Alumni Give Soaring Score to Clint Eastwood's Box Office Smash Sully

Alumni Tierney Sutton '87 and Christian Jacob '86 worked closely with legendary actor and director Clint Eastwood to score box office leader Sully, a biopic about airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, starring Tom Hanks.

September 15, 2016

Clint Eastwood's newest film, Sully, a biopic about airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger starring Tom Hanks, quickly rose to the top of the box office charts during its debut weekend and has gone on to set records for midweek September business since opening. The film chronicles Sullenberger's act of heroism in saving all 155 passengers and crew during a forced plane crash in New York's Hudson River in 2009.

Eastwood, known for his sparse use of music in the movies he directs (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, among many others), knew he wanted something innovative to lay the musical foundation of the movie. He turned to an L.A. band he'd been following for awhile, the Tierney Sutton Band, led by Berklee alumni and Grammy nominees Tierney Sutton '87 and Christian Jacob '86, bringing them in to a private screening and asking them to score the film.

The resulting soundtrack has drawn attention from leading news outlets such as Billboard and Huffington Post as well as more craft-focused publications, including Film Music Magazine and Musing on Musicdue to both the emotional resonance the score offers the film as well as the unorthodox process of how it came to life. As pianist and band coleader Jacob puts it in an interview with Tammylyn Thommpson at Musing on Music, "Clint was very involved in the making of this music. He made clear right away that he didn’t want a standard, usual type of film music." Sutton, the band's vocalist and coleader, spoke to Daniel Schweiger at Film Music Magazine, elaborating on the process, saying, "...[W]e were asked to do the score on Thursday afternoon and by Saturday morning, we were in the studio, with picture, scoring this thing…with Clint directing us scene by scene... Everything in the score was developed and finished in one month." 

Diverse Skills Help Land the Big Gigs

Sutton and Jacob, along with the rest of the band, drummer Ray Brinker and bassists Trey Henry and Kevin Axt, have been playing together for more than 20 years and have released nine albums; the newest, The Sting Variations, was released the same day as Sully.

Jacob, who was responsible for writing the core themes of the score as well as the arrangements for the orchestra, has had a diverse career in music, from arranging for classical and jazz acts to leading his own band to being a Broadway musical director. He credits Berklee for aiding his career trajectory.

"Berklee gave me a strong foundation and broadened my horizons," he says. Jacob goes on to explain the value of having a varied set of musical skills, "The diversity in my work came from a will to understand music as a whole; the more you diversify yourself, the more you understand music. Having different skills at your disposal will give you more control over the direction of your career."