Rob Mazurek’s Score for The Mastermind Premieres at Cannes
Rob Mazurek’s original score for Kelly Reichardt’s new film The Mastermind is currently in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Featuring Mazurek on trumpet alongside Chad Taylor on drums, with contributions from Mikel Patrick Avery, Victor Vieira-Branco, Joey Sullivan, and John Moran, the score plays a central role in the film’s sonic landscape. The Mastermind is part of the Official Selection, with Mazurek’s music also under consideration for honors. Learn more →
Selected Press:
“The quick-wittedness of the film is boosted substantially by Rob Mazurek’s phenomenal jazz score. It’s one of the best soundtracks of recent memory and is so key to The Mastermind’s success from the get go, coinciding with JB’s false bravado as he plans the heist and growing anxiety as it all falls apart. I really can’t imagine the film without it, nor without its warm film photography that evokes 70s cinema by Christopher Blauvelt.”
— CityHub
“True to form, Reichardt depicts these plot points in a wry, observational style bordering on the absurd, while dressing up the story in the trappings of a period-appropriate thriller, including an infectiously jazzy score by Rob Mazurek that offers its own form of commentary on the increasingly unraveling drama.”
— Artforum
“Aside from father JB (Josh O’Connor) staring rather too intently at some Arthur Dove abstract paintings, there’s nothing to suggest we’re about to be embroiled in a caper. Except, that is, the rushing, jazzy percussion of Rob Mazurek’s score, which does such bravura work of bringing the movie into dialogue with its 1970s independent antecedents, it’s a little like Elliott Gould is constantly hovering, smirking from the sidelines.”
— Variety
“The film is drenched in 70s analog melancholy, from the lived-in 1970s design palette to the era-specific jazz score from Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor of the Chicago Underground.”
”Reichardt’s editing is typically relaxed as Christopher Blauvelt’s camerawork keeps up the velvety glow we all expect from the director’s oeuvre, but Rob Mazurek’s jazzy score is propulsive and urgent in a way that contrasts wonderfully with the film’s surrounding atmosphere.”
“Reichardt also proves adept at staging a fantastic chase sequence, as James steals an old lady’s purse and attempts to escape through a Vietnam protest march after being on the run for months. None of these sequences are high-octane thrill rides. Still, they raise the film’s pulse significantly, largely thanks to Rob Mazurek’s jazzy score, which has an improvisational quality that perfectly matches James’s behavior. Whenever the film threatens to get lost in the minutiae of background details that Reichardt loves so much, she drops in that score to provide the movie with some genuine intrigue and excitement, which works like a charm.”
“With the vinyl feel of ’70s cinema and powered by Rob Mazurek’s jazzy heist movie score, The Mastermind a wonderfully evocative of a very specific moment in pre-Watergate America: a time of campus protests, fugitives from the draft, and political awakening.”
— TimeOut
“Rob Mazurek’s score drives this, all jazz percussion and sly groove, giving the film a skip in its step, nodding to the 1970s cinema it quietly echoes.”
”There’s nothing to suggest we’re about to be embroiled in a caper. Except, that is, the rushing, jazzy percussion of Rob Mazurek’s score, which does such bravura work of bringing the movie into dialogue with its 1970s independent antecedents, it’s a little like Elliott Gould is constantly hovering, smirking from the sidelines.”
— AOL
“The free-flowing percussive jazz score from Rob Mazurek heightens the chaos of their flawed getaway.”
“Rob Mazurek’s fretty trumpets and swishing brushes stroking the drums match the time period and build tension for the heist, but also are appropriately jittery as a reflection of the protagonist’s state of mind. “
— ICS FIlm
