Demonstrating the Enduring Importance of the Musical Legacy of Henry Mancini as one of the best Song writers in the last seventy years.

I have long been an admirer of the work of composer/arranger/conductor Henry Mancini. Of all the most prolific music writers for soundtracks of big-screen or television productions, Henry Mancini, and his musical work stands at the apex of that profession. I am going to try to make a case that his iconic and enduring music makes him one of the most important music writers of the last seventy years.

Enrico Nicola Mancini, was born in Ohio and raised predominantly in western Pennsylvania. He studied the piccolo from the age of eight. His first encounter with what would later become a fascination with movie music was his exposure to a Cecile B. DeMille film titled The Crusades from 1935. In 1942 he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (Carnegie Mellon) and then Julliard in NYC. eventually studying piano, composition, and orchestration. In 1943, at the age of eighteen, Mancini enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and played with the 28th Air Force Band through the end of the war. 

After being discharged, Mancini worked with a reestablished Glenn Miller Orchestra as a pianist and arranger before he joined Universal-International's music department working on film scores. Here he began a prolific career as a major contributor to the music of over one hundred movie soundtracks. His score for The Glenn Miller Story won an Academy Award nomination.

In 1958 he became an independent composer/arranger where he scored his first television series, the producer Blake Edwards's show Peter Gunn. From there Mancini's career never looked back.

To recall some of Henry Mancini's memorable music tracks from both television and film is to appreciate just how important this man's music was to our musical heritage.  A short list of his more memorable music includes the scores of TV shows Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky. Television movies like The Thorn Birds and The Moneychangers. Television theme songs for shows like Newhart, Hotel, and Remington Steele. Film scores included Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, The Pink Panther Series, and Victoria Victoria, just a few that he did just with director Edwards. He also scored Charade, Arabesque, and Two For the Road for director Stanley Donen. This list goes on with scores for films by Martin Ritt, The Molly Maguires; Howard Hawks' Hatari, and Man's Favorite Sport? ,  Stanley Kramer's Oklahoma Crude; Vittorio de Sica's Sunflower; Arthur Hiller's Silver Streak, and a score to Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy that was ultimately not used.

Mancini's songs have become standards that retain their appeal to this day. They include Mr. Lucky, Peter Gunn, Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Charade, The  Pink Panther Theme, A Shot in the Dark, Two for the Road,  Theme from Hatari, Baby Elephant's Walk,  Dreamsville, and perhaps my favorite Lujan also know as The Slow Hot Wind which was originally released in the Mr. Lucky Goes Latin album from  1961. 

My Contention is that one of the true benchmarks used to judge the importance of a composer's work is to see just how many fellow musicians choose to sing and/or play that person's work. Clearly Mancini meets this benchmark.

Let's just use one of my favorite compositions from Mancini. Lujon (also recorded as Slow Hot Wind from the lyrics by Norman Gimbel), is the name of the percussive instrument used in the artist's original release. Though it was not related to anything in the show Mr. Lucky despite being part of the album Mr. Lucky Goes Latin, it did have a durable and endearing effect on the world of jazz music. Here are several different takes on this superb song. Let me know what is your favorite version.

The original from Henry Mancini :

Here is one of the definitive vocal performances of this great song by the inimitable voice of Johnny Hartman with Norman Gimbel's lyrics from his album from 1994.

Here is another version from the album Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 with Lani Hall doing her most seductive vocals on the Gimbel lyrics.

Sarah Vaughan is the kind of vocalist who could do whatever she wanted. Her voice was exquisite and she often chose songs that others could only dream of doing justice to them. See for yourself

Who better to express this song's nuanced emotionality on his solo guitar than master artist Pat Metheny from his album What's It All About from 2011. 

The Harmonica and Vibraphonist ace Hendrik Meurkens did a seductively emotional version of this song on his album Hendrik Meurken's Cobb's Pocket from 2013. The group included drumming great Jimmy Cobb, Mike LeDonne on B3 Organ, Peter Bernstein on guitar, and Meurkins on chromatic harmonica. Just Beautiful

Ted Nash is a descendant of two of Mancini's original band players.

Both his uncle saxophonist Ted and his father trombonist Dick Nash were active Hollywood studio musicians and often played in Mancini's bands. If anyone can be true to the master composer/arranger's intent then certainly Ted can do so and do so with his own unique read on the song.

Here from his Ted Nash The Mancini Project is Lujon. 

There is a terrific instrumental jazz version of the song performed by the underappreciated multi-reed player Gerry Niewood from his album Slow Hot Wind from 1975 w Bill Dobbins, piano; Gene Perla, bass; Lew Soloff, trumpet/flugelhorn; Bill Reichenbach, trombone and Gerry Niewood, Alto, Tenor, Soprano and Flute. I have it, but unfortunately, I couldn't find a clean youtube to post but trust me it's great.

If these tremendous renditions of this beautiful composition by such an esteemed and talented group of artists are not enough to make you acknowledge Henry Mancini's sustained impact on our world, maybe a few movies that have chosen to use this song in their soundtracks like Sexy Beast, W.E. and Two Lovers and this more famous one may change your mind.  

A Voice to be Savored on Sinne Eeg's "Dreams"

Sinne Eeg Dreams  Artist Share AS0153

At forty years of age, the Danish singer Sinne Eeg is among that rare breed vocalists that can take anything they sing and make it their own. She has a voice to be savored. A force to be reckoned with in her native Scandinavia, her work is little known here in the US. The most recent recording Dreams is just her second release here despite nine outings as a leader. What immediately grabs you about her voice is the natural effortlessness with which she sings. Eeg has a warm supple tone, a wide range, exquisite control and an inherent sense of swing and phrasing that is impeccable. She cites Betty Carter, Nancy Wilson and Sarah Vaughn as influences, and one can certainly find some traces of their styles in her voice, but make no mistake, she is clearly on her own path and it is a refreshing one at that.

Her first US release was a duo album Eeg-Fonnesbaek from 2015 that she did with accomplished Danish double-bassist Thomas Fonnesbaek. The album’s darkly sparse treatment of some of the classics from the Great American Songbook, with Eeg’s gloriously fluid and tonally transcendent voice playing off Fonnesbaek’s warm, bellowing bass was deservedly well received.

Dreams, which just came out in December, took a different tact. It was recorded in Brooklyn, NY in January of 2017. It utilizes the multiple voices of  a very talented backing quartet.  The musicians are some of jazz’s crème de la crème, with the stellar rhythm section of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Joey Baron, the always tasty Larry Koonse on guitar and her longtime collaborator fellow Dane, Jacob Christoffersen holding down the piano chair. If Eeg was hoping to expand her audience on this side of the pond or for that matter around the world, then Dreams should certainly go a long way to achieving that goal.

Of the ten featured songs on the album, two are by Cole Porter, one by Rodgers and Hart and one by Gene De Paul, the remaining six are all Eeg originals and quite compelling.  The opener “The Bitter End” is a slow-cooked, funky blues that features Colley’s bass and Christoffersen’s piano, with Eeg’s expressive voice shining through with authenticity and feeling.

The perky “Head Over High Heels,” written by Eeg and Mads Mathias, has a musical theater, dance-like quality to it.  Eeg’s considerable scat abilities are on display as she and Colley parry in a complementary dialogue that is both slippery and simpatico.

Eeg’s “Love Song” is a torchy ballad that is gorgeously sung with a melancholic expressiveness and also features a gossamer guitar solo by Larry Koonse.

Listening to Eeg and drummer Joey Baron on the imaginative intro to the well-worn Porter standard “What is This Thing Called Love,” is to hear the song with new ears. The walking bass of Colley and the swinging piano of Christoffersen enter the fray with just enough juice to re-energize this classic. Baron’s traps are buoyant and Eeg’s vocals are facile and flawless.

On Richard Rodgers “Falling in Love with Love,” the singer, bassist and guitarist play like a well-oiled trio of seasoned instrumentalists.  Eeg’s vocal scatting is glass-like, so integrated with the music as to be seamless- sliding in and out of the group interplay with ease- you almost forget she’s singing until she returns to the lyrics. Koonse picks another masterful solo.

On the title song “Dreams,” Eeg goes totally wordless, instead using impressionistic vocalization. The song has a nebulous feel to it and Christoffersen’s piano has a  Jarrett influence to it, lightly skipping over the melody, with the rhythm section gently pushing the music along.

As if being such an accomplished vocalist isn’t enough, Eeg’s “Aleppo,” a song she wrote inspired by seeing images of the child victim who was tragically washed up on the seashore while trying to flee the Syrian conflict, is a moving political statement and a testament to this woman’s compositional skills. The evocative music is reverently somber, and her lyrics are sung with an emotional pathos that is quite moving. She proves herself to be a formidable story-teller, a forgotten talent few modern singers seem to have cultivated.  The slow beating bass line, the muted strings on Koonse’s guitar and the delicately sparse Christofferssen piano accompaniment are perfect complements to Eeg’s sincere plaintive verse. “At least we cry for the victims of war and let those children cry no more.”

There is a contemporary pop feel to Eeg’s “Time to Go,” probably my least favorite song on the album.

The arrangement of Gene De Paul’s “I’ll Remember April” is satiny and sleek. Eeg’s voice modulates with a calm assurance, like the steely nerve of an accomplished tightrope walker who works without a net. Her intonations are clear, unstrained and sinewy. Eeg has an abundance of “chops” but what is thoroughly refreshing is her astute awareness of when and how to use them. There is never even a hint of over the top showmanship that seems to be de rigueur with today’s female divas who revel is showing off their range or raspiness. Instead we find nuance, spacing and silky smooth transitions.

The finale is a sparse upbeat duo version of Porter’s “Anything Goes” featuring Sinne’s lilting voice and her accomplished pianist Christoffersen. The two musically dance with each other and around the melody in a comfortable rendering that accentuates the Porter wit.

If Dreams doesn’t make this Danish wonder woman, Sinne Eeg, into a familiar name in the world of jazz music than people are simply not listening.

Jazzmeia Horn's "Social Call" A Impressive New Voice

Jazzmeia Horn  A Social Call Prestige PRS 00112

It should be no surprise that twenty-six-year old jazz vocalist Jazzmeia Horn is one of the most impressive new voices on the music scene today. In 2013, then twenty-two-year old Horn won the impressive Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition. Then again in 2015 she captured the even more impressive Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition, which led to a recording contract with the historic Prestige label and her debut album  A Social Call. While the title references Gigi Gryce’s composition Social Call – a song about a one on one interaction between two individual people trying to find a connection-Horn has expanded the concept of “social” on this album to be a timely call for social responsibility.

The woman has a beautiful, supple vocal instrument with a tremendous range and an intonation that has elements of some of her influences-Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson. She recorded this album while she was still pregnant with her daughter. There is a matriarchal strength to the way she sings some of the songs on the album like the gospel tinged “Lift Every Voice and Sing/Moanin’,” (which features a steamin’ trumpet solo by Josh Evans). 

I was especially moved by her poignant and spectral rendition of Jimmy Rowles’ haunting classic “The Peacocks,” a beautiful song that is not an easy to sing well.  Victor Gould should be singled out for his intuitively sensitive rendition of Rowles shimmering pianistic beauty and how well he comps Ms. Horn’s performance. Ms. Horn’s high register inflections at the coda are perhaps the only evidence of her showing some excess of technique where less is warranted.

The opening tune is a splendidly authentic version of Betty Carter’s gymnastic “Tight.” It’s especially grand to hear her elastic rapport with Stacy Dillard’s fluid tenor. She shows equal affinity to the pliable bass work of Ben Williams on her duet openings of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” and on the title tune “Social Call.” Ms. Horn has an easy, unforced scat style that is instrumental at heart and her unique phrasing emotes a deep understanding of the meaning of a finely crafted lyric. She clearly has a gift for the art, but scatting is best served in tasteful moderation, so as she gestates her vocal personality I am sure she will become more judicious in its use as she matures. The horn section of Dillard on tenor, Josh Evans on trumpet and Frank Lacy on trombone is tight, bright and swinging in the tradition of Cannonball Adderley’s work with Nancy Wilson.

Ms. Horn’s heartening monologue on the intro to the Stylistic’s “People Make the World Go Round,” her gospel/free-form vocalizations- in communication with the African drum and percussion work of Jerome Jennings-that Ms. Horn contribute to “Afro Blue/Eye See You/Wade in the Water," gives the album its’ social context. Ms. Horn’s high register squeaks and trills remind me of the expressive yodeling work of Leon Thomas and her spoken word sections conjures up the poetic work of Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone. There is no doubt that she has been studying her vocal history in all its splendid variations. Her voice holds great prospect for the future. Not only has she absorbed these traditions, she has enough vocal discipline and range to pull off the most difficult of these techniques and enough personal assurance to make the end-product sound like her own invention.

Ms. Horn does her own take on the Scherzinger/Mercer pop classic “I Remember You” and on the soulful “I’m Going Down” originally sung by Rose Royce, on the influential soundtrack to the movie Car Wash. Ms. Horn and her formidable horn section make this last one a rousing exclamation point to this wonderful album. I for one will be looking forward to hearing more from this promising young artist