James Horner used to be my favorite composer, and he still is one of my favorites. However, I think JNH has become my favorite, because he is much more diverse, and multi-faceted than Horner. Howard captures every different genre he tackles so well, and created memorable and very functional scores both for the film, and generally speaking, for listening to on soundtrack. I came up with a little slogan for JNH:
"If life had a soundtrack, James Newton Howard would be the composer!"
I've been purchasing a number of his soundtracks lately, with The Water Horse being the latest I've listened to, and I am Legend on the way. What little music there was in that movie was very good, and I hear the soundtrack is a great listen on it's own.