No, this isn't a grave-robbing fiasco wherein some hotshot record producer matches an old Chet Baker trumpet solo to new John Barry soundtrack. This is more than the typical soundtrack offering designed for mass teen consumption. In a sensible, very simpatico move, soundtrack composer John Barry (Out Of Africa, Midnight Cowboy, Thunderball) is here joined by smooth jazz trumpeter Chris Botti for the score of the film Playing By Heart. Along with Barry's trademark bittersweet melodies and majestically soaring strings, tracks by erratic legend Chet Baker are subtly inserted, so well integrated within Barry's poignant moods that you wonder why this hadn't been done before. Barry's music instantly alerts your memory to some distant imaginary plane, replacing the mundane with the sublime and the sentimental. With Botti as his faux Baker stand in, Playing By Heart recalls an empty jazz club at 4 a.m., or even such classic albums as Miles Davis' Miles Ahead and John Coltrane's Ballads. Chet Baker is represented by three standards: "Tenderly," "You Go To My Head," and "These Foolish Things." But if you turn down the lights and forget the credits the songs melt into each other with ease.
All recordings written by J. Barry, courtesy of Decca Records and Intermedia Music, administered by Universal-Songs of PolyGram International, Inc./Miramax Film Music/Sony/ATV Songs LLC (BMI).
