Green Book (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | November 16, 2018 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 57:32 | |||
Label | Milan Entertainment | |||
Producer | Kris Bowers | |||
Kris Bowers chronology | ||||
|
Green Book (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2018 film of the same name, released digitally on November 16, 2018, [1] and via CD on November 30, by Milan Records. [2] For the film's soundtrack, director Peter Farrelly incorporated an original score by composer Kris Bowers and one of Don Shirley's own recordings. The soundtrack also includes rarities from 1950s and 1960s American music recommended to him by fellow singer Robert Plant. [3] [4] According to the label, it was streamed approximately 10,000 times per day during January 2019. This rate doubled the next month as the album surpassed one million streams worldwide and became the highest-streamed jazz soundtrack in Milan's history. [2]
The selection of songs from the film was assisted by singer Robert Plant, who was dating a friend of Farrelly's wife at the time he had finished the film's script. During dinner on a double date, his wife and her friend stepped outside to smoke and the director asked Plant for advice on picking songs for the film that would be relatively unknown to contemporary audiences. This prompted Plant to play Farrelly songs via YouTube, including Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Pretty 'Lil Thing" and Robert Mosley's "Goodbye, My Lover, Goodbye". [5] In an interview with Forbes , the director explained that the soundtrack ended up not only avoiding rote nostalgia, "but also those songs were really inexpensive and I did not have a huge budget so I was able to come up with some sensational pop songs from the time that were long forgotten." [6] The music played at the black blues club toward the end of the film featured the piano performance of Étude Op. 25, No. 11 (Chopin) , known as the Winter Wind etude by Chopin, was not included in the album.
Kris Bowers, while composing the film's score felt that his connection with Don Shirley came with the reference of his grandparents when he moved to Panhandle, Texas to Los Angeles, California and used to travel back and forth between, which was very accurate with the film's plot. [7] [8] He was experienced with Shirley's technique on combining multiple genres apart from jazz, adding that "I heard so much jazz vocabulary in what he was doing, but what was unique about his approach was that everything was performed in a very classical manner and everything he was playing was very virtuosic or very pianistic. And I have heard a lot of people use jazz and classical in different ways, but not really in that way. I've never heard somebody take the jazz vocabulary and perform it in a classical way. Seeing somebody combine these art forms or combine these genres in their own personal unique way was very inspiring just because I'm similarly inspired and into a lot of different styles of music." [5] [9]
Bowers practiced nearly eight to nine hours per day, to accurately match Shirley's composition, and referenced some of his old recordings, though it had a lower quality. [10] [11] This meant that he had to re-record the sounds, so he practiced Mahershala Ali (who plays Shirley onscreen) with three lessons to match the musical themes. The training nearly continued for three months, and a step-by-step replication of performing the tunes composed by Shirley. Bowers added "When he knew that he was shooting a song, the day before, a few days before, he asked me to record video of myself playing through the song so he could watch me over and over and over again. After that, before we did the take, we set up a keyboard in his trailer and I would play for him over and over again just so he could sit across from me and watch. Then we were on stage when he was playing, and I was standing off in the wings doing air piano to show him where he should be." [11] In the film, Bowers also served as the "ghost pianist" for Ali, while playing the tunes. While editing the film, Patrick J. Don Vito, the film's editor had color corrected Bower's hands to match Ali's skin tone, and also edited his other body parts, to replicate the tune. [12] This helped Bowers being offered scoring duties for a number of television and video games. [11]
No. | Title | Performer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "That Old Black Magic" | The Green Book Copacabana Orchestra | 2:13 |
2. | "881 7th Ave" | Kris Bowers | 0:47 |
3. | "So Long Lovers Island" | The Blue Jays | 2:21 |
4. | "Dr. Shirley's Luggage" | Kris Bowers | 0:33 |
5. | "I Feel Fine" | Kris Bowers | 0:44 |
6. | "A Letter From My Baby" | Timmy Shaw | 2:50 |
7. | "You Took Advantage of Me" | The Blackwells | 2:03 |
8. | "Blue Skies" | Kris Bowers | 2:05 |
9. | "Dear Dolores" | Kris Bowers | 1:04 |
10. | "Vacation Without Aggravaton" | Kris Bowers | 2:35 |
11. | "Cookin'" | Al Casey Combo | 2:14 |
12. | "What'cha Gonna Do" | Bill Massey | 2:17 |
13. | "Water Boy" | Kris Bowers | 4:53 |
14. | "Dearest One" | Jack's Four | 2:09 |
15. | "Field Workers" | Kris Bowers | 0:50 |
16. | "I Got a Call / The Exception" | Kris Bowers | 1:16 |
17. | "Makeup For Wounds / It's a Complicated World" | Kris Bowers | 1:22 |
18. | "Happy Talk" | Kris Bowers | 1:21 |
19. | "I Love My Baby" | Bobby Page and the Riff-Raffs | 2:03 |
20. | "Governor On the Line" | Kris Bowers | 1:09 |
21. | "Need Some Sleep" | Kris Bowers | 1:03 |
22. | "Make the First Move" | Kris Bowers | 1:20 |
23. | "Lullaby of Birdland" | Kris Bowers | 2:40 |
24. | "Let's Roll" | The Orange Bird Blues Band | 1:48 |
25. | "Backwood Blues" | The Orange Bird Blues Band | 1:38 |
26. | "The Lonesome Road" | Kris Bowers | 2:28 |
27. | "Mmm Love" | Bob Kelly | 2:31 |
28. | "Thanks Officer" | Kris Bowers | 0:58 |
29. | "If You Want Me To" | Kris Bowers | 1:42 |
30. | "Thank You For the Letters" | Kris Bowers | 2:12 |
31. | "The Lonesome Road" | Don Shirley | 2:23 |
Total length: | 57:32 |
Critical reviews for the score were positive, with Ani Bundel of Elite Daily felt that "The soundtrack is a celebration of this music, even including a piano piece played by the real Don Shirley, plus many other fantastic songs of the era, intermixed with original compositions by the movie's composer, Kristopher Bowers". [3] The Film Scorer wrote "Although his score for Green Book may not necessarily be remembered in the years to come, Bowers’ work in reproducing Shirley’s original music will be, both for its skill and its reintroduction of a classical and jazz great to a new audience." [13]
Chart (2018) | Peak position |
---|---|
UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC) [14] | 36 |
US Top Jazz Albums (Billboard) [15] | 9 |
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Critics' Choice Movie Awards | January 13, 2019 | Best Score | Kris Bowers | Nominated | [16] |
Detroit Film Critics Society | December 3, 2018 | Best Use of Music | Green Book | Nominated | [17] [18] |
Hollywood Music in Media Awards | November 14, 2018 | Best Original Score in a Feature Film | Kris Bowers | Nominated | [19] |
Angelo Daniel Badalamenti was an American composer and arranger best known for his work in composing for films. He is best known for his acclaimed collaborations with director David Lynch, notably the scores for Blue Velvet (1986), the Twin Peaks television series, The Straight Story (1999), and Mulholland Drive (2001).
Robert David Grusin is an American composer, arranger, producer, jazz pianist, and band leader. He has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy Award and 10 Grammy Awards. He is also a frequent collaborator with director Sydney Pollack, scoring many of his films like Three Days of the Condor (1975), Absence of Malice (1981), Tootsie (1982), The Firm (1993), and Random Hearts (1999). In 1978, Grusin founded GRP Records with Larry Rosen, and was an early pioneer of digital recording.
John Alfred Mandel was an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. The musicians he worked with include Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Diane Schuur and Shirley Horn. He won five Grammy Awards, from 17 nominations; his first nomination was for his debut film score for the multi-nominated 1958 film I Want to Live!
Don Edward Fagenson, known professionally as Don Was, is an American musician, record producer, music director, film composer, documentary filmmaker and radio host. Since 2011, he has also served as president of the American jazz label Blue Note Records.
Mahershala Ali is an American actor. He has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019, and in 2020, The New York Times ranked him among the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century.
Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy is an Indian musical trio consisting of Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. They have composed music for over 50 soundtracks across five languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and English. Amongst the most critically acclaimed Indian musicians, the trio have won numerous awards, including National Film Awards, Filmfare Awards, and IIFA Awards. They are often referred to as the "Amar Akbar Anthony" of the Hindi film music industry. They are known for their compositions in Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006), My Name Is Khan (2010), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) and Dil Dhadakne Do (2015).
Pinar Toprak is a Turkish-American Emmy-nominated composer, conductor and musician, who specializes in creating thematic scores for everything from superhero sagas and blockbuster comedies to TV series and dramas. With her work on Captain Marvel (2019) and Fortnite, Toprak is the first female composer to score both a film and video game with gross revenues of over $1 billion and $5 billion respectively.
Charles Ira Fox is an American composer for film and television. His compositions include the sunshine pop musical backgrounds which accompanied every episode of the 1970s ABC-TV show Love, American Style; the theme song for the late 1970s ABC series The Love Boat; and the dramatic theme music to ABC's Wide World of Sports and the original Monday Night Football; as well as the Grammy-winning hit song "Killing Me Softly with His Song", written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman and Fox's longtime writing partner, Norman Gimbel.
Donald Walbridge Shirley was an American classical and jazz pianist and composer. He recorded many albums for Cadence Records during the 1950s and 1960s, experimenting with jazz with a classical influence. He wrote organ symphonies, piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic poem based on the 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of "Variations" on the 1858 opera Orpheus in the Underworld.
Francis Edward Fitzpatrick, more commonly known as Frank Fitzpatrick, is an American composer, music producer, author, wellness expert, filmmaker and social entrepreneur.
Nier is an action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published by Square Enix in 2010. The music of Nier was composed by Keiichi Okabe with members of his studio, Monaca, Kakeru Ishihama and Keigo Hoashi, and Takafumi Nishimura of Cavia. The soundtrack has inspired the release of four official albums by Square Enix—an official soundtrack album and three albums of arrangements—along with two mini-albums included as pre-order bonuses for the Japanese versions of the game and two licensed EPs of jazz arrangements.
Kristopher Bowers is an American composer and pianist. He has composed scores for films, including Green Book, King Richard, and television series, among them Bridgerton, Mrs. America, Dear White People, and When They See Us.
Green Book is a 2018 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Peter Farrelly. Starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, the film is inspired by the true story of a 1962 tour of the Deep South by African American pianist Don Shirley and Italian American bouncer and later actor Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga, who served as Shirley's driver and bodyguard. Written by Farrelly alongside Lip's son Nick Vallelonga and Brian Hayes Currie, the film is based on interviews with Lip and Shirley, as well as letters Lip wrote to his wife. It is named after The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide book for African American travelers founded by Victor Hugo Green in 1936 and published until 1966.
Logan Nelson is an American composer who has composed scores for films, video games, and modern dance productions. In 2018, he received the SABAM Award for Best Young International Composer by the World Soundtrack Academy. He is known for his work with Kris Bowers, where he composed additional music on the scores to Green Book, Dear White People and For the People.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday is the soundtrack album to the 2021 film of the same name, released on February 19, 2021 by Warner Records. The film is based on the life of singer Billie Holiday, and also from the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari. Directed by Lee Daniels, it features Andra Day performing the titular character. The soundtrack featured several compilation of songs composed and performed by Day. She also wrote the original song "Tigress & Tweed" and had co-produced the album with Salaam Remi, and Raphael Saadiq and Warren Felder. Lynn Fainchtein and Daniels were the music supervisors.
The Artist (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2011 French comedy-drama film of the same name directed by Michel Hazanavicius, and stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo in the lead. The film features original score composed by Ludovic Bource, Michel's norm collaborator, and the album consists of 24 tracks of Bource's score, which also incorporates works from other composers such as Alberto Ginastera's "Estancia".
The Shape of Water (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the Academy Award-winning film of the same name. It featured 26 tracks — most of the tracks were from the original score composed by Alexandre Desplat and some tracks are incorporated songs, being originated from the 1940s and 1960s as the film is set during the Cold War period. The film, directed by Guillermo del Toro, who also co-wrote the script with Vanessa Taylor, stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer.
King Richard (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2021 film of the same name directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and starred Will Smith. The film's original score composed by Kris Bowers, released on November 12, 2021 by WaterTower Music, with 18 tracks from the score and an original song "Be Alive" performed by Beyoncé. It was also released as a single on the same date. The song earned Beyoncé, her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th edition of the ceremony held in March 2022, along with numerous accolades.
Haunted Mansion (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album composed by Kris Bowers for the 2023 film Haunted Mansion by Justin Simien. It was released by Walt Disney Records on July 26, 2023.