Soul
Music that sets jazz improvisation beside synthesizer stillness, painting life and the space in between with two different hands.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people behind it ⏳🌊
- ComposerJon Batiste
A working jazz pianist, he composed and performed every piece Joe Gardner plays.
- ComposerTrent Reznor
With Atticus Ross, he scored the synthesizer music for the afterlife scenes.
- ComposerAtticus Ross
Reznor's longtime collaborator, together the two completed the electronic score.
- DirectorPete Docter
He decided to portray the two worlds in different musical languages.
- LeadJamie Foxx
Voiced Joe Gardner.
- StarringTina Fey
Voiced 22.
I. Two kinds of music, one film
(Division of labor) The music of Soul was split into two strands from the very beginning. The world of the New York jazz clubs where the protagonist Joe Gardner makes a living was entrusted to the jazz pianist Jon Batiste, while the world of souls into which Joe falls after death went to the synthesizer musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Director Pete Docter wanted to paint the two worlds in different musical languages, and that decision became the backbone of the entire film. (Composers) Reznor and Ross have long worked together in the band Nine Inch Nails, and had already won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for David Fincher's 「The Social Network」. The two were sound designers more at home with synthesizers and electronic sound than with an orchestra, and Docter judged that this unfamiliar sonority would suit a portrait of the afterlife. (Jazz) Batiste is a working jazz pianist and bandleader. Batiste composed and played every piece Joe Gardner performs, and those moving hands became the very reference the animators followed when drawing Joe's hands on screen. (Structure) The music made this way came to wear two faces within a single soundtrack. The work of three different people would later lead, side by side, to the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
II. The jazz teacher's dream
(Dream) Joe Gardner works as a middle school band teacher, but at heart is always sitting at a jazz piano. From the very start, the film lets us hear this dream through Batiste's jazz piano. (Texture) Batiste's jazz melody here uses no orchestra, only piano and a rhythm section, preserving the modest warmth of the real world where Joe stands. (Contrast) The warm jazz of this scene was designed in advance to stand in sharp contrast to the cold electronic sound of the afterlife to come. The audience has not yet sensed that contrast, but the music is already preparing the turn of the next chapter.
The song that plays over the end credits — a Curtis Mayfield number newly arranged and sung by Jon Batiste.
- This song, originally written by Curtis Mayfield in 1963, is newly arranged by Jon Batiste and heard again over the credits in song form.
III. Audition at the Half Note
(Opportunity) Through a former student, Joe lands an audition with the quartet of saxophonist Dorothea Williams. The jazz club Half Note recalls the real jazz landmark of the same name that stood in New York's Greenwich Village in the mid-20th century. (Performance) The piece Joe plays at the audition is an improvisation that Batiste performed and recorded himself, capturing jazz's distinctive way of speaking — following the feeling of the moment rather than a fixed score. (Success) As the piece reaches its climax, Joe's face and the colors on screen brighten together, conveying through music alone that Joe has drawn close to a long-held dream. (Foreshadowing) Yet right behind this moment of joy the screen goes dark, and the music quietly vanishes. The manner of this scene change announces in advance the nature of the story to follow.
The piece Joe actually plays in the audition scene, showing the way jazz improvisation follows the judgment of the moment.
- The loose tempo of the opening gradually tightens, conveying the tension of an audition through music alone.
- The improvised solo captures Batiste's actual performance as it was played, and the animators drew Joe's hand movements from footage of it.
- The harmonic progression at the moment the piece reaches its climax locks precisely with the shift in the screen's colors.
IV. The Great Before
(Transition) Walking down the street still carrying the joy of the audition, Joe has an accident and slips out of the body as a soul. From here on, the music passes into entirely different hands. (Sound) Reznor and Ross paint the space between lives with synthesizers and electronic textures. Instead of a distinct melody, a widely spreading grain of sound expresses the state of a soul with neither direction nor weight. (Encounter) In this world Joe meets 22, a soul not yet born. A short figure for 22 appears here for the first time and becomes a marker that follows 22 from then on. (Contrast) From this chapter on, the warm jazz that stands for Joe and the cool electronic sound that stands for 22 are set side by side, and two different attitudes begin to collide.
A passage in which Joe, already a soul, lingers in the Great Before — the music is drawn in a language wholly different from jazz.
- Without a distinct melody, a widely spreading synthesizer (sound made with electronic instruments) texture depicts a soul that has lost its direction and weight.
- The way the low notes slowly swell creates a mood closer to an unfamiliar stillness than to fear.
- A sound design typical of Reznor and Ross, connected to the idiom for depicting supernatural spaces that the pair honed in the television series 「Watchmen」.
V. 22's day
(Circumstances) Trying to return to the body, Joe tumbles into New York along with 22. Joe tries to reclaim the body, while 22, who has no wish to live, ends up borrowing Joe's body for a day. (Discovery) Each time 22 experiences small things for the first time — a slice of pizza, a falling leaf, the noise of the street — the music does not swell but instead grows quieter. This small volume stands in for great emotion. (Variation) From this chapter on, the cool figure that stood for 22 gradually gains warmth. The same melody leans quietly from minor toward major, letting the ear know first that 22's heart is opening. (Intersection) Passages where short riffs from the jazz rhythm section cut in among the electronic sounds also multiply. This is where the music of the two composing teams begins, little by little, to overlap. The overlap foreshadows how Joe and 22, two different attitudes, are slowly drawing closer.
The short figure marking 22 grows a little warmer in this passage, letting the ear know first that 22's heart is opening toward life.
- As the piece unfolds, the cool synthesizer figure leans quietly from minor toward major, letting us hear 22's change of attitude in sound first.
- Striking is the way the music actually lowers its voice in each scene of eating pizza or watching a leaf. It is a choice to hold great emotion at a small volume.
- Moments when short riffs from the jazz rhythm section cut in among the electronic sounds increase, and you can hear the music of the two composing teams gradually overlapping.
VI. Night at the Half Note
(Return) After many twists and turns, Joe returns to the body and takes the stage with Dorothea Williams's quartet. The jazz theme heard at the audition is played again, this time by the full band. (Climax) This performance scene is the only passage in the entire film where jazz flows purely, without any interruption. The improvised solo is especially widely talked about, delivering the sheer pleasure of jazz performance straight to the audience. (Fracture) Yet after the performance ends, what Joe feels is not what was expected. Where the cheers of the stage die down, music close to silence settles in instead, quietly conveying a sense that the heart has fallen out of step with the moment the dream came true. (Transition) With this misalignment as the trigger, the music passes back into the language of Reznor·Ross, and the story heads toward its final phase.
The theme heard at the audition returns, this time completed by the full lineup of Dorothea Williams's quartet.
- The same theme as the audition version, but with a larger ensemble, confirming through the scale of the sound that Joe's dream has truly come true.
- Since the film's release, the improvised solo has been a passage especially often mentioned among jazz musicians.
- The stillness that suddenly falls after the performance ends foreshadows the emotional turn of the next scene.
VII. Afterglow
(Resolution) Rather than answering the question Joe held about life, the film's ending lets us feel that answer through music. In this final passage, jazz melody and electronic texture sit side by side within a single piece for the first time. (Restraint) The emotion of the ending does not swell. Instead it moves toward fewer instruments and quieter sound, and many have remarked that this composure touches the audience's feelings all the more deeply. (Awards) This work won Best Original Score at the 93rd Academy Awards. For Reznor and Ross it was a second win after 「The Social Network」; for Batiste, a first Academy Award. (Afterglow) The song that plays as the credits roll binds together the resolve of jazz and the lingering resonance of electronic sound, confirming one last time that the two musical languages had been reaching toward a single story from the start.
At the close, the melodies of jazz and the textures of electronic sound sit side by side in a single cue for the first time, confirming that the two musical languages had been reaching toward one story all along.
- Arranged toward fewer instruments and quieter sound, it creates a restrained close that touches the emotions even without any great event.
- The passage where the jazz piano melody and the synthesizer texture overlap on the same harmony sounds like the moment the two composing teams become fully one for the first time.
- The score, including this piece, won Best Original Score at the 93rd Academy Awards.
The lesser-known story
Every piano scene Batiste played for Joe Gardner is said to have been built on close footage of the musician's own hands, which the animators used as reference. That the motion of each finger was drawn almost as a tracing of a real performance is something that rarely comes through to audiences who see only the finished animation. Reznor and Ross reportedly did not write music to fit set scene lengths; instead they first made long, continuous pieces of sound and then chose the parts they needed during editing. It was a method much like the one the pair had honed while scoring the television series Watchmen, and it runs against the grain of traditional film scoring, which is cut to fit each scene exactly. The Half Note, the jazz club in the film, is not a wholly imaginary place: it is said to take its name from a real jazz club of the same name that stood in New York's Greenwich Village from the 1950s to the 1970s. That actual club was a stop for many of the jazz giants of its day. The score award Batiste received at the 93rd Academy Awards was Batiste's first Oscar. At the time, Batiste was better known as the bandleader of an American television talk show; after this win, albums released under Batiste's own name went on to earn several more Grammys, bringing wide popular recognition as well.
Glossary 📚🔎
Improvisation (extemporizing)
(Meaning of the word) Jeukheung (卽興) means acting as inspiration rises in the moment, and yeonju (演奏) means unfolding music in performance. (In film and musical-theater music) It refers to a performer creating, on the spot, the melodies that come to mind in that moment within a harmonic framework, rather than following a fixed score note for note. Think of it as moving freely to music in gym class without any set choreography. (Elsewhere) Improvisation also refers to making up words on the spot, without a script, in theater or in a presentation.
Guiding motive (leitmotif)
(Meaning of the word) Leitmotif comes from the German Leitmotiv, joining leit ('leading') and Motiv ('motive') — a motive that leads the way. (In film and musical-theater music) It is a technique in which a particular character or emotion is assigned a single short melody, and that same melody returns whenever the character appears or the feeling surfaces, so the audience comes to recognize it naturally. It is like a friend whose calls always come with the same ringtone, so you know who it is from the sound alone. (Elsewhere) The word motif is also used in art and design for a recurring pattern or subject.
Synthesizer
(Meaning of the word) Synthesizer comes from the English synthesize ('to combine'), meaning to merge several sounds through electronic circuits to create a new one. (In film and musical-theater music) It is an instrument that designs and builds sound itself with electronic devices, rather than recording real instruments. It is used especially often to evoke unfamiliar worlds that do not exist in reality, or a mechanical feeling.
Underscore
(Meaning of the word) Underscore joins the English under ('beneath') and score ('written music'), meaning music laid beneath dialogue or a scene. (In film and musical-theater music) It refers to background music that flows quietly beneath conversation or gesture, supporting the emotion of the scene. Like music playing very softly at the back of a classroom while the teacher speaks in a low voice, it heightens feeling without your even noticing it is there. (Elsewhere) Underscore is also the word for the underline character (_) in documents and programming.
Texture (sonic grain)
(Meaning of the word) Texture comes from the Latin textura ('weaving'), carrying the sense of a grain woven from many layered sounds, like cloth made by weaving many threads together. (In film and musical-theater music) Rather than a single distinct melody, it refers to the overall quality of sound created when many instruments or electronic tones are layered together. It feels like the overall pattern that emerges when several friends knit at the same time, each in a different rhythm. (Elsewhere) Texture also refers to the feel of a surface in art, and to how food feels when you chew it in cooking.
Motion capture (mocap)
(Meaning of the word) Motion capture joins the English motion ('movement') and capture ('to seize'), meaning to seize and record movement just as it is. (In film and musical-theater music) It is a technique in which the movements of a real performer's hands or body are filmed in close detail, and animators draw the character using those movements as direct reference. It is like keeping a real photograph beside you while drawing a comic, copying the shape of a hand. (Elsewhere) Motion capture is also widely used to create the body movements of video-game characters and in action films.