Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com / March 02, 2016
Most of Henry Mancini's movie scores are easy on the ear and many have this 1960s relaxed, melancholy optimism that was so much a part of the feel back then. His soundtracks inhale and exhale uniformly and build a mood with jazzy pearls-and-champagne grace that was unmatched in Hollywood scoring. Much of this luster and sparkle came from Mancini's understated swing and inventive instrumentation—placing a harpsichord on top of strings with flutes or a bass clarinet, for example. His airy textures were inventive and lustrous.
His most familiar scores are those from the 1960s—roughly from TV's Mr. Lucky in 1960 to Darling Lili in 1970. But Mancini scored films up to 1993, with Son of the Pink Panther being the last before his death in1994. Listening to many of these post-1970 soundtracks while writing over the past week, I stumbled upon a perfect gem that escaped me until now: his score for The Thief Who Came to Dinner, a movie directed by Bud Yorkin and released in 1973 about a computer programmer who quits his job to become a jewel thief. Enough said.
The score, however, is another matter. As Scott Bettencourt and Lukas Kendall write in the liner notes to the CD, "Always a master of orchestral color, Mancini designed an ensemble blending orchestral and 'mod' elements that updated his '60s cocktail-dramatic sound for the Shaft era: the orchestra totaled 55 players at most." [Photo above of Jacqueline Bisset and Ryan O'Neal]
The score is pure joy all the way through and as authentic an early-'70s movie sound as you'll find—sunken living rooms and shag rugs meet long sideburns and muscle cars. It has some of the swaggering intrigue of Lalo Schifrin's score for Bullitt (1968) but with Mancini's gin-cool melodies and sighing nocturnal dash. I can't stop listening to it.
Here's the Love Theme for Laura...
And here's Settle Down, a nifty bossa nova from the score...
A special thanks to David Langner.
Used with permission by Marc Myers
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