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A work of unrelenting intensity, 1958's
I Want to Live stands as a benchmark of American film. Taking on a grab bag of then-taboo topics--prostitution, gambling, drug addiction--and presenting them in a morally ambiguous, unorthodoxly grim context,
I Want to Live predated the "new Hollywood" revolution wrought by such films as
Bonnie and Clyde and
Easy Rider by nearly a decade. With its unprecedented all-jazz score,
Live's music is no less trailblazing. A meta soundtrack of sorts, this collection actually functions as two LPs in one, documenting the performances of
Gerry Mulligan's seven-piece band, who appears in the film, and the larger jazz ensemble underscore that sets the pace and tone for some of
Live's most memorable scenes. While Mulligan's combo swings with characteristic cool, it's the ensemble pieces that really stun. Composer Johnny Mandel intentionally chose an odd array of lead instruments and linked all his compositions with an arsenal of percussion to add to the film's edge of your seat/edge of sanity allure. The achieved effect is by turns moody and impressionistic, deliberate and plodding. Whatever the mood,
Live's clench on the listener is positively physical.
--Matt Hanks
From the Label
An acclaimed motion picture of its time,
I Want To Live! earned six Academy Award® nominations including Best Actress (Susan Hayward), Best Director (Robert Wise), Best Screenplay (Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz), Best Cinematography (Lionel Lindon), Best Editing (William Hornbeck) and Best Sound (Samuel Goldwyn Studio Sound Department). A category that Oscar® voters conspicuously overlooked, however, was the film's music, which broke all the rules with a uniquely all-jazz score. Not part jazz, not pseudo-jazz, but pure jazz.
Composer John (Johnny) Mandel was born in 1925, and started out as a trombonist and trumpet player. He took early lessons in arranging from bandleader Van Alexander ("A Tisket, A Tasket") and as a teenager was already playing some dates with violinist Joe Venuti. Mandel was educated at the Manhattan School of Music and at Juilliard. Starting out in big bands, he worked with Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Jimmy Dorsey and, later, Artie Shaw. When he wasn't performing, he spent a lot of time composing, or cooking up band arrangements.
