La banda J.S. Cronaca criminale del Far West.

Digitmovies is glad to present a full stereo de-luxe edition CD of the complete OST by Ennio Morricone for the classic Italian western “La banda J. & S. cronaca criminale del Far West” (aka “Sonny and Jed”) directed in 1972 by Sergio Corbucci and starring Tomas Milian, Susan George and Telly Savalas. The movie tells the story of a sheriff (Savalas) who wants to track down and capture the bandit Jess Trigado (Milian) and his girlfriend Sonny (George) who usually steel money from the rich. This manhunt has the beautiful background score by Academy winner Ennio Morricone and stylistically his music for this OST is very close to the semi-pop sound of “Vamos a matar companeros”, “Che c’entriamo noi con la rivoluzione?”, the two “Provvidenza” movies , “Il mio nome è nessuno”, “Un genio,due compari,un pollo”. In this OST, dramatic music is pratically missing and Ennio Morricone puts in evidence the comic and romantic side of the plot with a series of lovely themes, sometimes funny and brilliant like “Sonny” (Tr.1, Tr.7), “Wanted dead or alive” (Tr.2),”The saloon’s girls” (Tr.5), sometimes melancholic and romantic like “J & S love” (Tr.3) and “Sweet Susan” (Tr.6) splendidly performed by great soloists like the choir of Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni, Franco De Gemini playing the Harmonica, Alessandro Alessandroni’s whistle, Oscar Valdambrini playing the flugelhorn. In October 1972 C.A.M. issued a 45 rpm single (AMP 101) with the tracks “Sweet Susan” (A side) and “Sonny” (B side) (version edited for the single). The US Cerberus label issued in 1982 a LP (CEM-S 0111) featuring on the A side five tracks from “La banda J. & S. cronaca criminale del Far West” and on the B side selections from the OST of “I cannibali”. In 1992 six selections were released by C.A.M for the first time on CD (CAM CSE 050) in its Soundtrack Enciclopedia series coupled with selections from the OST “Le monachine” and “Professione figlio” (aka “Bugie bianche”). For this CD we could use the stereo master tapes of the original recording session kept in perfect conditions in the historic vaults of C.A.M. that gave us the chance to discover long versions of the themes “J & S love” (Tr.3) and “J & S Waltz” (Tr.4) (about 4:33 of inedit material). Together with the single edit version of “Sonny” (tr.7) we enclose about total 7:53 of material previously unreleased on the original 33 rpm and CD. Our Cd has a total length of 30:19 only, but we used all we could find on the stereo master tapes except short fragments of Saloon piano by Chopin and a fragment of an off-key violin solo. We hope that Spaghetti Westerns fans around will be happy to have in their private archives this de-luxe Cd exclusively dedicated to this short, but nice OST.