Track Listing

1. I'll See You in My Dreams
2. Caravan
3. Sweet Georgia Brown
4. Unfaithful Woman
5. Viper Mad
6. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (and Dream Your Troubles Away)
7. Old-Fashioned Love
8. Limehouse Blues/Mystery Pacific
9. Just a Gigolo
10. 3:00 AM Blues
11. All of Me/The Peanut Vendor
12. It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Aint' Got that Swing)
13. Shine
14. I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
15. There'll Be Some Changes Made
16. I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
17. There'll Be Some Changes Made

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25452 in Music
• Released on: 2000-05-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Amazon.co.uk Review
Although Woody Allen has been using jazz from the 1920s and 1930s on his soundtracks since Sleeper, Sweet and Lowdown is his first movie featuring the musicians of the period. The story is about Emmett Ray, who is a brilliant guitarist but is always being unfavourably compared to Django Reinhardt. Allen hired the guitarist Howard Alden and the Dick Hyman Group to play the music of Ray and his band, and they have done an excellent job of recreating the small band swing of the 1930s. Alden has assimilated the music of such guitarists as Eddie Lang, Karl Kress, and Django to create a guitar style that is unique yet also sounds thoroughly authentic. He is the Zelig of guitar players. This music has all of the excitement of 1930's jazz with none of the stodginess that sometimes plagues other jazz revivalists. --Michael Simmons

Customer Reviews

Rediscover the 1930's in 2000!
In commissioning his long time (cinematic) music director Dick Hyman, to arrange and conduct the soundtrack to his film of the same name, Woody Allen has achieved an unparelleled authenicity unmatched by his contemporary film making peers.

Hyman's arrangements, encompassing Howard Alden's guitar parts, make for a sympathetic and nostalgic return trip to an era of unquestionably great music. Whilst Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli's contribution is limited to just the one number (Mystery Pacific), the overall feel of this jaunty and uplifting soundtrack is overwhelmingly Reinhardt - which is appropriate - given actor Sean Penn's character in the film is that of the "world's second greatest ever guitar player" (of the period). There is however nothing whatsoever second rate about the performances on this accompanying soundtrack. Classics including Just A Gigolo, I'll See You In My Dreams, Sweet Georgia Brown, and It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) are transformed into Django styled ditties, that have rarely - if ever before - been recorded with such magnificent clarity. A terrific dinner party album, this soundtrack is, like the film itself, a winner in every way. 5 stars! KJ