For Hank's 100th
Writing about Henry Mancini is both easy and hard - easy because he was wonderfully talented and his art permeated world culture, hard because much of it has been repeated many times. The man has not lacked for appreciation, and that appreciation continues to grow.
Mancini’s father was a steelworker, and he and Hank’s mother were Italian immigrants. Henry was an only child, and took up the flute and the piano. His father wanted him to have a ‘real’ profession like being a teacher, but young Henry was fascinated by music and particularly the music he heard in the local movie theater as underscoring.
He acquired Frank Skinner’s arranging book. From the late 1920s, Skinner was a prolific writer of stock arrangements for various publishers, and by 1934, was well known enough to write such a treatise. Skinner was the arranger for “The Great Ziegfeld,” M-G-M’s musical extravaganza under Arthur Lange’s musical direction (this is indeed ironic, as Lange wrote one of the first arranging books for popular orchestra), and his work is excellent. Skinner’s next and last stop was Universal, where he was the chief composer of film music until 1966. His book “Underscore” was the first textbook on film scoring and is worth hunting down. From Skinner, Mancini went to Max Adkins for lessons, who was the arranger at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh (Billy May, Jerry Fielding and Billy Strayhorn also sought out Adkins.) Adkins recommended him to Benny Goodman, so Mancini must have been very good at that point in time.
Initially a student at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), Mancini got into the Juilliard School. In 1943, he enlisted in the Air Force. Jazz critic George Simon writes about his conversations with young Mancini during that period, and hoped that Glenn Miller would choose him to join his ensemble, but it was not to be. However, after the war, he joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra led by Tex Beneke as pianist/arranger. It was there that he met group singer Ginny O’Connor, who quickly realized that he was not only a nice guy, but a major talent (she’d previously sung with Mel Torme and the Mel-Tones). They married in 1947, and left the band. He continued his music studies with Ernst Krenek, Albert Sendry and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
Universal Pictures was not a typical studio with regard to background scoring. Except for Skinner and other ‘names,’ most scores were split up among their music staff, which included Mancini, Herman Stein, Hans J. Salter and a few others. Mancini composed, orchestrated, and adapted music in assembly-line fashion; composers would split up the reels, write the music, and then coordinate so that the music sounded somewhat unified. Mancini’s two notable credits were for “The Glenn Miller Story” (where he was co-nominated for Best Score), and “Touch of Evil,” Orson Welles’s masterpiece that was essentially dumped in movie theaters but has become a cult classic. Hank would later put together a suite of music he wrote for “It Came from Outer Space,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” and “Tarantula.” He considered his tenure there as his Master and Doctorate degrees in composition, and he even met his idol, Victor Young.
Universal fired him in 1958. One day was getting a hair cut on the lot, and ran into Blake Edwards, a writer-director for television programs. He told Hank about a new show he was writing about a private detective who had a girlfriend who was a jazz singer at a local club. The Mancini legend begins with this show, “Peter Gunn.” Mancini wrote an infectious rock and roll theme that became very popular, as did the program. Because the show took place partly at a jazz club, jazz filled the soundtrack. Quite a few movies had jazz for their soundtracks before (“The Wild One,” “The Man With the Golden Arm,” “I Want to Live”) as did television’s “Richard Diamond,” but Mancini’s music had a unique sound - he included French Horns and flutes of various sizes not previously heard on television, such as alto and bass flute.
Mancini had made a few forgettable albums for Liberty and Warner Bros., and was hardly an established recording star. Reportedly it was Shorty Rogers who suggested that Mancini record an album of Peter Gunn themes instead of himself, and eventually there were two albums worth. There is a famous review written by composer George Russell trashing the first one, but the albums caught the fascination of the public, and they were best sellers, in print on and off for many years. They were filled with top west coast jazz and session players; John Williams was the pianist. Mancini was an RCA Victor artist for many years; many of his quadraphonic releases from the 1970s are now available from Dutton-Vocalion. He recorded albums with Doc Severinsen, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and James Galway among others.
Mancini was unique in that the wide variety of his scores issued on albums did not come from the music recorded at the sessions for the films. He specifically adapted the music for LPs, arranging them and programming them like a pop record, which also increased airplay. “The Pink Panther,” “Hatari,” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” also remained in print for years.
He was always looking for new sounds. The television show “Mr. Lucky” featured a debonair gambling casino boss, so that instrumentation featured organ and strings (another huge hit in print long after the TV series was long forgotten). “Baby Elephant Walk” was a highlight in the movie “Hatari,” where he used a calliope and the small Eb Clarinet (this is music that is so perfect with what is going on onscreen). For one score, he had two keyboards in which one was tuned 1/4 tone off.
His music was always popular among music students. Concert bands played medleys of his film scores as well as his songs that were also big hits.
Mancini came at the right place at the right time with regard to movie scoring. The theme from “High Noon” (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling) convinced producers of films that they needed a popular song to enhance the scores, sell more tickets and more records. This attitude became oppressive by the late 1960’s as more and more composers were asked to supply such songs for publicity purposes. Some were very good (“Wild is the Wind”) and some were pretty bad, but Mancini had a melodic gift and wrote many movie theme songs, several of which won awards. “(The) Days of Wine and Roses,” “Moon River,” “Charade,” and “Dear Heart” have been recorded hundreds of time, and they worked dramatically. I think it is safe to say that somewhere at any given time, there is a Henry Mancini song being played.
Mancini became a television star as he continued his composing, hosting his own TV show. There was only one score of his that was rejected, and that was for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Frenzy;” Hitch considered it “too menacing.” No comment.
Mancini also toured the world giving concerts. His was a very organized operation; he had a cadre of musicians in different parts of the country that he drew from, so one group worked with him in the midwest, one in the east, etc. guaranteeing that he had key musicians playing along with locals making rehearsals and the concerts themselves much easier. His music was wonderful to play, and he would often solo on flute and piano.
One of the concert medleys one year was a suite from the TV miniseries “The Thorn Birds.” WB owned the music, and it was decided to obtain the score and parts and add it to our rental library. I remember that the score was orchestrated by Jack Hayes and was unreadable, so I was hired to create a new one from the parts. In doing so, I found mistakes and corrected them. One day at about 5:30, I received a call from someone who told me he was Henry Mancini, and could I connect him with the person preparing the music. He had many questions for me, mostly about how the rental library worked; I remember that he was very laid back. I answered what I could, and told him that I’d made corrections to the music and would he like an errata sheet. He was very happy to hear that and couldn’t have been nicer. I ended our conversation by telling him how much he influenced me and that it was an honor to work on his music. He was genuinely touched. There is so much more of his music that should be available.
Mancini lived very full life with a wife who adored him and three wonderful children until he died of pancreatic cancer. So many wonderful artists are celebrating their centennials, and they remind us of the many wonderful contributions they made. For composers and arrangers, Mancini was particularly special and influenced us all.