Carlos Malcolm

Hi John        With the forthcoming release of the new James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” on November 15^th,,  it was announced that the James Bond  series of movies have grossed over $100B.  “Dr. No” the first production, was mostly filmed in Jamaica.  As you know, I was engaged by Eon Production to create, arrange and record using local musicians (including the Byron Lee and the Dragoniers  band ) tropical background music for the movie.  Some time ago I read that Monty Norman, credited with composing the Dr. No theme song and music for the movie was taken to court three times by others who challenged his total claims.  I don’t know the source of the musical jottings in the little blue wire-bound notebook which Monty Norman showed me in the bar of the Courtleigh Manor Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica in 1961, but the jottings were those of the now famous Dr. No Theme with minor third, flatted fifth and all. (After seeing the jottings I made a suggestion re the bass line accompaniment, which I will discuss later).

    I would have gladly testified on Monty’s  behalf, bearing witness to the fact that I did see his jottings of the Dr. No theme in his little blue notebook at that point in time, but then  Monty would have had to testify to the fact that during a Tuesday night steak and beer party which I hosted at a beach flat which I shared with Karl Parboosingh, the painter, at Bull Bay he (Monty) borrowed from me fifty-three pages of scored music (mostly original) which I created from scripted  scenarios of various duration (timed in seconds) he gave to me to translate into music.  Under the guise of   “cross-checking the music against the written scenarios”, Monty appropriated the scores and left Jamaica on the 4:00 a.m. BOAC flight for London. This, after we had both arranged that I pick him up from his hotel in Morgan’s Harbour, near Port Royal, for breakfast at 7:00 a.m., just three hours later.  

   Your eagerness for me to tell the story of my involvement coupled with the new James Bond release triggered my curiosity to do some research surrounding the making of the movie Dr. No and I ran across the following on the Internet:    Monty has had to go to Court three times to defend his composition. Once because a monthly magazine wrote that he had bought the James Bond Theme from a Jamaican for $100! And twice because a weekly musical paper and a Sunday newspaper respectively said that John Barry wrote the James Bond Theme. 

 Usually the musical score for a movie is created after cinematography.  In my case, I saw no rushes of any part of the movie; I worked simply from written scenarios, metered out in seconds and minutes and finally heard much of what I had written played by a symphony orchestra.in London.

    As I promised, in a few days I will give you the details of my involvement in creating and recording tropical background music, daily, during the filming of Dr. No.