Henry Mancini's Lesser-Known Tunes

[Teasing the Korean]

While tunes like "Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses" are among the last of what became known as "standards" or part of "The Great American Songbook,"  it is surprising to me that more of Mancini's deep cuts didn't penetrate further into the jazz world.  

Like "The Chaser" from Two for the Road:

Or "The Brothers Go to Mothers" from Peter Gunn

 

[sgcim]

Nice stuff!

There's so much Mancini mentioned in the two volumes of the "Action Jazz" book,that I've made notes on every page of both volumes.Everything he wrote for TV and film is covered, and that's just in the crime and spy genres. Some Mancini we've played on gigs are

Dreamsville

Theme from Two For The Road

Mr.Lucky

There's almost no end to the jazz-based music written for film and TV, and the author goes over the ENTIRE OUTPUT of composers like Mancini and his fellow writers, like Don Ellis, Johnny Mandel, Lalo Schifrin, J'J Johnson, Quincy Jones, David Shire, Charles Bernstein, 'Johnny' Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Oliver Nelson and on and on and on.....

It startled me the other day when I passed out the parts that i had written to my arr. of a great tune by John Williams, and not one of them ever heard of it! They're limited to the same songs from the Real Books, over and over.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

21 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Nice stuff!

There's so much Mancini mentioned in the two volumes of the "Action Jazz" book,that I've made notes on every page of both volumes.Everything he wrote for TV and film is covered, and that's just in the crime and spy genres.

The irony is that several of these tunes were written for the tie-in LPs, and were not necessarily featured in the TV shows.  For example, "Fallout," in the TV show was only the opening bass and drum riff, and the rest of the tune was written for the album.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[medjuck]

Did anything Mancini do before Peter Gunn hint at what was coming?  (All I really know is the score to A Touch of Evil which is good but which you wouldn't think was by the same guy.) 

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

The irony is that several of these tunes were written for the tie-in LPs, and were not necessarily featured in the TV shows.  For example, "Fallout," in the TV show was only the opening bass and drum riff, and the rest of the tune was written for the album.

Yeah, there was a ton of crazy stuff going on in soundtrack LPs. You never knew what you were going to get until you saw the track listings. If the composer wanted to add some of his other tunes, he could do it for whatever reason.

Then there were a number of 45s made from the score that could turn out to be hits, that were recorded by the composer, or someone like Herb Alpert, The Ventures, etc...

There could be some great cues that were cut out by the director from the film, that appeared in full on the LPs.

The composer could choose to use a completely different set of musicians than the ones that played on the original soundtrack.

And then there were rejected scores that no one ever heard, as well as films and TV shows whose music was never heard again-for all time, because they didn't make a soundtrack LP out of it. I just read in the book that "Chinatown" had a complete score written by a different composer, that Polansky decided not to use. That left Jerry Goldsmith two weeks to write the score that was used for the film. JG didn't think the film needed a jazz score, and the only reason it was included in the book was because the trumpet player (Uan Rasey) decided to interpret the theme using a bluesy sound, which Goldsmith said was "interesting".

Edited November 14, 2021 by sgcim

[Daniel A]

I know that this is not what the thread is about, but Mancini did so many great things that do not get enough attention. The score for 'Charade' is great, but the best parts did not make it to the original soundtrack album, something which Manicini himself regretted. There was eventually a CD release which included all of the music. 

The music for the metro chase scene is terrific. 

 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, Daniel A said:

The score for 'Charade' is great, but the best parts did not make it to the original soundtrack album, something which Manicini himself regretted.

Yes!  Mancini said the following:

"A problem arose from the re-recording of my scores. The albums were made up of the most melodic material from the films. A lot of the dramatic music—which is what I really loved to do and really thought I had a feeling for—was left out. I used the source music that was the common denominator for my record-buying audience. And there was pressure from the record company: they didn’t want to know about dramatic music. It may have hurt my reputation as a writer of serious film music. The albums gave me a reputation as a writer of light comedy and light suspense, and at the time it was not easy for producers to think of me for the more dramatic assignments. I did that to myself."

[Teasing the Korean]

12 hours ago, sgcim said:

Yeah, there was a ton of crazy stuff going on in soundtrack LPs. You never knew what you were going to get until you saw the track listings. If the composer wanted to add some of his other tunes, he could do it for whatever reason.

Then there were a number of 45s made from the score that could turn out to be hits, that were recorded by the composer, or someone like Herb Alpert, The Ventures, etc...

There could be some great cues that were cut out by the director from the film, that appeared in full on the LPs.

The composer could choose to use a completely different set of musicians than the ones that played on the original soundtrack.

And then there were rejected scores that no one ever heard, as well as films and TV shows whose music was never heard again-for all time, because they didn't make a soundtrack LP out of it. I just read in the book that "Chinatown" had a complete score written by a different composer, that Polansky decided not to use. That left Jerry Goldsmith two weeks to write the score that was used for the film. JG didn't think the film needed a jazz score, and the only reason it was included in the book was because the trumpet player (Uan Rasey) decided to interpret the theme using a bluesy sound, which Goldsmith said was "interesting".

Yes, there is a pretty wide spread between a soundtrack album being exactly what you hear in the film, and having little or anything to do with the film.

I guess you know that, because of musician union rules, it was cheaper to re-record a film score than it was to license the original film tracks.  In the US, most soundtrack albums from the 1950s through the 1970s were re-records.  This obviously gave composers a chance to re-work things, or not.  

Here's another Mancini track I love:

And here's one from Breakfast at Tiffany's that Cal Trader recorded.  This is the superior album version.  The film version doesn't feature the same turnaround at the end of the bridge. 

 

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[Teasing the Korean]

16 hours ago, medjuck said:

Did anything Mancini do before Peter Gunn hint at what was coming?  (All I really know is the score to A Touch of Evil which is good but which you wouldn't think was by the same guy.) 

In the early- to mid-1950s, Mancini was doing Universal horror films such as The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Many of these films had three composers working on a single film.  After Peter Gunn, he generally ignored this phase of his career, although late in his life, he recorded some suites from these early scores. 

Also, just before Peter Gunn, he did some LPs for Liberty, including the exotica album Driftwood and Dreams, later reissued as The Versatile Henry Mancini.  

None of this music sounded anything like Peter Gunn or Breakfast at Tiffany's.

[sgcim]

8 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Yes!  Mancini said the following:

"A problem arose from the re-recording of my scores. The albums were made up of the most melodic material from the films. A lot of the dramatic music—which is what I really loved to do and really thought I had a feeling for—was left out. I used the source music that was the common denominator for my record-buying audience. And there was pressure from the record company: they didn’t want to know about dramatic music. It may have hurt my reputation as a writer of serious film music. The albums gave me a reputation as a writer of light comedy and light suspense, and at the time it was not easy for producers to think of me for the more dramatic assignments. I did that to myself."

Yeah, in the interview in the book, he said that "Touch of Evil was the score he was most proud of out of all his scores, definitely not light comedy or light suspense. He felt that Peter Gunn owed more to Rock and Roll than jazz.His time writing for the Tex Benecke version of the Glen Miller band got his big band writing chops together.

He studied composition at Julliard, and studied privately with Krenek and Tedesco, so he was capable of writing in most styles.

 

21 hours ago, medjuck said:

Did anything Mancini do before Peter Gunn hint at what was coming?  (All I really know is the score to A Touch of Evil which is good but which you wouldn't think was by the same guy.) 

 

[JSngry]

55 minutes ago, sgcim said:

His time writing for the Tex Benecke version of the Glen Miller band got his big band writing chops together.

Didn't he serve in some capacity on The Glenn Miller Story?

[sgcim]

6 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Didn't he serve in some capacity on The Glenn Miller Story?

On the IMDB he gets credit for "Music by" and "Music Adaptations by"