People I Know

Terence Blanchard is most famous as a jazz trumpeter and composer, the latter extended to film, most notably in his work with director Spike Lee. However, People I Know is directed by Daniel Algrant and stars Al Pacino, Kim Basinger and Ryan O'Neal. It would seem to be his first major film, graduating from the raucous TV series Sex and the City, but despite a good selection of stars, has had only limited release. Mark Isham is probably the only top rated film composer who straddles the world of film music and jazz on a regular basis, although plenty of others dabble. The film is ostensibly a thriller and so there is a smoky, back room feel to most of the cues, with soulful piano, laid back beats and languorous piano riffs. Much of it is more background than active underscore, but some of the longer sequences, notably the tense Murder Time, are effectively dramatic and tense. There is a nice vein of sultry romance too, highlighted in the gentle piano of Vicci's Park View, over which is a wonderful trumpet solo performed by Blanchard.
The album is bookended with Bye Bye Blackbird in both its original version performed by Rickie Lee Jones and a new performance by John Hendricks. It's not the kind of jazz song that really appeals to me, a little too much of the 'do be dah' type vocals, but that really is personal taste and there's no denying the quality of either performance or the song itself within the confines of the genre. Blanchard's score is generally fairly low key and often bringing back memories of some of the quieter, moody passages in Goldsmith's terrific LA Confidential, notably the aforementioned trumpet solo which is very much in the same style. There aren't quite the impressive high points of Goldsmith's score and a few cues when it becomes just a little to low key, but still with enough fine moments to be worth checking out.