My Blueberry Nights

Description

Blue Note Records will release My Blueberry Nights, music from the new motion picture by director Wong Kar Wai (2046, In The Mood For Love, Happy Together). The first-ever English film by the internationally acclaimed director, My Blueberry Nights is a romantic drama set as an American road movie starring Norah Jones in her acting debut, along with a stellar cast featuring Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. The soundtrack album is an impressive collection that stands on its own apart from the film. It features a wide swath of American music both new and old that touches upon R&B, Soul, Rock, Folk and Jazz, including "The Story," a new song by Norah Jones based on her experience in the film, as well as music by Cat Power, Otis Redding, Ruth Brown, Mavis Staples, Amos Lee, Cassandra Wilson, and instrumental selections from the score by Ry Cooder.Cinephiles will know My Blueberry Nights as Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai s first American movie; music fans will know it as Norah Jones first movie, period. Not only does she play one of the leads, but she also contributes a new song, "The Story," to the soundtrack. Backed by brushed drums, a stand-up bass, and a cool piano, Jones is at her jazziest and sultriest, oozing a sly honky-tonk, come-hither sensibility. Ry Cooder s score is represented by a trio of tracks; the best, "Ely Nevada," is a spooky little thing that feels lifted from a David Lynch movie, but Cooder s spectacular (and varied) guitar work is in evidence on all three cues. Two other instrumentals are the acoustic, wistful "Pajaros," by Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain), and Shigeru Umebayashi s "Yumeji’s Theme," already in the director s In the Mood for Love. Fittingly, for a romantic road movie that takes place partly on the ghostly, highly symbolic Route 66, the rest of the album is made up of songs that represent very American sounds. Cat Power (who has a cameo in the film) brings two tunes from her Memphis album, The Greatest, and they coexist nicely next to Otis Redding s smoldering "Try a Little Tenderness," Cassandra Wilson s eerie cover of Neil Young s "Harvest Moon," and Mavis Staples powerful take on "Eyes on the Prize." --Elisabeth Vincentelli