore how strongly the movie and the music continue to affect him.

“It’s this gorgeous, gorgeous French horn melody tune, and it’s just heartbreakingly beautiful, and like it’s behind a puppet!” Matheny said.

But perhaps the most interesting selection was one of the least intentional. While watching the 2024 Grammy Awards, Matheny was mesmerized by Billie Eilish’s performance of “What Was I Made For?,” a song from the 2023 film goliath that was “Barbie.” He was so moved by the piece that he transcribed it and made a jazz arrangement around the song, although he didn’t know who Eilish was at the time and had never seen the Barbie movie himself. In fact, it took showing the arrangement to a younger friend for him to realize just how popular the song was.

This leads to one of Matheny’s key points for the audience: his belief that music is incredibly timeless and that it can speak to anybody from any generation. Even if younger attendees don’t necessarily recognize a song from 1974’s “Young Frankenstein” or if an older audience member hasn’t seen a film like “Barbie,” the music can still move you, nonetheless.

“Music is this international language, and it’s this way that we communicate across generations,” Matheny said. “If it’s a strong song, it’ll stick around.”