Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns - Original Soundtrack Recording

Hailed as perhaps the greatest filmed document in the history of the sport, Ken Burns's epic series chronicled more than a century's worth of baseball lore. The producers paid nearly as much attention to the audio as the stunning visuals, but this soundtrack is slightly uneven. Baseball errs on the side of good taste a bit too often, what with contributions from Bruce Hornsby, Carly Simon, and Natalie Cole peppered amid classics by the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. The well-chosen historical material--including calls spanning five full decades--should interest die-hard fans, though. --David Sprague