One Night in Miami... (soundtrack)

Terence Blanchard composed the musical score and also co-produced few of the songs. Blanchard had said it as a "brilliant experience" on working with Regina King, as she had a "really strong directing talent".[1] When they began working together on the score, Blanchard suggested King on trying few approaches to score for the film. He initially intended an orchestral music with a large ensemble, but King wanted to use a piano-based score, as it creates an "creates a historical narration for the film".[2][3]

Blanchard called it as "an interesting exercise for me, because then everything about the piano became bigger, like the dynamics, the touch, the attack, the range. All of those things became extremely important and having variables to help tell the story."[4] Since the musical style is a jazz-based, he roped in popular jazz pianist Benny Green to "improvise and manipulate the melodic content for that theme". For the prayer scene with Malcolm X, he used the duduk for that particular cue.[2]

As the filming was completed during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, scoring for the film began later that month and completed in early December 2020. Blanchard recorded the score at his home studio during the pandemic, and since he used limited instruments for the film, he felt the recording was easier and need not use the orchestral section where he had to record each orchestra separately due to restrictions.[4] The film's editor Tariq Anwar, had used temp music while editing the film, to help in the picture cutting.[5] He thought of using the solo piano for the transitions, and had downloaded several samples and played with jazz, blues and gospel, assigning different styles to the four Black icons to capture their personalities. However, Anwar had said that "Fortunately, Regina liked the idea but she didn’t like the style of piano. She was keen on an Aretha Franklin's influence. She then used that to implement that in Terence Blanchard's score."[5]

The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney complimented the score as "cool" and "jazzy".[16] Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times felt that the score "beautifully augments the history-in-the-making gathering of these four icons at a pivotal moment in their lives".[17] Michael Philips of Chicago Tribune wrote "Terence Blanchard’s score goes for solo jazz piano lines, nimble and expressive. This isn’t a full-orchestra kind of affair; it’s a jazz quartet of a play, and a movie."[18] Alex Ramon of British Film Institute called the score as "insistently jaunty".[19]

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disqualified Blanchard's score from the longlist of Best Original Score for the 93rd Academy Awards as it failed to meet the eligiblity criteria of having 60% original music composed specifically for the film. The film accompanied several existing cues from several artists, such as Sam Cooke (whom the film is based on) and lesser number of cues.[20][21] It also failed to be longlisted for BAFTA Award for Best Original Music at the 70th British Academy Film Awards who specified 50% original music as the eligiblity criteria.[20]