• Composed by Ennio Morricone
• Beat Records / 2013 / 50m

A 1980 crime thriller, Franco Nero stars in Il Bandito dagli Occhi Azzurri (aka The Blue-Eyed Bandit) as a disguised “middle-aged, brown-eyed cripple” (according to the IMDB) who robs his employers using his natural blue eyes to throw them off the scent.  A master of disguise!  Sadly his plan doesn’t quite work out the way he wants.  Hard to see where it could go wrong, really.  Ennio Morricone’s score came in an uncharacteristically quiet year for the composer – just twelve movies and one tv series.  It’s a slightly unusual one, the highlight undoubtedly the opening cue, the jazzy, steamy urban sounds of “Città viva” living up to its name perfectly.  “Made assente” presents a romantic variation on the same theme, which is very pleasant (though not up there with the composer’s more memorable).

After a piece of characteristically-uncomfortable suspense, “Campi aperti e sospesi” is a wonderful piece of piano jazz, “Double face”, driving and dynamic and highly entertaining.  “Esecuzione radiofonica” is a great piece which starts as baroque classical pastiche before a pop beat is added – wonderfully inventive.  “Per Enrico, Riccardo e Roberto” is laid-back lounge jazz, sounding more like source music than score.  Surprisingly, the music continues in this vein for the majority of the rest of the album, save for the more hardcore jazz of “Stranamente di notte” and the gorgeous, brief reprise of “Made assente”.  In the grand scheme of things it’s a relatively minor Morricone work, but it’s an interesting one, going off in unexpected directions.  The 2013 release from Beat Records adds just under 15 minutes of additional music, all variations on tracks featured in the original programme.

Rating: ***

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