Customer Reviews

Martinis With Mancini

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading luke-warm reviews, I went ahead and bought this album anyway. No regrets. It has a lot of cool music that you won't find on typical Mancini compilations. A combo of alternative versions of old standards and obscurities, it's well-suited for cocktails and light conversation. Mancini's a genius, and this gives you a good sense of the depth of his work.

I have several tapes/cd by Mancini but this cd however has got to be my favorite. The title is perfect for the selections on this cd. There are 20 selection in all and I simply love all of them. The selections are sophisicated and smooth with a touch of jazz. Just awesom!

An offbeat sampler, titled to take advantage of the lounge music thing. Some of it is lounge although one can also consider it first rate dancing music. With 20 cuts, the price is right, unless you have all those original LPs & want to make your own tape.

Bob Rixon, WFMU-FM

I'm a big fan of Henry Mancini and, although I think this is a decidedly fun and otherwise quite decent collection of some of his work, I think it suffers from its lack of variety.

Although I would venture to say that the work of Mancini with which most people are likely familiar is the fast, latin-flavored lounge of which this album is mostly comprised, he was capable of a wide range of musical styles that really isn't adequately captured here. Although there are jazzy numbers like "The Chaser" and "The Beat," MARTINIS leaves out some of what is, in my opinion, some of his most beautiful work - the soothing, distinctly elegant music like "Royal Blue" from the soundtrack of THE PINK PANTHER, several tracks from the BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S soundtrack (including its famous "Moon River," of which there is only a "cha cha" version on MARTINIS), as well as "Bateau Mouche" and "Charade" from the soundtrack of (of course) CHARADE. "The Pink Panther Theme" itself would have been a nice addition to this collection, as well, as it's more than likely his most famous work and a remarkably sexy piece, at that.

I suppose that the argument could be made that the tracks I'm suggesting don't exactly typify what the public at large consider "martini music" or true lounge music, but I counter with the argument that these tracks are more than classy enough to accompany the sipping of martinis and that lounges, by their very nature, are historically home to not only the lively, escapist, latin-spiced lounge music featured on MARTINIS, but also to the still elegant, but slower, more mellow (and often melancholy) lounge music that hints at all those things in life that make the sipping of martinis and hanging around in lounges necessary in the first place.

Buy MARTINIS WITH MANCINI and have a blast. When you're ready to mellow out, however, check out the soundtracks to THE PINK PANTHER, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S and CHARADE and remind yourself that the man Audrey Hepburn called the "hippest of cats" knew that variety was, indeed, the spice of life.

Look, we are all of the same mind here....buy all the originals while they last, because Mancini is the next Mahler, Bach or Mozart..after all he was that prolific and always on the mark. That typical almost discordant sound that made everything from Gunn to Lucky sound uniquely Henry.
If you have not guessed it, these posts also make another key point. If you are a Mancini fan, as we all are, some of his best stuff got shadowed by the MOR money-makers for Messr. Henri!
And to another writer elsewhere on this composer's listing...NO he NEVER made a bad soundtrack!

This stands as Mancini's greatest achievement in his end-career stage. The theme song itself haunts you.

Justly, it has become a jazz standard, played to great effect by many, many talented jazz musicians.

And yet, as memorable as it is, the tune carries a sad sort of feeling in its intensely romantic frame.

The movie (itself fairly forgettable) posed a problem for the composer: it's the story of a constantly bickering couple taking a long trip together. How can you back this up with appropriate music?

So, many of the tracks seem disconnected, I think because of the inevitably mixed premise we have operating here. Mancini was a thorough professional.

But, if you're feeling fancy-free, come wander through this world with me. The unexpected poignancy of this title tune does not, for some reason, make it into the various "best of" collections of Mancini's work, and I do not know why. It's one of his all-time best works.