Back to Table of Contents
Back to Archives Main Page
Section: Music
Henry Mancini
By Ron Ehmke
It’s hard to appreciate the film music of composer/pianist/conductor Henry Mancini without a high tolerance for schlock. Sure, the man gave the world such timeless indicators of Cool as the themes from The Pink Panther and Peter Gunn, along with the dated-but-delightful “Baby Elephant Walk” from Hatari!, and for that we should all be grateful.
But dig much deeper into his vast repertoire, and you’re going to hit some of the gloopiest strings and the gloppiest vocal choirs imaginable. If you’re okay with that, or if you really, really like Easy Listening, then RCA/BMG Heritage’s new 23-song compilation makes a handy introduction to Mancini’s best work and then some.
Midnight, Moonlight & Magic celebrates three anniversaries simultaneously: it’s been forty years since Panther first hit film screens, eighty since Mancini’s birth, and ten since he died. There have been plenty of other hits collections over the decades, but this newest one looks like the most comprehensive yet, and the detailed liner notes by compiler Didier Deutsch make a nice bonus. (I’m far less intrigued by the year’s other tribute, the misleadingly titled Ultimate Mancini, a collection of rerecordings featuring vocals by daughter Monica Mancini plus cameos by Stevie Wonder, Tom Scott, Joey DeFrancesco, and Kenny Rankin.)
Some of these songs are bound to provoke instant nostalgia in many listeners of a certain age. The weird synth-and-horn mix in Mancini’s “Mystery Movie Theme,” for instance, is guaranteed to take you back to the early-seventies heyday of Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. And his piano-driven adaptation of Nino Rota’s theme to Romeo and Juliet—a staple in finer elevators everywhere—was as much a part of the summer of 1969 as Woodstock, Manson, and Vietnam.
|
|
|
Henry Mancini
Midnight, Moonlight & Magic:
The Very Best
RCA/BMG Heritage
|
But the nuevo-retro packaging of the new album—its campy cover photos and Fabulous Fifties typography—suggests that RCA also has its sights set on hipster younguns who weren’t even born when Peter Sellers first tripped over furniture as Inspector Clouseau. The same martini-sipping twenty-and thirty-somethings who have already tired of the Rat Pack, swing music, and bachelor-pad revivals of the mid-nineties are surely ready for a new trip down somebody else’s Memory Lane.
In fact, one of the strengths of Mancini’s best compositions is their ability to evoke moods and mental images entirely separate from the scripts they were commissioned to accompany. You don’t really need to know anything about the cartoon Pink Panther to enjoy his infectious theme, for instance. And I’ve never seen an episode of Peter Gunn in my life (since TVLand seems to have passed it by), yet I still associate its music with the pop mythology of tough-talking, chain-smoking, skinny-tie-wearing private dicks.
Although most of the album is instrumental, Midnight contains seven collaborations with lyricist Johnny Mercer, including “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” and the theme to Charade. Consequently, the collection salutes not one but two of the last century’s major songwriters, and gives admirers of either man a chance to hear some less-familiar joint efforts like “The Sweetheart Tree” and “Whistling Away the Dark.” (Sadly, the version of “Moon River” included here is neither Audrey Hepburn’s fragile vocal from Breakfast at Tiffany’s nor Mercer’s poignant demo—nor even Andy Williams’ cover—but the comparatively sterile choral version which hit the pop charts in 1961.) Most of the essential stuff on Midnight appears in the first ten tracks; it’ll probably be a long, long time before I hanker to hear the aptly named “Candlelight on Crystal” or the lethargic “Dear Heart” again, and the normally patient art department of this very publication threatened to mutiny once they reached “Pie-in-the-Face Polka” two-thirds of the way through the CD. But when Mancini was at his best—setting the stage for bumbling inspectors or lovelorn young women—the music he created had the power to outlast the movies it was designed to accompany. And that’s a rare triumph indeed.
Ron Ehmke is the Associate Editor of Buffalo Spree and a performer who can next be seen in “The Real Dream Cabaret” at Rust Belt Books in October.
back to top
back to table of contents
|
|
|
