If you’ve been in Portland long enough, you’ve probably heard of Turkish Rambo. It’s weird enough that there is such a thing as “Turkish Rambo,” aka Korkusuz, which is exactly what you think it is (a 1986 Turkish remake of Rambo: First Blood Part II). What elevates the matter to Portland levels of Weird is that a decade or so back, a gonzo little DIY group called Filmusik, headed by Galen Huckins, organized a live version and asked local composer Justin Ralls to score it.

The result would be not simply a new score to a cheesy movie but a whole new art form: the movie up on the big screen, new original music performed by a full ensemble, plus voice actors and even live foley work, all right up on stage. The result is part Philip Glass Ensemble’s La Belle et la Bête, part Mystery Science Theater 3000, maybe a little bit Spike Jones, and all crazy. It’s the sort of thing that reminds you of Portland’s deeply obscured identity as the northernmost suburb of the most bizarre parts of underground Los Angeles.

Fittingly, then, the resurgence of Turkish Rambo is happening this month at the place where it all started: Quentin Tarantino’s favorite Portland movie house, Hollywood Theatre in Northeast Portland’s Hollywood District (sorry if this is getting confusing; the West Coast is a lawless and borderless autonomous zone).

The revival runs for three performances at the Hollywood (7:30 pm June 27 & 28 plus a 1 pm matinee on the 28th). It’s the inaugural production of newly-founded new music organization House of Scordatura – brainchild of Ron Blessinger, who calls Turkish Rambo a “full-blown, joyful mess” (you’ll hear more about HoS soon enough). For now just connect these dots: Blessinger is the former executive director of 45th Parallel Universe; current 45|| executive director Lisa Lipton, owner of Mendelssohn’s (“the skinniest bar in Portland”), goes way back with Ralls and worked on the original Turkish Rambo. Baritone Nicholas Meyer will be providing “wordless vocals” in a nod to Ennio Morricone’s frequent collaborator Edda Dell’Orso. You may recall Meyer from his role as John Muir in Two Yosemites, an opera about Muir’s camping trip with Theodore Roosevelt, composed by Ralls and produced by Opera Theater Oregon – a company run by Ralls and Lipton.

These people all know each other! It’s a conspiracy, I tell you, a conspiracy!

Ahem. Anyways, we wanted to know more about the history and resurgence of this “joyful mess” so we got Ralls on the Zoom machine and demanded some answers. He started by talking about the notorious iron-clad Civil War battleship USS Monitor and the “John Williams pastiche” music based on it that he composed for MYS as a teenager, and we figured we had the tiger by the tail.

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The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and flow.

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OAW: Let’s begin at the beginning. What was your “a-ha” moment as a composer? 

Justin Ralls: That’s easy for me. I would say my “a-ha” moment, early on in my composition career, was Metropolitan Youth Symphony and specifically the symphonic band and my first mentor, the late John Keil Richards. He told everyone that played in the ensemble, “if you want to write something for our ensemble, we will at least give it a reading in rehearsal.” And I was at that point where I had just started getting into composition, and was always looking for the next musical challenge, and I said, “okay, I’m going to do that.” And I wrote a piece for the symphonic band inspired by the first battle of ironclad warships in the Civil War. It was called The Monitor. Which was the Union ship, by the way.

And we rehearsed it, and he asked me to come up and conduct it. That was the first time I’d ever conducted an ensemble in my life, and it was a success. And we ended up premiering that piece at The Schnitz, and also taking it on a four-concert European tour. And that was my moment where I was like, “wow, I’m going to be a composer, this is awesome.” And it’s been, it’s been downhill ever since. 

OAW: How old were you? 

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Ralls: I was 17. 

OAW: What did you play in MYS? 

Ralls: I was recruited into Derek Sims and Greg McKelvey‘s jazz bands and jazz orchestras as a drummer, and was then subsequently recruited into the orchestra and the band. I’m so glad that I did that as a percussionist. I wasn’t that great as a concert percussionist – counting measures was just not as interesting to me – but the synergy with the group and meeting other musicians and being exposed to the repertoire. And of course my early relationship with John Keil Richards. He mentored me as a conductor, composer. Really encouraging. I don’t know if I would have gone on to pursue composition like I did, if I didn’t have that early experience and encouragement, so I’m very grateful. 

OAW: So, Turkish Rambo. Why Turkish Rambo? What’s the story there? 

Ralls: Well, this goes back to an older version of Portland, the DIY world. Katie Taylor was running Opera Theater Oregon, and then a gentleman named Galen Huckins, who founded Filmusik and had a zany genius for different live performing arts experiences and schemes and was a composer himself. He commissioned me to write a score for Turkish Rambo. He had done a score himself for the Turkish Star Wars, a crazy DIY Turkish film. I think it’s because of just the zany DIY nature and also the martial arts scenes and sequences of the main actor, who was a very talented martial arts artist and also did all of his own stunts. And you see in these films, there was definitely no OSHA union safety going on. And it adds to a realism and grittiness, which was then mirrored in the “just throw everything together” production that he did.

Galen was artist-in-residence at Hollywood Theater, and lived across the street, I think, and basically took over their basement. That’s where we had rehearsals. There were film reels around, and all sorts of other stuff. And it was just fun. 

OAW: What was it like assembling all of that? There’s the foley work and the live dub and the music, all in conjunction. What was the act of creation like? 

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Ralls: Thanks for mentioning that, because yeah, the whole film music vision was live sound foley, live voice actors with a new English dubbing, which I think Galen did himself. And then the live film score with an ensemble. And at the time I didn’t really think much of it, but he would delegate to these entities independently. And then we would all just be thrown together at the end for maybe one tech rehearsal. What I really love now, and I really appreciate, is that he gave complete creative freedom to me as a composer, to the musicians. We negotiated a certain number of players that were in budget, but he was like, “whatever you want to do, do it.” 

Which also was a lot of trust, you know? Are you going to be covering up this foley part? Are you going to be covering up the dialogue or whatever? At the time, I just didn’t really realize it. And then how well it kind of came together and how that act of kind of creation creates all of these unpredictable creative moments. I think that’s a really fun way to create. You can’t overthink it or get too much into the weeds. You just let people create–and then what happens, happens. And that result is Turkish Rambo. And so it’s something that’s really unique. 

OAW: What was your compositional process like? Because you’re composing as well as scoring a film. And then, the American Rambo has such an iconic score and presumably the Turkish one has its own score. So what’s your compositional technique in that situation? And what’s the orchestration? 

Ralls: Well the orchestration is clarinet, violin, cello, two guitars, drum set, bass, and voice, amplified wordless voice. 

OAW: That Morricone sound. 

Ralls: Exactly. Now we’re talking. I’ve since added trombone and trumpet. So there’s a little jazz trio of horns, between the clarinet and the two horns. When I wrote it, I don’t know if I had even seen the original Rambo, to be honest with you. Of course, I’m now very familiar with the Goldsmith score. I love Jerry Goldsmith. I would say that anyone that’s familiar with that film and that score could come to this and they would probably hear similarities or see things that resonate, but that was not intentional. I think it’s just kind of a general response to the aesthetic of the film, of an action film and of a kind of retro score. 

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Ralls: The Turkish film did not have an original score. The original Turkish Rambo as it was created had bootleg sounds, it had clips from the Indiana Jones score, it had all sorts of other music that literally someone somewhere in Europe had taken a recorder into a theater and then put that in. And it was just, I mean, just bad. I mean, like, bad bad, not bad as in good, like bad. It was a prime candidate for a rehashing. 

Music can really change the experience of a film. My process was completely a la Maestro Morricone: take it seriously. And so I scored it just like it was an action film. I didn’t play it for camp. I took it very seriously. And a lot of different influences. Morricone, not only his Western scores but also his so-called “crime and dissonance” scores, the Italian Giallo films. I’m a big fan of the late Quincy Jones and some of his action and jazz work. I was listening to Lalo Schifrin, his work of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, also a big influence. I was just listening to a cue from the film Bullitt – you can hear that influence in my score.

Ralls: You’ll hear that in this piece, and the fact that it’s an amplified ensemble. So you’ll hear the wordless voice, not just doing the classic epic choral kind of sound, but also a lot of other techniques and different stuff, very eclectic. With Morricone, those horror films and the crime scores, he had a template, which is he would do a very beautiful and sumptuous and interesting main title, and he would have that out of the gate, probably just inspired by the script, not even seeing it. That’d be done, and then everything in between would be improvised with this contemporary improv group that he had in Italy with other composers and musicians, and it would be really crazy, avant-garde stuff. Hence the “dissonance.” That’s what would be the rest of the score. And then the main title would come back at the end. So you’re bookended with these interesting loungy quasi-romantic titles. A colleague of his later said, “you know, Ennio, if you keep doing this crazy improv stuff, you’re not going to get hired anymore because it’s so out there.”

And there’s definitely some of the avant-garde and weird sounds and different stuff bookended between your more traditional cues in Turkish Rambo. 

OAW: So what have you done in bringing it to the present production? What have you changed, if anything? And how did this come about, with House of Scordatura? 

Ralls: Ron Blessinger and I have been talking about revamping this for a few years now. Ron’s been awesome about getting fantastic musicians and upping the level of professionalism and organization. So that was an inspiration, knowing that I’ve got a great band and a great team of people and had more time. 

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When I did this before, I think I wrote the score in two weeks. The film itself was made in 11 days, so you could technically say I spent more time on the new score than they did on the movie. And then 10 years later, I have that much more experience under my belt composing. And a huge focus of my work is opera, and works engaging the environment, so this is a refreshing something different. And it’s great to see that this still holds up, you know, 10 years later. This is still great music. 

And then there were some other cues that were like, “oh, this was sort of just filler that I put in. I can do better here.” Or, “where can I be at my top game?” Also, there were moments that I learned from the first live production: dead spots, or a spot to let the foley take this part, or I don’t want to cover up this line here. Being able to go back and rework, I definitely added a lot more music. Because I thought, “well, why not?” I’m there. I don’t want to just be sitting there at the podium listening in silence, wishing I would have written music. Throw it all in, you can always take stuff out later. 

So I put more music in and just took it up a notch, pumped up what was already there to a new level, exploring all the different novel sounds. Another aspect, and update from the first production, is at the first run Erica Melton and I (Erica conducted three of the six shows) free-conducted just looking at the screen. For this show I put together an “old school” punches and streamers cue display, no click track, free conducted with streamers cues just like the old days.”

The vocalist, Nick Meyer, he’s going to be doing all sorts of stuff, maybe a little throat singing, a little jazz, a lot of just wordless “aahhhs.” There’s all sorts of stuff in there that you’re going to hear that’s just quirky and different. 

OAW: This would be the same Nick Meyer from Two Yosemites? 

Ralls: It is, yeah. Totally different, a totally different avenue for him, too. Something more eclectic and fun. 

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OAW: Do you guys think that you’ll record this? Maybe release an original soundtrack album? 

Ralls: I would love to. I don’t have any current plans, but that’s something that Ron and I are talking about for sure. That would be great to do. And also hopefully reprise this again, not once every decade, but keep something going. It was very popular, sold out six shows at the Hollywood before. We’re just doing three this time. So we’ll see what happens if there’s interest. 

OAW: Well, that about does it for Turkish Rambo. Let’s talk about two other projects of yours, Two Yosemites and Nu Nah-Hup: Sacajawea’s Story. 

Ralls: Two Yosemites is waiting for its next moment – my dream, of course, is to perform it at Glacier Point amphitheater in Yosemite National Park, the historic setting of the opera.  But Nu Nah-Hup: Sacajawea’s Story – is progressing,;we’ve had scene premieres now in Portland and in San Francisco with West Edge Opera, as well as Idaho State Civic Symphony premiering the first excerpt of flute and full orchestra, which was awesome. We’re in the final stages of completing the full-length work. The creative team and I – Hovia Edwards, native flutist and composer, and Rose Anne Abrahamson, the librettist and descendant of Sacajawea – we are actively thinking about what the next stage is going to be, if we want to try to do a full production in Portland or a workshop. Something that we’re talking about, that we’re really most excited about, was putting together a recording. Just recording the final work as a soft premiere in lieu of a production, so it’s out there in the world. 

Ralls: We’re actively fundraising. To get a new grand opera up on stage is a big, big ask, but Sacajawea never gave up and neither will we. As James Bash wrote in OAW, we just need our “Thomas Jefferson” to bring this journey to the big stage.

Quasi-connected to that, I’m also working with Creative Heights awardee Aaron Nigel Smith on his York the Explorer musical, which will be premiered at The Reser in October. I’m doing string quintet arrangements and conducting and some other things for that. 

OAW: Standard last question, too: What would you ask Justin Ralls? 

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Ralls: The question I ask myself is, “how do you keep going as an independent artist when there’s so many challenges and volatility perceived in the world today?” And how does that also balance with the immense opportunity and the resiliency of the arts, which I also see. And my answer to that is: All of us that are lucky enough and privileged enough to have collaborations and have the opportunity to be working as artists and have a safe environment to do so, both culturally and ecologically, I would just say it’s a blessing, and lean into it, and do more and more and more. 

I will also quote Carlos Simon, composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center. When he was asked, you know, “what are you going to do now, with everything that’s going on?” He said, “artists need to create, and create more and more and more.”