My 2 Thoughts on Pixar’s “Soul” (no spoilers)

I got a chance to watch Pixar’s Soul last week. I liked it a lot and may write a more in-depth review at some point. But for now, I’m gonna dig into one thing I loved and one thing I thought was a little off.

If you’ve never heard of Soul, it’s a new animated Pixar movie about Joe Gardner, a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks, and interests before they go to Earth.

I know – it’s a lot to absorb. So let’s focus in on just one of the many aspects of this film I enjoyed…

The music! And not just because it was good, and not just because it was jazz. I loved the music because it wasn’t the cliche big band splang-splang-spa-splang jazz that shows up so often in Hollywood movies, e.g. Whiplash, La La Land, etc.

Instead, Soul’s jazz is fresh and contemporary but still grounded in tradition. It sounds like something you’d hear in an actual club in New York with a nod to the streets of New Orleans.

And it’s no wonder those two cities come to mind being that the film’s jazz composer, Jon Batiste, grew up in New Orleans and now resides in NYC. He’s a world class musician and his band on the soundtrack is also star studded with the likes of Roy Haynes, Marcus Gilmore, Linda Oh, and Tia Fuller. With a lineup like that, it’s no wonder the music sounded so damn good.

Okay, okay, enough gushing. Here’s one thing I thought was a little off in the film.

One of the central themes of Soul is the experience of flow – a mental state analogous to being “in the zone.” Joe Gardner achieves a flow state while playing piano with his jazz quartet

Pixar depicts Joe’s experience by putting him into a bubble of colorful light that blocks out everything except for Joe and his piano. We (and presumably Joe) can no longer see or hear the rest of the band. And herein lies my issue with Soul…

Jazz is a collaborative art form. In my experience, flow states happen when the band locks in, when everyone is on the same wavelength. It’s telepathic, like tapping into a universal consciousness.

But Soul makes flow feel very solitary, which surprises me since composer Jon Batiste himself also talks about his flow experiences as opportunities “to play on stages with musicians where we’re all connected.”

My guess is that Joe needed to be alone in his bubble for plot reasons. But I was a little disappointed to see that essence of collaboration and connection diminished.

Still, I highly recommend checking out Soul. It’s inspiring, entertaining, and will make you want to practice.

Speaking of which, if you want to practice getting more bluesy soul into your playing, now is the time to enroll in my improv course, Improvising with the Blues Scale (without sounding like an amateur).

The blues scale is one of the most popular scales out there, yet so many musicians end up sounding like bumbling newbs when improvising with it. So, if you want to avoid those common pitfalls and sound great while soloing with the blues scale, make sure to click the link below before enrollment closes:

https://go.jeffschneidermusic.com/improvising-with-the-blues-scale

Happy shedding!

Jeff