Leatherheads Soundtrack CD

Composer: Randy Newman.
Lyricist: Ira Gershwin.
Personnel: Bruce Dukov (violin); Donald Foster (clarinet); Tom Boyd (oboe); Malcolm McNab (trumpet); Charles Loper (trombone); David Bryant, Randy Kerber (piano).
Audio Mixer: Frank Wolf.
Recording information: Sony Scoring Stage.
Photographer: Dan Goldwasser.
For George Clooney's 2008 football comedy, LEATHERHEADS, the renowned actor/director enlisted revered songwriter Randy Newman to compose a largely instrumental score that reflects the movie's 1920s setting. Consisting of brief jazzy numbers (see the jaunty, horn-heavy "Dodge"), the collection is ideal for fans of ragtime and swing music, as well as admirers of the nostalgic, good-natured film.
As has been apparent at least since his Sail Away album in 1972, Randy Newman's musical sensibility is heavily informed by the styles of popular music that prevailed roughly from the 1890s to the early '20s -- in particular Tin Pan Alley pop, ragtime, and Dixieland jazz. As a film composer, Newman has not tried to hide his inclinations, but rather has sought out (or been sought out for) movies that could incorporate them smoothly. One such is director/star George Clooney's Leatherheads, a neo-screwball comedy about the rise of professional football set in the mid-'20s. Nominally speaking, Newman's favored styles are to a certain extent anachronistic for the period; the sentimental ballads of the turn of the 19th century such as "After the Ball" were not being sung too much 30 years later, for example. But in Hollywood terms, that's no problem. Ever since Marvin Hamlisch brazenly used the rags of Scott Joplin to accompany the Depression Era setting of The Sting in 1974 and won an Academy Award for his trouble, it has seemed that any popular style from the Civil War to World War II could be mixed up largely by feel, if not by the calendar. In Leatherheads, Newman's familiar mixture of pre-1925 styles connotes the light comedy and sentimentality at which Clooney is aiming. Toward the end of the soundtrack, notably on "The Ambiguity of Victory," Newman contributes more traditional symphonic film scoring. And, given the subject matter, he apes the sound of a college marching band more than usual. But for the most part, Clooney has employed him here to do what he does best. Most Newman scores are unlikely to be mistaken for those of any other Hollywood composer (though they occasionally may be mistaken for Randy Newman albums without vocals), and this one is no exception. ~ William Ruhlmann