Cobb


Sony Classical (0074646692325)
Sony Classical (5099706692324)
Movie | Released: 1994 | Film release: 1994 | Format: CD
 

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# Track Artist/Composer Duration
1.Variations on an Old Baptist Hymn3:05
2.Stump Meets Cobb1:50
3.Cooperstown Aria Part I1:43
4.Nevada Nightlife2:28
5.Reno Ho! Part I2:37
6.Newsreel Mirror3:26
7.Meant Monk2:17
8.Cooperstown Aria Part II2:00
9.Winter Walk1:11
10.Hart and Hunter1:16
11.Georgia Peach Rag2:29
12.The Baptism1:30
13.Reno Ho! Part II2:35
14.The Homecoming6:18
15.Sour Mash Scherzo1:09
16.Cobb Dies1:49
17.The Beast Within2:24
18.The Ball GameSister Wynona Carr3:05
 43:12
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Cobb - 10/10 - Review of Tom Daish, submitted at
My knowledge of British sport is pretty limited and so my knowledge of American sport is almost non-existant, therefore watching movies about baseball or American football invariably don't mean a great deal to me. From my research (these reviews are always thoroughly researched....) I discovered that Ty Cobb was perhaps the greatest baseball player who was a woman beater and had all manner of self inflicted problems such as drinking and smoking. This bio-pic staring Tommy Lee Jones as the man himself appears to have taken a kind of retrospective view on Cobb's life as he attempts to write his autobiography. I further discovered the film was released during a baseball strike and as such didn't really do great business, even more sad since reviews I've happened upon were most complimentary.

Not being a typical sports movie (the kind of underdog comes good story that most sports movies seemt to be) there was less call for a traditional ra-ra score. Cobb was a complex man who conflicted with others in public and in private and of all the younger composers, I don't think anyone writes music for a troubled soul better than Elliot Goldenthal. I am not sure of the significance of the Old Baptist Hymn is in the context of the film, but it is given a gravelly performance by Goldenthal himself which isn't perhaps as appealing as it might be. However, Stumpy Meets Cobb gets going with some balletic string writing that is very much more typical Goldenthal material. The turmoil of Cobb's life is very much the focus of the film and so much of the music is melancholic or strident, dynamic and turbulant. Cooperstown Aria is an extremely downbeat string elegy and Nevada Nightlight takes the similarly downturned mood and translates it into jazz, much in the same way that Herrmann did in Taxi Driver. Jazz and ragtime feature a couple of times later in the score, notably in Meant Monk and the Scott Joplin style Georgia Peach Rag (with Goldenthal performing the piano).

The turbulant moments are perhaps the most thrilling moments; Reno Ho' Part 1 (not sure on all this part 1 and 2 thing, but still) is full of cascading strings and battering percussion. Part 2 follows on from the crushing dissonence that opens The Baptism with more of the same intense orchestral manouvering. Goldenthal has tempered the excesses of his Batman scores to write music that is similar, but with much lighter orchestration, giving a much more balletic edge. The Homecoming is perhaps the most moving track of the entire album and is written as an extended string elegy, full of mixed emotions, but is generally more positive than the rather more bleak remainder. As has happened a couple of times since, a cue from another Goldenthal score has been tracked into this score. I am informed that the cue is not actually The Beast Within at all, but given Cobb's personality, it makes for a suitably poetic title. There is no glaring change in feeling when the cue appears, which is perhaps worrying - James Horner couldn't have tracked a cue from Aliens into Field of Dreams without it standing out like a sore thumb, for example - but it works in context so I am content to accept its inclusion.

Cobb is one of Goldenthal's more accesible scores for my money. Even the more outrageously scored moments are very listenable and never descend into the musical snarling that can be hard to stomach. This is not to say that the score isn't demanding in many other ways and is certainly the darkest sport movie score I've heard. There are not a great number of lighter moments, although The Homecoming is certainly very gentle by Goldenthal standards. I often think that Goldenthal tries to show off to some extent when he's writing his music, but Cobb is the kind of film where excessive bravura in the music would have been to the detriment of the drama. The orchestral histrionics are tempered, but not to the detriment of innovation; the mixture of ragtime piano and dissonent orchestra is impressive and effective. I suppose this is the Goldenthal equivalent of Goldsmith's Patton, a score that truly seems to reflect the personality of the subject as well as being a superbly written; an excellent score and one of Goldenthal's best.


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