Joliet Central alum wrote the score for ‘Coming 2 America’

Jermaine Stegall recalled the first movie he saw without his parents: “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Stegall saw the 1985 film with his brother James. The score was by Danny Elfman. Then in 1993, Stegall saw “The Nightmare Before Christmas” with his younger brother Jeremy. The score was also by Danny Elfman.

“I had no idea that one day not only would get the opportunity to work for Danny Elfman on a few of his projects, but that all of our live percussion elements for ‘Coming 2 America’ would be recorded at Danny’s studio,” Stegall, a Joliet Central High School alumnus who wrote the score for the film, said in an email.

“Coming 2 America,” is the sequel to the 1988 comedy “Coming to America: and it features some of the same cast, such as Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones. It debuts Friday on Amazon Prime Video.

Paramount Pictures was planning to release “Coming 2 America” in theaters, Stegall said. But that was “out of the question” with so many theaters temporarily closed due to the pandemic. And those theaters that have reopened have reduced capacities, Stegall added.

A 1995 graduate of Joliet Central, Stegall currently works as composer and conductor. In 2019, he composed a piece — “Legacy” — for the Joliet Central band and conducted the symphonic band during its fall concert that year.

Stegall has scored more than 23 feature films over the years and worked on many high profile projects through the years, according to his website. He provided some of the music coring for the Netflix series “The Christmas Chronicles” and “The Christmas Chronicles 2,” his website said.

In 2018, Stegall conducted the Camila Cabello orchestra live on ABC at the American Music Awards during the performance of her single “Consequences,” his website said.

Stegall has also scored “Our Star Wars Stories,” an original digital series from Lucasfilm and StarWars.com, which tells stories of how fans found inspiration in the films.

But Stegall’s love for both films and music began in Joliet, first at Hufford Junior High School (Stegall received a Louis Armstrong jazz award in the eighth grade) and then JCHS, where he participated in the symphonic band under the direction of Ted Lega.

Stegall wasn’t thinking “composing” at the time.

“I wanted to be on the radio playing sax,” Stegall said in a 2019 Herald-News story.

But Stegall’s passion for film stemmed from his father, who took his family to the movies (the “regular” movie theater or the former Hill-Top drive-in in Joliet) one to three times a week. As a result, Stegall began collecting film soundtracks, never dreaming he’d one day score a major motion picture during a pandemic.

Stegall actually received the offer of scoring the “Coming 2 America” in the fall of 2019. Right from the start, Stegall was integrated into the process of making the movie and did some recording sessions with a small choir, he said.

“Most movies, unfortunately, start considering music at the end of this process,” Stegall said. “For this movie to get made, they needed to think about it early….they wanted music on the set while shooting to set the pace of the scenes … They actually flew me to be onset where they were shooting the film in Atlanta to oversee how that recording went with the shooting.”

Filming was complete by the end of October and editing began “around November or December,” Stegall said. All in all, Stegall wrote close to 60 minutes of original music for the film, he said.

Stegall began receiving film cuts in January and made trips to the studio in January and February to work with the editors.

“When the shutdowns happened, I started working remotely,” Stegall said.

The musicians — those who played woodwinds, drums, bass, guitars – all recorded at home.

“The vocalists were initially required to sing at home,” Stegall said. “Our harpist recorded at home.”

When live sessions did occur in October 2020, no more than 45 people were allowed on the scoring stage at one time, Stegall said.

Stegall said the entire room was reconfigured for the mitigations. Typically musicians sit “longways” in a room. In this case, they sat “sideways,” Stegall said.

“Of course, brass players can’t wear masks, so they had to sit 10 feet apart from each other,” Stegall said.

Stegall said he did not lack for work during the pandemic.

“There were a lot of things to work on in terms of prepping for the future,” Stegall said. “For me, I’ll always be working on something — submitting demos, writing demos. Even if I’m not working on a specific project, I’ll be working on something for myself.”

This past year, Stegall also scored the second season of “Our Star Wars Stories,” he said.

“It actually started in early March,” Stegall said. “We did our first three episodes and then L.A. shut down. They paused it until the end of summer. It actually picked back up around the time I was getting deep into ‘Coming 2 America.’”

He’s also on the board of directors for Don Stinson’s new nonprofit, Legacy Fine Arts, which will be located on the Joliet’s east side and serve youth ages 5 to 18. Stinson is the current director of bands at Joliet Central.

Stegall recently talked via Zoom to more than 400 Joliet students attending Joliet Central, as well as the following junior high schools: Hufford, Gompers, Dirksen and Washington, Stegall said.

Stegall acknowledged their common Joliet roots, as well as their dreams and goal, stressing that attaining those dreams and goals can take time.

“It’s a valuable lesson to learn that things don’t necessarily happen overnight,” Stegall said.

Students need to spend time honing the craft, strengthening their weaknesses and finding work that “fuels the dream” and also “funds the dream,” Stegall said.

“You can’t live in Los Angeles for free,” Stegall said. “And, to be honest, I’m not great at music theory, but the goal was more important than the deficiency. You work on those things to get to that goal.”

For more information and for clips of Stegall’s music, visit jermainestegall.com.