It’s a sublime moment in an otherwise action-packed movie. Sublime for we jazz lovers, albeit all too brief. Early in the 1968 movie, “Bullitt,” Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset are meeting friends for dinner at what was then the groovy Coffee Cantata in San Francisco and is now the Mexican restaurant Flores. Melted candles in Mateus bottles anyone?
That band playing in the background? That song? It’s a lilting, soaring, flute-led smooth-jazz tune written and arranged by the great Lalo Schifrin, the man behind the “Mission Impossible” theme and scores from “Cool Hand Luke,” the “Dirty Harry” series, and many other movies. Schifrin is still with us at age 92.
We only get a glimpse of Schifrin’s “A Song for Cathy,” which runs just two minutes and thirteen seconds in the movie. It leaves you wanting more. It’s a joyous piece of music and runs counter in tone to the rest of the movie.
Schifrin’s studio musicians play the full tune on the “Bullitt” soundtrack album. However, the band playing at the Cantata - and seemingly lost to history - was called Meridian West. It is said that they never recorded an album, but McQueen had seen them perform at the famous Sausalito restaurant and bar, The Trident. He loved them and wanted them in the movie. He was Bullitt’s Executive Producer and at the height of his powers, so he got his way - thankfully.
So, who’s Cathy, anyway? Well, she was the character without a last name played by Jacqueline Bisset. And that extraordinary featured flautist was Julie Iger, a classically trained flute prodigy and co-founder of Meridian West in early 1967.
Yes, the “Bullitt” chase scene later in the movie is the stuff of cinematic legends, but “A Song for Cathy” should be remembered and relished, too.
