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Let Them All Talk
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Composed and Produced by:
Orchestrated and Conducted by:
John Beasley
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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WaterTower Music
(December 18th, 2020)
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Commercial digital release only.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... on the very brief score-only album if you are attempting
to complete a soundtrack of the wildly diverse collection of songs and
score you heard in the film.
Avoid it... if you expect the attractive 1960's jazz to occupy
enough of this score to recommend for a Thomas Newman collector, many
other cues resorting to the composer's lesser, ambient techniques.
BUY IT
 | | Newman |
Let Them All Talk: (Thomas Newman) One of those
films that makes you wonder if you're supposed to feel good or bad about
humanity, the 2020 dramatic comedy Let Them All Talk is a
character study of an award-winning author who goes on a life-ending
cruise aboard the Queen Mary 2 across the Atlantic with her friends,
agent, and nephew. The interactions between the various parties and how
they relate to the prior best-selling book of the lead author are
explored, with redemption and peace all on the table. Despite director
Steven Soderbergh's attempt to keep the ambience light-hearted, the
movie can be seen as a somewhat depressing exercise in futility and
conflict, even after the departure of the author from the picture allows
some closure for the remaining characters. Although the film was shot
before the 2020 pandemic, largely aboard the close confines of the
legendary ship, Let Them All Talk debuted on HBO late in the year
and was well received. The director filled the film with songs and
instrumentals from yesteryear, and he desired an unconventional score of
only 20 minutes for transitional scenes. His target for the job was
composer Thomas Newman, with whom he had collaborated three times
before. Newman admits that wouldn't have chosen the same approach to the
score himself, but he trusted the director and tackled the project from
his unconventional perspective. Soderbergh requested a 1960's jazz score
akin to Henry Mancini or Neal Hefti in its breezy comedy, the vibe of
The Odd Couple definitely meant to carry to these characters
through the story's journey. Even though Newman suggested traditional
underscore for a few scenes, Soderbergh refused, but some of that
material was eventually recorded anyway. To satisfy a direction that was
new to Newman's career, he asked longtime collaborator, keyboardist John
Beasley, to arrange the jazz waltzes he wrote, yielding a combination of
structured cues and a bit of improvisation in the longer recordings.
Beasely then performed it with his MONK'estra big band, handling the
Hammond B3 organ in the lead. The band of fifteen players is highlighted
by guitar, drummer, bassist, flutist, and a second percussionist. The
trumpets are particularly flamboyant in their presence while vibraphone
and xylophone set the era well.
Aside from the highlighted jazz ensemble for the brief
original music in Let Them All Talk, Newman also supplies some of
his usual performance inflection to the equation. The familiar synthetic
vocals using his typically processed samples of fluffy female tones are
a friendly compliment to the band, and a string section was also added
to round out the full ensemble, fortuitously recorded just before the
pandemic. As for the score's creation process, Newman would write the
melodies and then work with Beasley on the tempos and tone. The jazz
cues feature one main theme, but the work rotates between little
vignettes in between. That primary theme for the author, Alice, is a
retro identity of repeated phrasing heavily influenced by performance
inflection. It's conveyed by the full ensemble in "Waltz for Alice" but
helmed by organ and strings. The bright female vocal samples are silly
but offer the right touch of attitude. For those seeking the exact
confines of the melody, strings carry it clearly at 0:46 and 1:19 before
the performance dissolves into improvised variations as the cue
progresses. The theme doesn't factor frequently thereafter, but its
opening rhythms return in "Unsuspecting Man," the flute then toying with
pieces of the melody, and it dances around its former self with the same
rhythms in "Hardbound." However, the theme does occupy the full ensemble
suite rendition in "Let Them All Talk," this version losing the female
vocals and going wild with the jazz ensemble late. The various vignettes
of jazz in between include the stylish muted trumpet and xylophone in
"Park Place" and the creatively haphazard but humorously lazy organ
swagger in "Poison" and "You Always," the latter using a striking
crescendo of suspense at its end from the strings. There's slightly more
romance to the bubbly strings and trumpets in "Southampton Water." Less
attractive are the rather boring, light ambient cues: "Consciousness,"
"Wander the Ship," "Bronwyn Pugh," and "Night Sky." The only passage of
dissonant atmospheres and synthetic annoyance comes in "Bees." These
sidetracks to Newman's normal methodology lose the appeal of the
remainder, which features a mix that was meant to exhibit a wet, live
ambience of old studio jazz recordings. At only 20 minutes, the score
doesn't have much time to set a mood or establish its themes, but it's
quite friendly in its brighter half. Even so, the album is really too
insubstantial to recommend unless you are collecting a fuller soundtrack
from the film.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Thomas Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.17
(in 42 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.14
(in 62,583 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 20:05
• 1. Consciousness (0:34)
• 2. Waltz for Alice (3:01)
• 3. Park Place (1:18)
• 4. Poison (1:33)
• 5. Southampton Water (2:02)
• 6. Wander the Ship (0:30)
• 7. Unsuspecting Man (1:42)
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• 8. Bronwyn Pugh (0:32)
• 9. Bees (1:07)
• 10. Night Sky (1:17)
• 11. Hardbound (1:25)
• 12. You Always (2:24)
• 13. Let Them All Talk (2:35)
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There exists no official packaging for this album.
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