I was fortunate to receive my DVD copy of the the latest - and last - Jesse Stone made-for-TV movies starring Tom Selleck and Kohl Sudduth. I now have all nine of them and wish there were more. Unfortunately for those of us who love that series, Mr. Selleck is very busy doing his enormously successful Blue Bloods series so I doubt there will be any others.
I also received my copy of the 2-disc Jeff Beal soundtrack for those movies. You may not recognize his name, but if you have ever watched House of Cards or Monk, you have heard his music; he is one of the busiest and most sought-after soundtrack creators in Hollywood. Mr. Beal finally agreed to release the music from Jesse Stone when he learned (through social media comments and emails) that many of us watch the movies to hear the music; "a new one for me," he said.
The part music plays into a movie has long intrigued me; when done right and well, it almost becomes a character n the production. I know musicians can be trained to do that sort of thing and I have a very general idea of the creative/recording process, but the specifics astound me. How Mr. Beal and others like him make the music to be powerful and omnipresent, yet not in-your-face offensive I do not know. And the music here does not doing anything like the music in House of Cards or Monk or any other production. It is, indeed, done right and well.
The music for Jesse Stone mirrors and enhances the dark, troubled, foreboding history of author Robert B. Parker's cop character. Stone got fired from his job as an LAPD detective for being drunk on the job because of his failed marriage to a woman whose voice we hear often and never see, "Jen." For him, Paradise, Massachusetts, is "the last stop."
Over the course of nine movies, we learned how corrupt one of the City Council members and the chief of police that Jesse is replacing are; the former chief is murdered by a local hit man; the Councilman goes to prison for corruption and murder of the hit man. We learn how much crime happens in the small town when the rich folks from Boston come and buy land...and that Jesse Stone might just be, as a couple of his girlfriends - 'pals' is the term he uses - one of the simplest men alive, and not in a negative sense; he knows what he wants and likes and has a clear sense of right and wrong.
The characters are well done and well acted. Luther "Suitcase" Simpson. Dr. Dix. Julie. Billie. Amanda. And Gino Fish, a Boston "boxing promoter, who, like Jesse Stone, has scruples, but on the other side of the law, and who becomes as much of a friend to a cop as a crook can be.
Throughout the series, the music strengthens the darkness that makes up Jesse Stone, his sensitivity of that of the other characters, and the foreboding nature of the extremely well-written plots; listening to the CD, as I am now, I cannot place where the music fits in the movie - a testament to its noninvasive nature - but I can 'feel' the darkness of the plots. Along with the Hollywood Studio Symphony orchestra, Mr. Beal uses his own trumpet and piano and an oboe to create the darkness.
He is very good at what he does.
