Playing by heart

It's Friday; the dude returns. It's about time! Wednesday was a 13+ hour day (with a board meeting that ran later into the evening than scheduled), but Thursday was a day off (a sincere post-Veteran's Day hat tip to our men and women who are, or were, in uniform in the service of our great and flawed nation).  So now we get a working Friday that follows a Thursday off.  A second chance to wind down the week and, since many folks will take today off as a vacation day to gain access to a four-day weekend, a relatively quiet working day.  I have two scheduled meetings, a lot of catching up and prep-work to get through today, and a much-looked-forward-to lunch meeting with a few colleagues.  A sort of reunion from the early days of getting courses online and solving the problems of the world.  Should be fun. 

Today's playlist cast a wide net across a lot of hard-to-pigeon musical styles. From gospel-inspired ballads to novelty broadway (another Spamalot transition track of less than 30 seconds), through old folk-rock, and even some very mellow jazz.

A Place Inside Alive And Well is from the musical score to the 1998 movie Playing By Heart, which I have never seen.  It has an extensive all-star cast, great reviews, and a breathtakingly beautiful score from cinematic composer John Barry.  The movie also features the line, "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture," which effectively puts me in my place, I suppose.  Usually, when I come across a soundtrack that is so beautiful, I find and watch the movie on the assumption that any movie that can encompass so much beautiful music simply has to be good.  The Milagro Beanfield War is the case that really proves that point for me.  Dave Grusin's delightful soundtrack drove me to the movie, which is still one of my all-time favorites.  

Yet, for some reason, I have never watched Playing By Heart. For a spell of time, M and I used this CD as our n'night music.  Soothing, instrumental, and dreamy, it made a great soundtrack to fall to sleep to, and one that we really never got tired of hearing.  The album gives title billing to the late trumpeter Chet Baker, and it does feature some of his music worked into the soundtrack.  It's really Chris Botti doing most of the trumpet work through.  I should also note that this album isn't the official movie soundtrack, which features a lot of other music and musicians, but the John Barry album of his score for the film.  I think I'll see if I can add this to my Netflix queue or (better) see if it is available as a watch-now offering.  Long overdue, me thinks.

The full playlist from this morning:

 - Thad Cockrell: Pride (Won't Get Us Where We're Going)

 - James Taylor & Carole King: Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Live)

 - Crosby, Stills & Nash: You are alive

 - Chet Baker, John Barry: A Place Inside Alive And Well

 - Spamalot: Tuning

 - Bruce Cockburn: Little Seahorse