"The Deguello"

[Bill Yowell]

I recently read a thread, I think on this board, that in part was comparing the musical score of Waynes Alamo, to that of Alamo 2004. I have a musical background myself, having recently retired after 38 years of Texas public school band directing. I rather liked both scores, but to me they both took different roles in their respective movies. My question is really not about the over all musical scores of the two, but the difference in the " Deguellos" used in the two. I have seen several different written manuscript copies of what was purportedly "The Deguello". I have never heard the same rendition of "The Deguello" used in any two Alamo related movies. The one used in Alamo 2004 to me was much more like a parade march, or the Mexican equivalent to "Hail to the Chief". There was even a rendition in a John Wayne oater, "Rio Bravo", that Rick Nelson identifies as the "Deguello", which was an absolutely beautiful Spanish melody, and certainly not a tune that would instill fear in anyone. Now the "Deguello" used in Waynes movie, that one had some power, and with all its dissonant fervor let you know that something really bad was about to take place. Is there just one "Deguello", or are there many to choose from. Was either of the "Deguellos" used in Alamo 2004, or Waynes Alamo, authentic. Obviously we will never know what was played at the siege in 1836, but if it was anything like the one in Waynes movie, it would scare the putty out of most anyone.

[Phil Riordan]

Bill, the version of "The Deguello" that was heard in both John Wayne's "The Alamo" and "Rio Bravo" was written by film music composer Dimitri Tiomkin. Although written for "The Alamo," it was given a test run by Tiompkin in "Rio Bravo," which was released earlier. The version you heard in "The Alamo" (2004) is actually closer to the real deal and considered pretty authentic. Just as the Crockett character played a counter melody with his fiddle in the 2004 version, I've often wondered if the Tiomkin composition isn't also a counter melody to the original. It's probably easy to find out if one were to play the two versions together. You're right about either version being a pretty frightening wake-up call on the predawn morning of March 6, 1836!

[mjbrathwaite]

Some years ago, I transcribed "The Deguello" from the sountrack album of John Wayne's film and recorded it for an album, thinking it was the original and therefore out of copyright. I was aware that it was used in "Rio Bravo" too, and it occurred to me that Dimitri Tiomkin had written the music for both films and that perhaps he had written the tune. An extensive search for the sheet music of the real "Deguello" yielded no results (although I discovered later that it was in one of my books on the Alamo!), so to play it safe I wrote a new melody and rerecorded it using the same backing track. I've just tried to play the real "Deguello" over the chords for the Tiomkin one, but they don't fit together at all. For a start, the real one is in a major key and Tiomkin's is in a minor key. The music I have contains only the melody line, but I see that after hearing the 2004 version, I made a note on the page to the effect that it has more chords to it than the melody suggests. I wonder whether the harmonies were always played or whether it was just a bugle call and the chords were added by Carter Burwell for the film.

[Bill Yowell]

Thank you for your response to my question. It is obvious by your response that you are a "real musician". If you are interested, I posed the same question on the Waynes Alamo forum and got a nice reply about the different Deguellos used in movie soundtracks. While the response was referred to as a short version, I am awaiting an even more detailed response later in the week. You will find it under the general heading of The Alamo 1960.

[mjbrathwaite]

Thank you, Bill! I've just had a look at the "short" answer on the other forum and, like you, look forward to seeing the full one. I've just remembered that it was watching the Walt Disney film and noticing it had a different Deguello to "Rio Bravo" and "The Alamo" made me suspect the one I'd recorded wasn't the real one. Incidentally, if you want to hear the tune I wrote to the same chords, it's on You Tube: it's called "Sunrise" by Ritchie Venus, and starts about halfway through the track.

[Bill Yowell]

Thanks, I Look forward to checking your tune out. When you've got the time, I would also like to know more about your musical background.

[Rich Curilla]

Well, if "the short answer" can hold you a bit longer, I'll repeat it here. lol. My answer to Bill was as follows:


The Deguello that may have been used at the Alamo (no primary evidence exists that it was) is most likely the sheet music you have seen. It was actually the fourth part of a series of bugle calls used for the cavalry (not the infantry) and designed to provide orders on the battlefield for a cavalry charge -- i.e. (1) March, (2) Trot, (3) Gallop, and (4) Charge or Beheading! "Deguello" comes from the Spanish verb "degolar" which means to cut the throat. A "degolleria" is a butcher shop. More on this later.

The movie Deguellos are interesting, because the real thing has been known by historians since 1929 when unearthed in the Mexican Military archives by Luis Chavez y Orosco for research done by Eugene C. Barker and Amelia Williams. This is the sheet music you've seen.

Max Steiner, who did the music score for The Last Command in 1955, clearly knew what the original Deguello was like because he used a different portion of the four bugle calls in his earlier score for Treasure of Sierra Madre, but he chose to write his own version for the Alamo battle sequence in the film -- more like the toques used in bullfight music.

Dimitri Tiomkin likewise wanted a different type of Deguello for the scenes you refer to in Rio Bravo, so he wrote that haunting Habanera-style trumpet melody -- and then used it again as the main counter-theme to the main theme which was The Green Leaves of Summer in John Wayne's The Alamo the following year and adapted it into the march used before the battle. So, the Deguello in Rio Bravo and The Alamo is the same theme.

Disney's Davy Crockett at the Alamo created a very listless theme for their Deguello as did a few other films including James A. Michener's Texas (mini-series). For the less-said-about-the-better TV movie The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory, Peter Bernstein (son of Elmer) wrote an atrocious one.

The real Deguello was used in the Imax docudrama Alamo: The Price of Freedom played at its correct lively tempo and in John Lee Hancock's 2004 epic The Alamo. John Lee's concept for counterpointing it with Davy Crockett's fiddle theme however required that composer Carter Burwell deliver it at a slower tempo throughout the film, hence your reaction that it felt like a parade march. However, I feel that the end justified the means with that memorable Crockett fiddler-on-the-roof scene. Also, if you listen carefully in Carter's battle score, the real deguello is used in counterpoint in a chillingly minor key [actually probably just a unique treatment of a major key] at the moment the fort is being overrun -- that awesome aerial night view!

It was fun to hear that you thought the Deguellos used in Rio Bravo and in The Alamo (1960) were two different themes. Just goes to prove the high quality of Tiomkin's musicality in giving you two completely opposite feelings with the same motif. Tiomkin's Alamo is my favorite score of all times.

O.K. Believe it or not, that was the short answer. :lol:

Current note: Actually, now that I reread this, it was closer to the long answer than the short answer. Not sure there is much to add except one detail about harmony, which I will do shortly -- or not so "shortly."

[sgtstryker53]

Tiomkin was truly one of the great movie composers. Very distinct style. He did a lot of the classics in the 40,s, 50's and 60's. Red River, The Guns of Navarone, High Noon, Gunfight at the OK Corral, Friendly Persuasion, to name just a few. Brilliant music. You can always tell a Tiomkin score if you listen.

[Rich Curilla]

Oct 1, 2013 7:48:30 GMT -5 sgtstryker53 said:

Tiomkin was truly one of the great movie composers. Very distinct style. He did a lot of the classics in the 40,s, 50's and 60's. Red River, The Guns of Navarone, High Noon, Gunfight at the OK Corral, Friendly Persuasion, to name just a few. Brilliant music. You can always tell a Tiomkin score if you listen.

He has been my life-long favorite. I was very annoyed to see that, on the soundtrack album for The Alamo, they used valuable space to include the Marty Robbins Ballad of the Alamo and the Brothers Four Green Leaves of Summer rather than the wonderfully delicate romance cue behind Wayne and Linda Cristal's opening scenes or the deeply moving and very subtle cues behind the Bowie bereavement scene. I was in hog heaven when the Nic Raine restoration of the complete score came out a few years ago. Raine was quite responsible to Tiomkin's tempos -- something even Elmer Bernstein couldn't grasp (or chose not to) in his homage albums of Tiomkin music. Tiomkin's Russian-Germany-France musical roots kept him wonderfully away from strict metronome-following. He flowed! And Raine's album producer James Fitzpatrick carefully selected a studio that would even reproduce the Tiomkin accoustics correctly. The one score I can't seem to find is the one he did late in life for the foreign film titled Tchaikovski.

[mjbrathwaite]

The first record I ever got was a 78 of Frankie Laine singing the theme from "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". It got broken in 1960, and for years after I kept buying Frankie Laine albums with the song on them to get it again, and it always turned out to be a later version without the marvellous vocal backing of the original. Eventually, my wife found a second-hand copy of the original in America about 1990, and a few years ago it turned up here on a CD. It is still one of my favourite recordings, and I'd love to see him song it, but so far it hasn't turned up on You Tube, although there's a clip of him doing the B-side ("Without Him").

[Rich Curilla]

Oct 1, 2013 18:12:04 GMT -5 mjbrathwaite said:

The first record I ever got was a 78 of Frankie Laine singing the theme from "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". It got broken in 1960, and for years after I kept buying Frankie Laine albums with the song on them to get it again, and it always turned out to be a later version without the marvellous vocal backing of the original. Eventually, my wife found a second-hand copy of the original in America about 1990, and a few years ago it turned up here on a CD. It is still one of my favourite recordings, and I'd love to see him song it, but so far it hasn't turned up on You Tube, although there's a clip of him doing the B-side ("Without Him").

Funny how we used to have to put up with "B-sides" of our favorite songs. The first version of The Green Leaves of Summer I ever heard (months before the Columbia release of the soundtrack became available or I had seen the movie) was by the Clebenoff Strings and had such violently percussive rhythm that I was visualizing Disney's Davy swinging Old Betsy, clobbering a soldado with every beat. The flip side was a forgettable tune (that I cannot now forget no matter how hard I try) called Where the Hot Winds Blow. Gawd, that was awful!!!

[Rich Curilla]

Sept 30, 2013 17:29:23 GMT -5 Rich Curilla said:

Not sure there is much to add except one detail about harmony, which I will do shortly -- or not so "shortly."

My observation about Deguello harmony (other than what film score composers have created) is that we actually have two parts of the Deguello in sheet music form and that they were written to be played in counterpoint. The sheet music we have been referring to up until now is the 4 bugle calls ending with the Deguello as printed under the general title of Toques Particulares para la Caballeria(Calls Specifically for the Cavalry -- my translation). This was the one used in the Imax movie and The Alamo (2004). However, if you look in the original printing (and certain later ones) of Walter Lord's A Time To Stand, you will see a printed copy of just the Deguello taken from El Soldado Mexicano. This one is nearly identical to the other one (which was taken from a Mexican military ordinance book, I believe, so a different source). Nearly identical, except that certain notes are printed one half step off from the other work, resulting (if the two versions were played together) in a very interesting dissonant sound -- rather unnerving, and the kind of thing I have heard as discords in Mexican bullfight band music. This of course might simply be a misprint, but it is too deliberate and repetitive in my opinion to be an error.

[Bill Yowell]

Rich, I have just now pulled my copy of Lords' "A Time to Stand", and looking at the written music to "The Deguello", I can certainly see the similarity in what was used in Alamo 2004. Without looking at it while listening to it being played in the movie, I will not speculate on the preciseness of the movie rendition. The dissonant counterpoint you speak of would surely add to the ominous meaning of the tune. It is this dissonance, in the fanfare type lead in to Tiomkins written "Deguello", that I think so well portrayed the meaning of "No Quarter or Cutthroat". On another musical note, during the fandango scene when Crockett played "Listen to the Mockingbird", I discovered that that tune was not even composed until 1855, nineteen years after the fact. Well, we all understand the liberties taken in movie production.

[Rich Curilla]

Oct 2, 2013 9:27:26 GMT -5 Bill Yowell said:

On another musical note, during the fandango scene when Crockett played "Listen to the Mockingbird", I discovered that that tune was not even composed until 1855, nineteen years after the fact. Well, we all understand the liberties taken in movie production.

Yes. John Lee and Carter Burwell discussed that at length before choosing to use it. Other songs were considered -- all period correct but none with that instant recognizability that was necessary for the scene. They realized they would "draw fire" for being out of period with it, but chose to go with it so a general audience could identify quickly.

[Rich Curilla]

Here is the cavalry call sheet music. The Deguello begins on the ninth staff. This was a copy made by Luis Chavez Orozco in 1926 from page 438 of the first volume of Ordenanza Militar para el Regimen, Disciplina, Subordinacion y Servicio del Ejercito (Military Ordinance for the Government, Discipline, Subordination and Service of the Army) published in Mexico in 1842. These five staffs are exactly what was used by Carter Burwell in The Alamo (2004) albeit at a slow march tempo rather than "Vivo" as indicated on the score. As I said, that was necessary so Craig Eastman could perform Carter's counterpoint melody on the violin for Billy's scene on the roof. Compare its notation to that from the version printed in A Time to Stand. You will see that certain notes on the El Sodado Mexicano version in Lord's book are a half step off from the same notations in Ordenanza. I believe these are actually two "parts" of the same piece.

In my documentary Alamo: The New Defenders, we recorded a local trumpet player doing both parts and then mixed them together to use in the soundtrack behind the battle. It DO chill!