Overview
One Night in Miami... (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2020 film One Night in Miami... directed by Regina King. The album featured 22 songs, which are popular 1960s singles from artists including Sam Cooke, Ray Charlies, Jackie Wilson and several others, and performed some by the film's cast. It also features an original song "Speak Now" by Leslie Odom Jr. and Sam Ashworth, and few cues from the score composed by Terence Blanchard.
The album was released by ABKCO Records digitally on December 25, 2020 and followed by a physical CD release on January 15, and a vinyl edition released on March 5. Blanchard's score was released into a separate album, titled One Night in Miami... (Original Score) on January 15. Four of Odom Jr.'s songs, including "Speak Now" were released into a soundtrack EP titled Speak Now (Selections From One Night In Miami... Soundtrack) on May 7, 2021. The song "Speak Now" received nominations in the "Original Song" category at the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards and Grammy Awards, and won Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song.
Background
Terence Blanchard composed the musical score and also co-produced few of the songs. Blanchard had said it as a "brilliant experience" on working with Regina King, as she had a "really strong directing talent". When they began working together on the score, Blanchard suggested King on trying few approaches to score for the film. He initially intended an orchestral music with a large ensemble, but King wanted to use a piano-based score, as it creates an "creates a historical narration for the film".
Blanchard called it as "an interesting exercise for me, because then everything about the piano became bigger, like the dynamics, the touch, the attack, the range. All of those things became extremely important and having variables to help tell the story." Since the musical style is a jazz-based, he roped in popular jazz pianist Benny Green to "improvise and manipulate the melodic content for that theme". For the prayer scene with Malcolm X, he used the duduk for that particular cue.
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