The Music From Peter Gunn

This is not only a great LP but a key piece of jazz and pop music history. Back in 1958, "Peter Gunn" was one of the unexpected hits of the new television season, capturing the imagination of millions of viewers by mixing private eye action with a jazz setting. Composer Henry Mancini was more than fluent in jazz, and his music nailed down the popularity of the series. With the main title theme, a driving, ominous, exciting piece of music to lead off the album, "The Music from Peter Gunn" became a huge hit, charting extraordinarily high for a television soundtrack and doing so well that RCA Victor came back the next year asking for a second helping ("More Music From Peter Gunn") from Mancini.

Henry Mancini was so successful with his Music from Peter Gunn album that RCA-Victor brought him back into the studio for a second LP's worth of music from the Blake Edwards-produced program. The second Peter Gunn album didn't do as well as the first, but it is almost as strong musically. Notables on the sessions included drummer Shelly Manne, trumpet virtuoso Pete Candoli, and pianist (and future film music giant) John Williams. More Music from Peter Gun is about as strong as anything on Music from Peter Gunn: "Timothy" may have its weak moments of comic effect, but even it includes some diverting trumpet passages, and none of the rest needs any apology or explanation…

While drummer/bandleader Shelly Manne's initial 1959 outing, dedicated to Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn TV scores, was more than just a novelty, this follow-up disc stretches the concept to the absolute limit. Recorded only five months after the release of Shelly Manne & His Men Play Peter Gunn, Son of Gunn!! sounds exactly like what it is: jazz musicians taking ostensibly generic background music for a television show and trying to make something more out of it. Apparently, even Mancini was aware of the challenge these musicians were facing, and encouraged them to apply free interpretations on these ten cuts and not to worry about maintaining a "Mancini feeling." Besides the lack of interesting material, Manne was also working with a brand-new front lineup, as trumpeter Conte Candoli and alto saxophonist Herb Geller were replaced by trumpeter Joe Gordon and tenor man Richie Kamuca. In retrospect, this isn't a horrible set, just one that should have focused less on concept and more on vision.

Henry Mancini - Eight Classic Albums (2014) [4CD Set] {Real Gone Music Remaster}
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© 2014 Real Gone Music | RGMCD097
Jazz / Easy Listening / Stage & Screen / Light Jazz / Soundtrack

This set contains eight Henry Manicini albums, all from his jazz period. Six of these albums were soundtracks written for either television series or for movies. All of the albums, except Hatari, contain twelve tracks. The album identifications and track listings for each CD appear below. The sound quality of this set is fantastic. Mancini recorded over 90 albums, in styles including big band, jazz, light classical and pop. Eight of these albums were certified gold by The Recording Industry Association of America. He had a 20-year contract with RCA Records, resulting in 60 commercial record albums that made him a household name among artists of easy-listening music. Mancini's earliest recordings in the 1950s and early 1960s were of the jazz idiom; with the success of Peter Gunn, Mr. Lucky, and Breakfast at Tiffany's, (all included here)Mancini shifted to primarily recording his own music in record albums and film soundtracks.