Hosted by Maurizio Caschetto and Tim Burden
With Soundtrack Producer Mike Matessino
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As promised during the latest talk with him, GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack producer Mike Matessino returns to The Legacy of John Williams podcast to discuss more about the historical 50th anniversary soundtrack edition of Jaws, but also to present another archival reissue from John Williams’ catalogue: the suspenseful score for the 1977 thriller Black Sunday, finally back in print in a newly remastered CD from La-La Land Records. Matessino also takes the chance to comment about his involvement in John Williams – The Anthology, a lavish retrospective boxset from Sony Classical whose first volume has been released last July.
In addition to the digital and vinyl releases, the 50th anniversary soundtrack reissue of Jaws is available in a sumptuous 3-CD special edition by film music specialty label Intrada. The set presents the newly remastered version of the Academy Award-winning film score on Disc One, i.e. the music as written and recorded by John Williams for the film itself, sourced from a fresh high-resolution transfer of the original 3-track elements, which have been thoroughly reassessed and remixed by Matessino for the best possible sonic presentation of this historical score. Disc 2 offers a remastered edition of the GRAMMY-winning original soundtrack album, i.e. a separate recording for which Williams presented a selection of cues rearranged and expanded for a more satisfying standalone listening experience; the recording has been fully remastered from the recently discovered 2-inch, 16-track multichannel analog elements, which were still in pristine conditions and allowed for a brand new mix and mastering by Matessino highlighting the spectacular sonics expertly captured by scoring mixer John Neal. Finally, Disc 3 presents a creative listening program with a series of bonus tracks including outtakes, alternates and previously unreleased music from both recordings, plus a selection of the source music heard during the Amity beach sequences, conducted by Williams specifically for the film. The set is rounded off by a 40-page booklet featuring a comprehensive and definitive essay penned by Mike Matessino titled “The Jaws Music Log,” chronicling the history of John Williams’ music for the film and its everlasting legacy penned by Mike Matessino. It’s truly the ultimate soundtrack release for one of the all-time greatest works in John Williams’ oeuvre and film music in general.
The discovery of the original multitrack tapes of the album recording also offered the chance to create a brand-new multichannel audio presentation in Dolby Atmos, supervised by Matessino together with Atmos mixing pioneer Steve Genewick: for the first time, listeners will be able to experience John Williams’ thrilling music in a spectacularly immersive sound. The release is available only digitally, check the website jaws50music.com for more details.
John Williams’ score for Black Sunday is one of the most obscure by the composer of the post-Jaws years. The 1977 film directed by John Frankenheimer (based on a novel by Thomas Harris) is a dramatic thriller filled with tension and action and it’s perhaps one of the very last artifacts of the filmmaking style of American cinema of the 1970s, echoing the paranoia and the fears that characterized the better part of that decade. John Williams accompanies the picture with a score brimming with suspense and tension, driven by an unstoppable ostinato that – much like the shark theme in Jaws – becomes the main recurring motif and the centerpiece of the score. The theme for Mossad agent David Kabakov (Robert Shaw) is a pensive, melancholic melody that turns also heroic during the climactic action setpiece, the terrifying terrorist attack at the Super Bowl in Miami with an explosive-filled blimp. Williams highlights the action with cues filled with stark orchestral colors (low piano, timpani and percussion), but also employs quiet and eerie atmospheric writing to address the human drama and the conflict of Michael Lander (Bruce Dern), the Vietnam War veteran who devises the horrible terrorist plot together with Black September operative member Dahlia Ilyad (Marthe Keller). Black Sunday is the only true political thriller scored by Williams, who would’ve returned to similar atmospheres in 2005 for Steven Spielberg’s Munich. It also has the distinction of being the very last score that John Williams composed before working on Star Wars so it could be seen as a sort of closing chapter of a phase of his career.
The score didn’t get an original soundtrack album release back in the day and its premiere official release arrived only in 2010 on the Film Score Monthly label as a limited edition (now out of print for several years) and subsequently also released on vinyl by Mondo. Black Sunday finally returns in circulation, thanks to La-La Land Records and producer Mike Matessino, in a newly remixed and remastered edition sourced from new high-res transfers of the original 16-track analog elements. Matessino rebuilt the 2010 program from the ground up, carefully reassessing the elements to offer a brand-new sonic restoration that gives back some of the subtler nuances of the score, especially in the quieter and more suspenseful moments. The presentation is rounded off by a selection of source music and alternate cues, plus informative liner notes by film music authority Jeff Bond and impactful artwork by designer Jim Titus.
The retrospective look on John Williams’ life and career has been a constant during the last few years, especially after the composer reached his milestone 90th birthday. The sprawling new collection John Williams – The Anthology by Sony Classical celebrates the composer’s rich legacy by putting together plenty of his classic soundtrack albums on Compact Disc to offer a wide and comprehensive look at his astonishing career, especially for new collectors and admirers of the Maestro who may not have had the chance to acquire soundtrack albums in physical format. Conceived and spearheaded by Williams’ longtime agent Michael Gorfaine, the Anthology is designed as a collection of three boxsets presenting a chronological overview of the Maestro’s output: Volume One (which was released in July) covers the years from 1969 to 1990; Volume Two will cover years from 1991 to 2008 and Volume Three will have film scores from 2011 until today, but will also offer many of Williams’ non-film works (release date for Vol. 2 and 3 is still to be defined). The collection features mostly the original soundtrack album programs, but also adds a few of the expanded presentations released as limited editions in past years such as The Cowboys and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Mike Matessino co-produced the set with Jamie Richardson and Sophie Greaves, ensuring the best quality in terms of sonic presentation and overall accuracy. The set is nicely packaged with cardboard sleeves reproducing the original soundtrack artworks and includes a hefty booklet featuring informative liner notes by Matessino and John Takis, plus a treasure trove of archival photos.
In this new conversation, Mike Matessino goes further in the depth of his restoration work for the Jaws 50th Anniversary soundtrack, addressing both the challenges and the joys of this venture; after that, he talks about his remastering of Williams’ tense score for Black Sunday, for which he also offers a new assessement on its artistic value. The talk is rounded off with commentary on the John Williams Anthology boxset and a tribute to Kurt-Hans Goedicke, former legendary Principal Timpani of the London Symphony Orchestra, who recently passed away and whose epic and formidable sound graced classic Williams scores recorded in London including the original Star Wars trilogy, Superman, Dracula, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
JAWS 50th Anniversary Special Edition
Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams
3-CD Set
Available at Intrada: https://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.13220/.f?
TRACK LISTING
CD 1 Original Motion Picture Score
01. Jaws – Main Title (0:57)
02. The First Victim (1:46)
03. Remains On The Beach (0:58)
04. The Empty Raft (1:44)
05. The Pier Incident (2:30)
06. Father And Son (1:59)
07. The Alimentary Canal (1:56)
08. Ben Gardner’s Boat (3:33)
09. Tourist Montage (1:33)
10. Into The Estuary (2:53)
11. Heading Out To Sea (1:00)
12. Tug On The Line (2:42)
13. Man Against Beast (5:36)
14. Quint’s Tale (2:45)
15. Brody Panics (1:17)
16. Barrel Off Starboard (1:39)
17. Great Chase (3:01)
18. Shark Tows Orca 0:40)
19. Three Barrels Under (2:19)
20. From Bad To Worse (1:06)
21. Quint Thinks It Over (1:14)
22. Work Montage (The Shark Cage Fugue) (2:03)
23. The Shark Approaches (0:54)
24. The Shark Hits The Cage (2:04)
25. Quint Meets His End (1:27)
26. Blown To Bits (3:17)
27. Jaws – End Title (1:56)
CD 1 Total Time: 54:50
CD 2 Remastered Original Soundtrack
01. Main Title (Theme From Jaws) (2:21)
02. Chrissie’s Death (1:43)
03. Promenade (Tourists On The Menu) (2:51)
04. Out To Sea (2:37)
05. The Indianapolis Story (2:31)
06. Sea Attack Number One (5:30)
07. One Barrel Chase (3:09)
08. Preparing The Cage (3:30)
09. Night Search (3:36)
10. The Underwater Siege (2:36)
11. Hand To Hand Combat (2:37)
12. End Title (Theme From Jaws) (2:23)
CD 2 Total Time: 35:27
CD 3 50th Anniversary Extras
ALBUM RECORDING
01. Main Title And The Beach Attacks (2:49)
02. Theme From Jaws (Variation) (2:29)
03. Chrissie’s Death (Alternate) (1:43)
04. The Underwater Siege (Extended Version) (2:50)
05. Hand To Hand Combat (Extended Version) (3:02)
Total Time: 12:56
MUSIC FROM AMITY TOWN BEACH
06. Original Rag (2:05)
07. Winter Stories Waltz (1:44)
08. Thousand And One Nights Waltz (1:48)
09. In The Good Old Summer Time (1:28)
Total Time: 7:06
FILM SCORE RECORDING
10. Jaws – Main Title (Alternate) (1:03)
11. The Typewriter (0:20)
12. The Pier Incident (Alternate) (2:25)
13. Father And Son (Alternate) (1:59)
14. Into The Estuary (Alternate) (2:51)
15. Man Against Beast (Alternate) (5:36)
16. Brody Panics (Alternate) (1:16)
17. Barrel Off Starboard (Alternate) (1:26)
18. Great Chase (Alternate) (3:01)
19. Shark Tows Orca (Alternate) (0:40)
20. Three Barrels Under (Alternate) (2:15)
21. The Shark Approaches (Alternate) (0:56)
22. The Shark Hits The Cage (Alternate) (2:04)
23. Quint Meets His End (Alternate) (1:33)
24. Wild Shark Theme (1:10)
Total Time: 28:35
CD 3 Total Time: 48:40
3–CD Total Time: 138:54
BLACK SUNDAY: REMASTERED LIMITED EDITION
Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams
Available at La-La Land Records: https://lalalandrecords.com/black-sunday-remastered-limited-edition/
TRACK LISTING
SCORE PRESENTATION 56:04
01 Beirut :37
02 Commandos Arrive 1:15
03 Commando Raid 5:32
04 It Was Good / Dahlia Arrives / The Unloading 3:13
05 Speed Boat Chase 1:51
06 The Telephone Man / The Captain Returns 2:15
07 Nurse Dahlia / Kabakov’s Card / The Hypodermic 3:31
08 Moshevsky’s Dead 1:58
09 The Test 1:57
10 Building The Bomb 1:57
11 Miami / Dahlia’s Call 2:28
12 The Last Night 1:31
13 Preparations 2:45
14 Passed :31
15 The Flight Check 1:51
16 Airborne / Bomb Passes Stadium 1:46
17 Farley’s Dead 1:34
18 The Blimp AndThe Bomb 3:13
19 The Take Off 1:44
20 Underway :41
21 Air Chase (Part 1) 1:15
22 Air Chase (Parts 2 And 3) / The Blimp Hits 7:21
23 The Explosion 2:38
24 The End (Theme From ‘Black Sunday’) 2:17
ADDITIONAL MUSIC 8:58
25 Hotel Lobby (Source) 1:48
26 Fight Song No. 1 (Source) :52
27 Fight Song No. 2 (Source) 1:46
28 The End (Alternate Mix) 2:17
29 The Explosion (Revised Ending) / End Title (Film Edit) 2:11
TOTAL DISC TIME • 65:06
JOHN WILLIAMS – THE ANTHOLOGY VOL. 1 1969-1990
22-disc boxset
Sony Classical
Contains:
Disc 1: THE REIVERS / IMAGES (Original Soundtracks)
Disc 2: THE COWBOYS (2018 Expanded Release)
Disc 3: EARTHQUAKE / THE TOWERING INFERNO (Original Soundtracks)
Disc 4: JAWS / JAWS 2 (Original Soundtracks – 2015 Master)
Disc 5: STAR WARS (Original Soundtrack – 2018 Master)
Disc 6: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (2017 Expanded Release)
Disc 7: THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (2024 Release)/ 1941 (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 8: THE FURY (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 9: SUPERMAN (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 10: DRACULA / MONSIGNOR (Original Soundtracks)
Disc 11: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (Original Soundtrack – 2018 Master)
Disc 12: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (2008 Expanded Release)
Disc 13: E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 14: RETURN OF THE JEDI (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 15: INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (2008 Expanded Release)
Disc 16: SPACECAMP (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 17: THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 18: EMPIRE OF THE SUN (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 19: THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 20: INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (2008 Expanded Release)
Disc 21: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY / ALWAYS (Original Soundtrack)
Disc 22: HOME ALONE (Original Soundtrack)
The Legacy of John Williams 