Quincy Jones

Two scores with a tone of righteous fury woven throughout. While there are differences in the approach to the two scores, Quincy Jones did manage to provide a unifying style -- no mean feat, considering that the intent behind In the Heat of the Night was to get a Southern, blues-inflected atmosphere to support the angry, anti-racist approach of the picture, while They Call Me Mister Tibbs had a more open, urban attitude from its San Francisco setting. The music throughout has an edge (the lighter music in the second score is generally source music), with some interesting musical experiments going on (Jones, as one example, used cimbalom to reflect Tibbs' feelings in They Call Me Mister Tibbs). The Ryko CD release includes an enhanced CD portion with film material. The sound throughout the disc is excellent, although the cues from In the Heat of the Night show their age, and the dialogue excerpts sound very rough. [The 2002 release by Beyond includes the same 35 tracks as the 1998 Rykodisc release but features different packaging.] ~ Steven McDonald, Rovi