Leatherheads (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

iTunes Review

So much has been made of Randy Newman’s Hollywood family heritage — his uncles Alfred, Lionel and Emil Newman dominated Fox film scoring for decades — that it’s easy to forget half of Randy’s family roots lie in Louisiana; Good Old Boys’ observations were hardly detached. This soundtrack to George Clooney’s period comedy about the rough and tumble early days of professional football is not only a warm reminder of Newman’s love for New Orleans-rooted jazz, but a bracing tribute to his panoramic mastery of American musical idioms in general. Randy splits his cues here between a small jazz ensemble that yields loopy delights like his Crescent City take on the “Princeton Tiger” and Ledisi’s soulfully sublime reading of the Gershwins’ “The Man I Love” to more typically Copland-esque music for studio orchestra. But his heart is clearly partial to the blues-inflected ‘30s jazz that gives the film its warm sense of millieu.