The Caveman's Valentine
finds composer
Terence Blanchard
teaming up again with director
Kasi Lemmons
and actor
Samuel L. Jackson
, with whom he worked previously on
Eve's Bayou
. This time, the score presents a special challenge in that the main character of the film,
Romulus Ledbetter
, played by
Jackson
, is supposed to be a classically trained pianist who is also slightly crazy. On top of that, the movie is a
mystery
/
thriller
. Add up those plot elements, and
Blanchard
was faced with composing a piano-based, classically informed score full of dramatic and suspenseful passages, which might have seemed quite a task for a musician still best known as a
jazz
trumpeter. Running slightly more than an hour, this soundtrack album presents 28 musical cues from the film, many of which are brief passages meant to support the developments of the story. But using
the Northwest Sinfonia
,
does get to write more complete orchestral pieces at several points, notably the aptly named
"Musical Rampage,"
"The Letter,"
and the seven-and-a-half-minute
"Finale."
His music is always functional, but it also displays a flair for classical styles. ~ William Ruhlmann