Certainly, with such a range of talent, there’s a pretty wide range of quality between the covers. And Celine Dion’s opening “I Knew I Loved You” is by far the most cringe-worthy addition to the album. “Debra’s Theme” from Once Upon a Time in America is one of Morricone’s most beautiful themes, but setting hackneyed lyrics to for Dion to croon cheapens the melody immeasurably. This sadly, was the song they used to represent the maestro for his Oscar tribute – I had to beg my friends not to let it sour their outlook on Morricone.

Ennio MorriconeFortunately, the next piece is an excellent cover of Morricone’s single most famous theme, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Few cover this theme to any success, but Jones and Hancock give it a fantastic reading. They’re two of the very few performers on this planet who can actually play this piece without butchering the furious melody in the bridge, and they even manage to add their own distinct signatures on top of it. It’s a slightly more mellow and streamlined jazz reading of a masterpiece that never looses the original’s insane vitality. This actually may be the only cover of the piece worth mentioning in the same sentence as the original recording, and that includes the hugely overrated Hugo Montenegro cover.

Bruce Springsteen follows with an almost-as-good electric guitar solo on “Jill’s Theme” from Once Upon a Time in the West. It may seem odd that Springsteen chose Jill’s theme over “The Man with the Harmonica,” given that the latter piece actually has substantial writing for electric guitar, but he brings a pitch-perfect blend of edge and sensitivity to his performance on one of Morricone’s most heartbreaking melodies.

But if you were afraid that I was actually going to do a track-by-track rundown of the entire album, fear not – it just happens that the three most notable pieces are the first three tracks. From here on, everything starts to blur together. Opera and classical stars follow with a seemingly never-ending sequence of bittersweet Morricone themes. It’s always baffled me that compilations of a man with such a diverse body of work always wind up covering the same basic material. Yes, Morricone’s love themes are beautiful, but do we really need to group so many similar melodies back-to-back? You’d think that Metallica could shake things up with their hard-rock recording of “The Ecstasy of Gold,” but even their reading is surprisingly bland, lacking in any of the energy of the original piece (or of hard rock in general). Even many of the best covers, like Ma’s cello solo on Malena or Roger Water’s painfully fragile reading of “Lost Boys Calling” (one of my favorite Morricone songs), seem to have been imported directly from other albums, where they worked much more effectively.

That’s not to say that the core material isn’t beautiful in its own right, and the disc has the added incentive of new instrumental transitions between the tracks that Morricone composed just for this album. But after 70 minutes, it all gets fiercely monotonous, and it takes a pretty damn dedicated Morricone fan to get through the entire thing in one sitting. It would be nice if just one mainstream Morricone compilation had the balls to shake things up with his more energetic and off-kilter showstoppers. The Yo-yo Ma compilation came close, but there’s so much more to Morricone that seems to be hidden from the public at large. We All Love Ennio Morricone probably has an audience somewhere, but anyone with passing familiarity in his music will probably just get frustrated and bored by this compilation, however strong the core material may be. The handful of great discovers, particularly the Quincy Jones/Herbie Hancock cover, will make it worth it for some people, but this album is nowhere near the top of Morricone must-haves. (See here)

The names on this tribute testify to the extraordinarily wide appeal of the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone: not many people could get Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, Quincy Jones, Renée Fleming, and Metallica on one disc. And while the artists come from very diverse genres, the album holds together well. Things start off on a syrupy note with Dion's "I Knew I Loved You," a ballad from 1984's Once Upon a Time in America (to which Alan and Marilyn Bergman added lyrics in 2006). But fortunately the CD quickly recovers and goes on to survey most of Morricone's styles, from the dissonance of his spaghetti Western scores to his mod period to his lush orchestral vistas. Metallica goes all out with guitars blazing on "Ecstasy of Gold," a track they've used as a concert intro for years, while Brazil's Daniela Mercury and Eumir Deodato breeze through "Conmigo," and the French-British combo Vanessa and the O's resuscitate the pure '60s pop of "Je Changerai d'Avis," once performed by Fran?oise Hardy. As for ballads, listen for soprano Renée Fleming, who surpasses her previous pop-crossover attempts on the fragile "Sail Away." Morricone himself couldn't stay away: he wrote interstitial music to create seamless transitions between the tracks, and conducts three instrumental cues. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Product Description
Receiving an Honorary Oscar?? at the 79th Annual Academy Awards?? for his lifetime achievement, composer Ennio Morricone has made a monumental contribution to more than 500 indelible film and television scores including "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "The Mission," "Once Upon a Time in America," "The Untouchables," "Cinema Paradiso" and others. To celebrate Maestro Morricone, 16 guest artist that include Andrea Bocelli, Chris Botti, Celine Dion, Ren??e Fleming, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Yo-Yo Ma, Metallica, Quincy Jones, Bruce Springsteen and others join in all-star performances of Maestro Morricone's most memorable music on his new album WE ALL LOVE ENNIO MORRICONE.(See here)

Conceived and produced by Luigi Caiola, who worked on the maestro's monumental retrospective, io, Ennio Morricone, in 2003, We All Love Ennio Morricone brings together seventeen exquisite interpretations - most of them newly recorded especially for this collection - of Morricone's best-loved film scores and other musical pieces showcasing the extraordinary range of the composer's influences and sensibilities.

All of the artists participating in We All Love Ennio Morricone have a special connection to Morricone’s music. Many of them have previously recorded Morricone's songs, performed his music onstage, or used his pieces as overtures to concerts, including Celine Dion, Quincy Jones featuring Herbie Hancock, Bruce Springsteen, Andrea Bocelli, Metallica, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Daniel Mercury featuring Eumir Deodato, Dulce Pontes, Chris Botti, Vanessa and the O's, Roger Waters, Denyce Graves, and Taro Hakase.

Commenting on the new CD, Morricone said, “You realize that you have composed important music when someone, somewhere is playing it. I am however astonished, obviously in a good way, thatfamousartists from the musicalworldhavepaid tribute tomeby participatingin the project, We All Love Ennio Morricone, that brings together mymost well-known compositions in different versions and fascinating interpretations thanks to thedifferent musical origins of the various artists. My thanks to everyone, I amdeeply honored."

"Not only the film industry, but the music industry at large, are deeply indebted to this phenomenal composer whose expressivity embraces so many genres with such integrity and creativity," said Renée Fleming. "The evocative nature of his work dramatically enhances the visual image and resonates in our deepest emotions."

"I have been inspired by Morricone's raw unbridled emotion, especially in his western scores," said James Hetfield of Metallica. "As a band, we have used his moving 'Ecstasy of Gold' piece as an intro to our performances since 1983."

In addition to three orchestral tracks - "Gabriel's Oboe," "The Tropical Variation" and "Cinema Paradiso" - performed by Ennio Morricone, the composer has created transitional pieces for We All Love Ennio Morricone to seamlessly connect the individual tracks into a continuously flowing listening experience.

We All Love Ennio Morricone caps a series of unprecedented honors for the 78-year-old composer, who will receive an Honorary Academy Award? at the 79th Academy Awards? presentation on February 25, 2007, in Los Angeles "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music." Morricone has been nominated for five Academy Award Best Original Score nominations - "Days of Heaven" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Malèna" (2000). “Receiving an Oscar almost seems like too much, but I can'thide the fact that I'm very happy,” said Morricone.

The composer’s North American concert debut will take place at Radio City Music Hall on February 3 where he will be conducting the symphonic version of some of the music from We All Love Ennio Morricone He will lead an ensemble of more than 200 musicians from the Rome Sinfonietta Orchestra and the Canticum Novum Singers of New York.

At a private concert at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on Friday, February 2, 2007, welcoming the incoming Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, Morricone will lead the same orchestra and chorus. The United Nations concert will feature his elegiac "Voci dal Silenzio (Voices from the Silence)," a piece written in response to the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001.

In addition to Morricone’s New York concert appearances, The Museum of Modern Art will present a retrospective of six landmark films scored by Morricone including "The Battle of Algiers," "Once Upon a Time in the West," "Two Mules for Sister Sara," "Once Upon a Time in America," "The Mission," and "U Turn," from February 1 through February 7. The Film Forum will run a three-week festival of films scored by Morricone to run from February 2 through February 22.

Born in Rome in 1928, Ennio Morricone studied classical and choral music before writing his first film scores in 1962. In 1964, he began his monumental collaborations with director Sergio Leone which would result in some of the most iconic scores in film history.

While perhaps best-known for his monumental contributions to more than 400 indelible film and television scores including "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "The Mission," "Once Upon a Time in America," "The Untouchables," "Cinema Paradiso" and others, Ennio Morricone has worked an astounding number of musical genres - including classical, pop, rock, jazz, avant-garde, electronic and Italian folk music into his own unique and timeless oeuvre. (See here)