MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Frank and Jesse is a mid-budget western film directed by Robert Boris, starring Bill Paxton and Rob Lowe in the roles of the notorious outlaw brothers Frank and Jesse James, who became cult figures for their exploits robbing banks and trains in the Wild West in the 1860s and 1870s. It’s a complete hagiography of course, treating the James Brothers as folk heroes akin to Robin Hood rather than the thieves and murderers that they were; the film specifically looks at the period immediately after the end of the Civil War when Frank and Jesse – disillusioned by the result of the conflict and suffering severe financial hardship caused by unscrupulous Chicago railroad investors – get a gang together and set off on a trail of bank robberies, train heists, and stage holdups while evading the dogged pursuit of Allan Pinkerton and his newly-created detective agency. The film co-starred country superstar Randy Travis, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, and William Atherton as Pinkerton; it originally aired on HBO, before receiving a limited theatrical run, where it grossed a mere $50,000, and then essentially disappeared into obscurity.

The score for Frank and Jesse is important because it marks, for all intents and purposes, the first major score by composer Mark McKenzie. After moving from his native Minnesota to Los Angeles and graduating from college, McKenzie quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s pre-eminent orchestrators-for-hire. He worked extensively with Bruce Broughton on all his major 1980s scores, while also collaborating with composers as varied as Cliff Eidelman, Basil Poledouris, John Barry, Randy Edelman, Marc Shaiman, and Danny Elfman, among many others. He had written two scores of his own prior to this one, both low budget horror films, Son of Darkness: To Die For II in 1991, and Warlock: The Armageddon in 1993, but honestly they don’t show his talents in the best light, and McKenzie himself doesn’t particularly like them or think they are very good. Frank and Jesse, however, is very different, and is basically the world’s introduction to the music that McKenzie is best known for today.

In the liner notes of the soundtrack album, McKenzie says “In my musical underscore to Frank and Jesse I tried to achieve a warmth and intimacy as well as an epic grandeur. To underscore the close relationship of the two brothers, I used predominantly a small group of five authentic 19th century instruments: recorder, harmonica, guitar, jug, and a crude percussion instrument called an Arched String Wire. The symphony orchestra was utilized to express the exciting and tragic drama in the legendary lives of the James gang.”

The resulting score is a superb work that blends moments of introspective Americana with more robust and masculine music depicting the adventurous and sometimes violent exploits of these Wild West legends. The opening “Frank and Jesse Suite” acts as sort of an overture, beginning with a lovely performance of the main theme for recorder and guitar, before being joined by warm, wholesome strings. Then, just after the 1:40 mark, the score switches gears and launches into a superb, dynamic action theme for heraldic brass and clattering percussion. McKenzie’s influence on Bruce Broughton (or, perhaps, the other way around) is clearly evident in this sequence, which brings to mind the richness of western scores like Silverado.

The score begins in earnest with the “Main Title,” which again begins with a more intimate, homespun, almost pastoral statement of the main theme for the ‘authenticity ensemble,’ before launching into a soaring, traditionally-orchestrated wild west anthem that is immensely satisfying. The snare drum riffs that McKenzie uses here have a flavor of the Civil War about them, while the bright brasses speak of bravery, heroism, and noble sacrifice.

Several other moments stand out, either for their authentic period sound, or their emotional sincerity. “Family Moments” uses the guitar-recorder-harmonica combo backed by tender strings to convey the simple early years of the brothers, before their life of crime turned them into outlaws. There’s another recorder solo, deep and soulful, in “Gentle Spirits,” and then there’s a stark bitterness to the tone of “Tragedy at Home,” which arranges the main theme with a heartbreaking intensity and sense of searing loss. “Meet the James Gang” has a tone similar to Jerry Goldsmith’s 1970s revisionist westerns scores like Wild Rovers, stripped down and bare, but wholly evocative, with a major focus on lonely harmonicas. “Mountain Top Dance” is a blast, a hearty jig that sounds like it was written for a hoedown in the 1860s rather than in Hollywood 130 years later.

Then, at the other end of the scale, there are the action and suspense cues, all of which are outstanding. Both “Marauding” and “Daring Escape” are gripping pieces of action which set expansive statements of the main theme against flashy string runs, trilling brass, and rousing western percussion rhythms. “The Lord is Callin’ You” is darker and more threatening, with rumbling string textures, slightly off-kilter brasses, and anxious snare drum riffs, that eventually erupt into a grand statement of the main action theme. Perhaps the pick of the action cues is “Northfield Battle,” which sets the main theme into some really quite outstanding, energetic material full of more flashing strings, bold brass triplets, and exciting drums that gallop across the score like thundering hooves. McKenzie is not a composer who is often called on to write expansive action music, but cues like these clearly show his skill at doing just that, and I wish he was asked to write this way more frequently.

The emotional finale of the score accompanies the conclusive scene of Jesse’s murder at the hand of his fellow gang member Robert Ford, and then contemplates the complicated legacy of James himself, as he moves from reality into Wild West folklore. There are some gorgeous passages for harmonica and guitar in “I Play Not Marches,” while “Goodbye Jesse” is expressive and poignant and heavy on beautifully solemn strings backed by warm horn countermelodies.

Frank and Jesse is an outstanding score and, as I said earlier, is very important in terms of Mark McKenzie’s career as I think it represents the first time that we hear his true musical voice. McKenzie is an emotionally direct composer who successfully combines musical intelligence and dramatic cinematic appropriateness with a sincerity and genuineness that is hard to fake, and this score is an excellent example of exactly that. Over the next decade or so he would go on to write a number of equally outstanding scores for films such as Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde in 1995, The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca in 1996, and Durango in 1999, while continuing his career as one of the best orchestrators in the business, but for some inexplicable reason he never quite reached the cinematic A-List, and was never able to bring his immense talent to bear on any truly major movies. I feel that Hollywood really missed the boat there – McKenzie should have had a career similar to Alan Silvestri, James Newton Howard, John Debney, and several other of his contemporaries – but the good thing for listeners is that he has always had a champion in Douglass Fake and Intrada Records, most of his scores are available on CD, and this one comes with an unhesitating recommendation.

Buy the Frank and Jesse soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Frank and Jesse Suite (5:27)
• Civil War Montage (Main Title) (3:55)
• Family Moments (2:28)
• Gentle Spirits (1:06)
• Tragedy at Home (3:07)
• Meet the James Gang (2:07)
• Marauding (1:52)
• Daring Escape (1:28)
• Frank’s Despair (1:03)
• The Peace Ranch (1:18)
• Mountain Top Dance (1:19)
• The Lord is Callin’ You (3:06)
• Northfield Battle (2:15)
• I Play Not Marches… (2:24)
• Goodbye Jesse (2:12)
• Justice Will Be Served (3:16)

Intrada Records MAF-7059D (1994)

Running Time: 38 minutes 50 seconds

Music composed and conducted by Mark McKenzie. Orchestrations by Mark McKenzie and Patrick Russ. Recorded and mixed by Andy Waterman. Edited by James D. Young. Album produced by Mark McKenzie and Douglass Fake.