Customer Reviews

Piano Jazz

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Mancini is not a fascinating talker, but interviews with him were pretty rare. He's quite honest about what his music was, and the two of them playing together is fun. What else is Mancini's music about?

This is a very pleasant talk with the great Henry Mancini, sitting at the piano. To hear his voice, to even detect his shyness in certain times is a very emotional trip for his fans.

Mancini talks about some of his compositions and plays some of them in an agreeable interview adequately conducted by Ms. McParland.

There can be no denying that Henry Mancini was a major force in American popular music. His beautiful TV and motion picture themes are touching, inspiring and timeless. Unfortunately those characteristics didn't seem to carry over into his personality and he was a surprisingly bland conversationalist. When Marian asks him how he got into composition he tells her he has no idea. When she asks him how he came to write the Pink Panther Theme he replies, "What else would you write for a Pink Panther?" Not terribly enlightening. Between the two of them they perform eight Mancini compositions. Given the talent of the pianists involved they are all performed proficiently, but Mancini's music is best served by a full orchestra as it was intended. There's plenty of name dropping throughout this program (which was recorded in 1985) but not much insight into the man. If you buy it you'll probably enjoy parts of it, just don't expect any major revelations.