This is the official soundtrack to George C. Wolfe's excellent recent Netflix film based on the play of the same title by August Wilson that's set in a music studio in the 1920s. One of the first things that comes to mind is that Branford's younger brother Wynton would be the more natural choice for the job. But Wolfe chose the older Marsalis instead and the saxophonist went about exploring a side of jazz relatively unknown to him previously.

The recording is split between Marsalis' authentic period music, scene-setting incidental music and a few signature songs of the ‘Mother of the Blues’ Ma Rainey, sung by Maxayn Lewis. Maxayn Lewis is as good as it gets when it comes to approaching Ma Rainey's growly, earthy, erotically-charged vocal on just a few songs including the well-known ‘Hear Me Talking to you’ and the bawdy title track. It makes you hungry for more but Marsalis' arrangements on the dominant instrumental tracks succinctly maintain the authentic period sound, albeit with contemporary production values, and he does an outstanding job of balancing the frivolity of the period's ‘jazz age’ music against some unfussy, less-is-more arrangements. The Grammy award winner takes an elegant, tastefully restrained approach to composing for an incisive cinematic drama that doesn't need a musical crutch. Marsalis covers a generous spectrum of idioms over 24 tracks that are evocative of the era including blues stomps and dance hall numbers with hints of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson among others, and shows his contemporary music sensibilities on a few incidental tracks. Before you check out the real Ma Rainey, get a load of this enjoyable film soundtrack recording.