Continuing my rundown of scores mentioned in last summer’s Big Board Extravaganza that I haven’t heard before.

Last time - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=134442

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This time - Avalon (1990)
Randy Newman; orchestrated by Jack Hayes; conducted by Randy Newman
Mention by: Jack Lindon, JLFM, Southall

Barry Levinson’s multigenerational tale of Jewish immigrants in Baltimore was widely praised but underseen to the point that its composer Randy Newman often jokes when he plays its music in concert that it’s from a film no Gentile has ever seen. While Newman’s Avalon music has its partisans - it’s one of Hans Zimmer’s favorite scores - appreciation of it may vary depending on how affected by Newman’s three themes you are. If you expect Newman to do more with how he evolves them over the length of the album (rarely going further than assigning the lead line to different parts of the ensemble), you may wonder what all the fuss is for. But if that approach is fine for themes this good, or if you are enamored with how the intimate, waltz-like, Americana-adjacent music seems to call back to the kind of character drama scoring that Elmer Bernstein was regularly churning out in the 1960s, (To Kill a Mockingbird, Summer and Smoke, Birdman of Alcatraz, Love with the Proper Stranger), then Avalon might be right up your alley.

****½

The album was remastered in 2008 and remains available on U.S. digital / streaming services.

Album - https://open.spotify.com/album/6fZWpGO1x0NUzYGEH5nWYj?si=datq-H0oQGKWnZ3bfGGBpw

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Next time: 1990 again