Customer Reviews

A Merry Mancini Christmas

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I come from a very large family and since the mid-sixties when my parents bought it we'd play this album during the holidays. We played it until you could hardly hear some of the songs without the crackling and skipping the LP's were notorious for. By the time it was totally inaudible the LP wasn't being made any longer. We were all crushed because our Christmas mainstay album was gone. (Particularly because we lost both parents some years ago within 2 months of each other and we always listened as a family to this album.) When the CD came out we were overjoyed to say the least. I ALWAYS cry as do all of us in my family when "Carol for Another Christmas" plays because it holds such dear memories of my parents listening to us massacre that song on our instruments EVERY SINGLE CHRISTMAS!!! But they always swore we played beautifully.

You notice the Christmas songs first. Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, blared from mall sound systems and car radios (and hopefully, churches), heard over TV specials and commercials. Regardless of when stores dress for the holidays, the seasonal music signals us to prepare and cheers us while we do. The songs are so beloved and familiar even to casual listeners that any singer or instrumentalist need only keep them anchored to the season's sentiments to render them successfully. In other words, remember what the songs mean and don't get cute.

"A Merry Mancini Christmas" is neither the best Henry Mancini nor traditional Christmas album, but is a tasteful addition for collectors of either style. The legendary composer and arranger plays it straight on the Christmas hymns, delivering tasteful, expansive medleys featuring the beloved "O Holy Night," "O Come All Ye Faithful," and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (which falls beneath Ray Conniff's version).

Despite vocals straight from traditional easy listening (Anita Kerr, Living Voices, Ray Charles Singers), Mancini is more playful on the holiday songs. He smoothes and quickens the tempo of "Little Drummer Boy" takes time wandering through "Winter Wonderland," and adds some jazzy horns to "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer."

Those wanting their Christmas music stringier and schmaltzier are directed to Mantovani and Jackie Gleason's Christmas albums. Their orchestras deliver holiday renditions as over-the-top as a January blizzard. Here, however, a little restraint and a touch of jazz makes a Henry Mancini "Christmas" a brief, merry, and recommended one.

Tasteful, traditional orchestral Christmas music. More importantly, "Carol for Another Christmas" may be the most beautiful Christmas composition of the 20th Century.

This album is for all those baby boomers out there who grew up listening to the great Mancini. Someone said this album was pedestrian. They couldn't have been farther from the truth! This will rekindle childhood memories of Christmas like it used to be. Pull up a chair by the fire, grab that warm apple cider, turn the Christmas lights on and enjoy!

To me, this album represents one the best part of Christmas - Childhood. Although most of the songs are very familiar, the arrangements, even when I was a young girl, stayed in my mind as special. The track "Carol For Another Christmas" was so beautiful and opened our fresh minds to the idea that the birth of Jesus meant different things to different cultures. I remember we danced a clumsy ballet to it, thinking that we were as good as any professional. My whole family knows every nuance to this album and I'm looking so forward to seeing their faces when they unwrap this present from us.

Each track on this "A Merry Mancini Christmas" cd is wonderfully arranged and performed and will put you in a Holiday mood! Fun and creative tracks "Jingle Bells / Sleigh Ride," "Winter Wonderland / Silver Bells," and "Frosty The Snowman / Rudolph The Red-Nosed Rheindeer" will have you wanting to put up the tree and start decorating! While selections of "The Christmas Song" and "White Christmas" will have you settling down by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate, to relax while visions of sugar plums dance through your head. "A Merry Mancini Christmas" has that '60's flavor of catchy jazz tunes and lush elegant arrangments. A Christmas time music essential!

This 1966 album by HENRY MANCINI - A MERRY MANCINI CHRISTMAS, is an album of beautiful, orchestra music or jazzy/big band music with some great chorus singing.

Being a Henry mancini album, though, the music is sometimes laid back for a great deal of it. The orchestra doesn't jump out at you song after song like PERCY FAITH'S - CHRISTMAS IS orchestra/chorus album FROM 1966 does. Rather, it sometimes seems to provide more of an almost (yet very beautiful) small band/jazz combo backing up a chorus of singers.

Songs like THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, the medley of JINGLE BELLS and SLEIGHRIDE, and the medley of FROSTY THE SNOWMAN and RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER are typical of this wonderful small band combo style. However, THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY has a real beautiful and lush string instrumental part in it where Mancini really hits his 'A' game and JINGLE BELLS has what many call a classic big band/jazz instrumental part in it. There are also many fabulous christmas styled brass sounds in these songs, especially FROSTY THE SNOWMAN and RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER. And let me add that all these songs are all wonderful versions of each of them and sometimes among my favorite versions. And the chorus, they shine greatly here too, perhaps almost if not as great as any chorus you're likely to hear. The chorus sound like a smaller chorus, very much like the 8 person chorus called the LIVING VOICES. A couple of the songs (both music and chorus) even sound similar to the 1965 album by the LIVING VOICES - THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY (songs such as SLEIGHRIDE).

Some of the album is, however, very much the large orchestra that Mancini is famous for. Songs like WHITE CHRISTMAS, THE CHRISTMAS SONG, and the medley of WINTER WONDERLAND and SILVER BELLS uses the orchestra to the maximum. And the chorus shines in these songs too. These songs would also be among my favorite versions of each of them.

The religious songs which make up the second half of the album are all just as great and beautiful as the first half (the popular, non-religious songs).

The orchestra is sometimes minimal and sometimes used very fully just like the first half of this lp, but always very great just as is the chorus. Songs like IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR, AWAY IN A MANGER, SILENT NIGHT, etc.... are all top rated versions of the songs and this album is one of the few (out of perhaps 100's of christmas cd's I own) that I don't skip a song to get to the next. It is, without any doubt, one of my favorite all-time christmas albums with such a beautiful and fun christmas sound throughout.

If you like albums like the LIVING VOICES - THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, PERCY FAITH- CHRISTMAS IS, LIVING STRINGS AND LIVING VOICES - WHITE CHRISTMAS (1968), and LAWRENCE WELK - 22 MERRY CHRISTMAS FAVORITES (compilation cd), then you should really like this cd as well.

This album is pretty much a masterpiece of christmas music and may very well become your favorite christmas cd. It is one of the few that would make for the perfect background christmas music for when you have company (family and friends) over during the holidays, but also for your own listening pleasure. I would consider this a must have christmas cd.

This is the Christmas album you are always saying "who is this" when listening on the radio. Perfect for all ages.

This album is basically Christmas music in the Mancini manner, with his usual smooth choral arrangements of standard holiday fare. The added gem on this album is "Carol for Another Christmas" which is not a Christmas carol at all, but the theme Mancini wrote for a made-for-TV movie of the same name. It was a modern re-telling of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and was produced under the auspices of the United Nations in the late 1960"s (with a couple of other titles, "Who Has Seen the Wind?" and "The Poppy is Also a Flower" among them). I believe the screenplay for "Carol" was written by Rod Serling, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, the theme is a real Mancini find, a wistful, nostalgic melody, the kind he does so well. So, while I cannot recommend this album as holiday fare, I love the fact that it has that little-known theme on it. I hope you will, too.

Just Great

This album of Christmas music is a work of art. It is just great.
This brought back memories from years ago when I first bought this album on vinyl.