Otto Preminger's Anatomy Of A Murder (From The Sound Track Of The Motion Picture)

Anatomy of a Murder is the soundtrack to the Columbia Pictures film of the same name, which was released July 2, 1959, and directed by Otto Preminger. The film is noteworthy for being one of the first films to extensively feature jazz in the musical score — the entire musical soundtrack was composed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, and played by Ellington's orchestra. Several of the Ellington band's sidemen, notably Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney, Russell Procope and William "Cat" Anderson, are heard prominently throughout the film, and Ellington himself appears briefly as "Pie-Eye," the owner of a roadhouse where Paul Biegler (James Stewart) and Laura Manion (Lee Remick) have a confrontation.
Despite being heard "in bits and pieces," the score "contains some of his most evocative and eloquent music... and beckons with the alluring scent of a femme fatale." Including small pieces by Billy Strayhorn, film historians recognize it "as a landmark — the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band." The score avoids cultural stereotypes that previously characterized jazz scores and "rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged the New Wave cinema of the '60s."
The soundtrack, containing 13 tracks, was released in June 1959. A reissue CD was released on April 28, 1995, and reissued by Sony in a deluxe edition in 1999.
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles, California, on May 29 and June 1 and 2, 1959. Cover artwork was designed by Saul Bass, depicting the abstract figure of a murder victim. The score won three Grammy Awards in 1959.