Collectors of Jones' music need to consider Notting Hill in the same regards that Alan Silvestri fans had met with that composer's numerous interludes into the romantic comedy genre. Silvestri, known widely for his action themes, was perhaps the most experienced such composer to tone down his writing for films like What Women Want and Serendipity at the time. The half an hour of music that Jones presents for Notting Hill is as pleasant as it is surprising. He is a man who has literally studied and taught methodology in every conceivable genre of music, and the effectiveness of his work for Notting Hill is undoubtedly successful. He begins with a solo acoustic guitar and weaves it in between clubby bands, solo sax, solo piano, and occasional orchestral backing. His title theme is simplistic and repeated often to compensate for the score's lack of screen time in the film. It maintains a soft, upscale barroom atmosphere at every turn, although a few cues with modern loops of percussion and rhythm keep the score moving at a listenable pace. The "Car Chase" cue near the end of the film features some light rock with electric organ, but the tone is generally consistent in instrumentation and personality with the remaining, softer underscore. Orchestral enthusiasts will likely enjoy the several cues in which the woodwinds and strings (and perhaps two or three brass players) of the orchestra offer a deep, lush accompaniment to the material. Here the group is used for one of the traveling scenes (to and from the hotel) and in performances of the theme in full, symphonic force, which work well in the magical, movie-business scenes in the film. The acoustic guitar writing sounds similar in many ways to John Du Prez's work for A Fish Called Wanda, although Jones always maintains a heavier, dramatic mix. He also wrote the source music for the film, whether it is heard in the bar, the hotel lobby, or elsewhere. The hotel lobby scene involves some gorgeous solo piano work that you'd expect to hear live upon entering a high class department store.

Due to the film's success, several different song albums were pressed by various international branches of Polygram. The U.S., U.K., and Japan all had slightly differing collections of songs, and score fans can keep the situation simplified by knowing that the same eight minutes (in two suites of combined cues) of Jones' score material appears on all of them. For the most part, these eight minutes offer all you really need from the score, and you may very well enjoy the songs, too. But for die-hard Jones collectors, the somewhat redundant full score is an option. The composer originally pressed a promo (this was just before the Contemporary Media Recordings label he released scores under semi-promotionally starting doing essentially the same thing later that year with Cleopatra) containing the usual disclaimers on its packaging. This album had seventeen untitled tracks following a shorter Costello performance of "She," which has a foundation of piano that works seamlessly with the score. The purpose of the promotional pressing was not certain, although awards consideration may have been the thinking given the popularity of the film. As could be expected, the score then made several trips around the bootleg market, sometimes with the seventeen score tracks appearing by themselves (with the "She" song unfortunately stripped from the package). On other bootlegs, it was combined with material from Jones' Arachnophobia, which obviously doesn't fit with the tone of Notting Hill on the same album. The sequencing of tracks is different on nearly all of them. There are some downright beautiful solo performances on the expanded promo or bootlegged albums of Jones' score, especially involving the piano writing. But is either of these full-score options worth the search as opposed to commercial song and score combination album? For most listeners, no. The songs are really quite enticing, and since they fit the mood of Jones' underscore very well, they make a nice overall balance. In those eight minutes on the commercial album, the most significant of Jones' orchestral outbursts of theme is presented. Still, though, Jones continues to impress in the entirety of his work, proving his versatility once again.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download