H E A R__I T

"Tennessee Stud"
- Johnny Cash
(704k)

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T A B L E__T A L K

Which two singers would make up your dream duet? Share fantasy combos in Table Talk's Music department

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R E C E N T L Y

Fruitcake music
Andrei Codrescu
Valley of Christmas
Gert Town Records
(12/19/97)

Anonymous 4
11,000 Virgins
Sequentia
O Jerusalem
Tapestry
Celestial Light
(12/18/97)

Ivy
Apartment Life
Atlantic
(12/17/97)

Fiona Apple, Live at the Warfield
San Francisco
Sunday, December 14, 1997
(12/16/97)

You Am I
Hourly Daily
Sire
(12/15/97)

BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
Survey says ...
Give the people what they want
(12/12/97)

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F E A T U R E

Paint it black
By David Bowman
A prayer for His Holy Hipness, Johnny Cash
(12/05/97)

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__v a r i o u s__a r t i s t s
"JACKIE BROWN" ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK_ >A BAND APART/MAVERICK<

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BY NATASHA STOVALL | Now that Quentin Tarantino has had his ass kicked in the film prodigy department, for the moment, by "Boogie Nights" auteur Paul Anderson Thomas, it's a lot easier to praise the Obnoxiously Ubiquitous One's many talents. And now -- just in time -- comes the soundtrack to his new film, "Jackie Brown" (based on the Elmore Leonard novel "Rum Punch"), which showcases Quentin's near unrivaled skill in making a mix-tape.

That's not faint praise. His soundtracks for "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" were so outrageously, strangely good that, in a hot media minute, they essentially changed the way that people relate to movie music. Instead of programming soundtracks for easy, cheesy hits, Quentin turned them into his personal K-Tel records (or mix tapes, or jukebox), compiling his favorite tunes without any regard to salabilty or popular demand. Only such a recklessly ingenious approach would attempt, and succeed in, rehabilitating the Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle With You," Dick Dale's "Misirlou" or the Statler Brothers' "Flowers on the Wall."

Thematic unity lifts "Jackie Brown" up and beyond "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction." Most of "Jackie Brown's" 13 songs are plucked from the late '60s/early '70s black soft-soul golden years. Rather than a mishmash of Quentin's greatest hits, "Jackie Brown" is a musical overview of a time, a vibe, when social consciousness and racial pride were frosted with hot-buttered soul. From Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" to the Delfonics' "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time?" to Bill Withers' "Who Is He (And What Is He to You)?," "Jackie Brown" is swimming in the simultaneously raw and refined orchestral sound of classic soul that's too long been resigned to cut-out bins.

Uniformity, however, is not one of Quentin's strong points, and though he's allowed "Jackie Brown" to be dominated by one sound, he won't let that domination be complete. There are several diversions here, the strongest of which are Minnie Riperton's pre-diva classic "Inside My Love," Randy Crawford's funky and wise "Street Life" and Johnny Cash's Viper Room performance of the goofy Jimmy Driftwood composition "Tennessee Stud." On the weak side is Foxy Brown's "Holy Matrimony (Letter to the Firm)." Totally out of place, and not even a Foxy classic, one wonders if it would have been chosen at all if Foxy, nee Inga, had chosen a different stage name.

Like his plots and dialogue, Quentin's soundtracks have, in general, reflected his obsessions, both fleeting and recurrent. In "Pulp Fiction," John Travolta and Hong Kong flicks equal surf music and Kool and the Gang. In "Jackie Brown," Robert Forster replaces Travolta and Hong Kong becomes Blaxploitation. Hence, the obscurities here are "The Lion and the Cucumber" -- a musical clip from one of Spanish slash-and-fuck director Jess Franco's flicks -- and Pam Grier singing "Long Time Woman," the "soul theme" from her 1971 breakout hit, "The Big Dollhouse."

Not that any of these equations are anywhere near exact; in fact, they barely make sense. With Tarantino, the pop-culture connections depend as much on the viewer as they do on him. When Michael Madsen dances around to "Stuck in the Middle" in "Reservoir Dogs" and Bruce Willis sings along to "Flowers on the Wall" in "Pulp Fiction," it definitely means something, but what, exactly, depends tremendously on the viewers' own associations with those songs. Without seeing the movie, one can only guess at what "Jackie Brown's" tracks "mean." The snippets of dialogue that Tarantino always slips in provide a few vague clues. If Samuel Jackson's line -- "To that dumb country-ass, Compton is Hollywood. As close as she's been anyway" -- is any indication, one thing is pretty sure: Tarantino's writing in "Jackie Brown" is close to as good as he gets.
SALON | Dec. 22, 1997

Natasha Stovall is a regular contributor to Salon.