Pollock ****
JEFF BEAL
Unitone Recordings 025 201
17 tracks - 44:33

Pollock was a labor of love for actor/director Ed Harris; he supposedly worked on this project for 10 years before it finally made it to the big screen. The film is a realistic biography of American abstract expressionistic artist Jackson Pollock (best known for his drip paintings). Harris threw himself so completely into the role he was able to recreate a lot of Pollock's work (or at least style) on screen. And Marcia Gay Harden surprised with her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for her portrayal of Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, who more or less sacrificed her art for the sake of Pollock's.

Pollock doesn't have opening titles, so as I watched the film, I did not have any preconceived notion as to what the score of was going to sound like -- and I didn't know who the composer was. During the more showy sections of the score, especially when Pollock is painting, I was convinced the composer was Cliff Martinez, since a lot of the music reminded me of the style and technique he incorporated in his score for Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill. The slower passages, however, reminded me of Thomas Newman and Mark Isham. By the end of the movie, I was impressed with the score, and was anxious to find out who composed this modern but strongly melodic material. When Jeff Beal's name came up, I was stumped.

Beal, as it turns out, is a jazz composer and accomplished trumpeter who has written scores for many TV movies including the acclaimed The Passion of Ayn Rand. This is his debut soundtrack CD (although it is noted that he played trumpet and synthesizer on the CD John Williams conducts John Williams: The Star Wars Trilogy). His jazz background is evident in Pollock, where there is also a touch of minimalism.

Some of his best moments are his fast cues, which like Pollock himself, seem to feed on the excitement generated by creativity. "Alone in a Crowd" is a joyful and refreshing cue. The beautiful "Stroke of Genius" starts off slowly with a mournful horn, but as Pollock starts to paint the music bursts into vibrant strings, followed by piano, percussion and a host of other instruments. This cue is inspiring without being intrusive in the scene. The virtuoso piano cue, "Art of this Century" is also interesting because Beal applies modern music to comment on the modern art world.

The kinetic cues are nicely balanced by the more quiet cues detailing Pollock's life in Long Island. Beal incorporates a lot of reflective string passages as well as piano, as in "A Letter from Lee." Rounding out the CD are three curious tracks: One is a original song by one of my least favorite singers, Tom Waits, called "The World Keeps Turning." It does work well in the context in the movie, as the loneliness in his voice mirrors the loneliness of Pollock's artistic drive. The CD ends with two tracks that are marked as remixes. I expected something akin to those laughable dance remixes of Close Encounters or The Deep, but as it turns out, they are just more spirited renditions of some of the main themes.

This is a fine score to introduce the world to a new, worthy composer. As Krasner said to Pollock after seeing his first splatter painting, Beal's music "has cracked it wide open."  -- Cary Wong