PLAYING BY HEART

JOHN BARRY

Rating:

Original Review: Unusually, John Barry's score for Playing By Heart is being marketed as a jazz album rather than a soundtrack, no doubt due to the inclusion of tracks by the legendary Chet Baker and the performance of jazz trumpeter Chris Botti on the CD. The cover art features none of the film's publicity stills, instead highlighting moody monochrome pictures of Barry, Baker and Botti looking all mean and moody. In actual fact, the jazz section of your local record store would probably be the most appropriate place to look for it, as most of John Barry's score for the film was ultimately removed from the final print by the producers, replaced with new tracks written at short notice by Christopher Young. Nevertheless, those wonderful folks at Decca have released Barry's full score anyway. Having heard it, I can only scratch my head quizzically and wonder why any supposedly intelligent adult would not want music as wonderful as this to accompany their film. Originally, director Willard Carroll wanted a John Barry Seven-style score for his movie about eleven people (including Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Anthony Edwards, Ryan Phillippe, Dennis Quaid and Madeleine Stowe) struggling to come to terms with their complicated love lives. The film went through many name changes during its development - it was called both "Goodnight Moon" and "Dancing About Architecture" before its final moniker was adopted - but throughout the production, Carroll was adamant he wanted to recapture the laid-back, luxurious sound of the 1950s, epitomised by people like Barry, Chet Baker and Shelly Manne. Who better, then, to recreate that sound than Barry himself? With Botti and a world-class ensemble of saxophonists and pianists lending their supremely expressive tones to the music, Playing By Heart is an indulgent, wholly enjoyable listening experience - the musical equivalent of eating velvety chocolate in front of a roaring fire on a cold winter's night. With the two main themes, 'Remembering Chet' and 'Playing By Heart', Barry has taken that whole experience and condensed it into a series of wonderfully tantalising cues - moody, dreamy pieces which conjure up images of quiet, smoke filled after-hours clubs, half-empty bottles of Jack Daniels, and an audience rapt with the musicians playing, oblivious to everything else in the room. Barry seems to have regressed back to the days when sultry scores like this were the norm for him, and he's obviously having a ball. It's a welcome and long-overdue return to the style which first captured the attention of the British public almost fifty years ago, but which has only been heard occasionally since, though works like Body Heat and The Cotton Club. For the more modern admirer, a number of traditionally "Barryesque" cues are also present in the score. Barry is a past master of creating enticing themes with long, lustrous strings and delicate piano melodies which revel in utter romanticism and gently stroke the listener like a velvet glove. 'Game of Hide and Seek', 'Scene Unseen', 'Goodnight Moon' and 'Mark's Graveyard Site' freely adopt this style, rekindling memories of the more intimate moments from Dances With Wolves, Out of Africa, The Scarlet Letter and others. When the sublime Tommy Morgan's harmonica appears, adding a touch of yearning and worldliness to cues such as 'A Place Inside Alive and Well', memories of Midnight Cowboy come flooding back. As well as being an excellent score in its own right, this CD is a wonderful nostalgia trip. As if anything else was needed, three tracks of music by Chet Baker himself have been included - 'Tenderly', 'You Go To My Head' and 'These Foolish Things', evocative pieces which only further enhance his status as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters that ever lived. I can't really say anything more about this CD without running out of superlatives. It doesn't matter that the film itself sank like a stone, or that the movie producers are imbeciles for removing 75% of Barry's score. Just buy the darn thing, and prepare to be enraptured.

Track Listing: Running Time: 57 minutes 21 seconds

Decca 466-275-2 (1999)

Music composed and conducted by John Barry. Featured musical soloists Chris Botti, Daniel Higgins, Tommy Morgan, Michael Lang, Leland Sklar, Harvey Mason, Lee Musiker, Jay Leon Hart and Bruce Samuels. Recorded and mixed by Dennis Sands and John Richards. Edited by Clif Kohlweck. Album produced by John Barry.


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