Henry Mancini

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Essential Albums

  • The Pink Panther (Music from the Film Score)
    The Pink Panther (Music from the Film Score)
    The Pink Panther (Music from the Film Score)

    Henry Mancini wrote music that both served its movies and encapsulated its times. Jazzy, funky, and always packing a punch, Mancini’s sound was utterly of its day. As a youth, the composer entered The Juilliard School in New York playing Beethoven; during World War II, his US Army service included participating in the liberation of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Later, he worked with the re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra, studied with Ernst Krenek and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and then joined Universal Pictures’ music department in 1952. Mancini’s main theme to The Pink Panther, the 1963 film starring Peter Sellers as hapless French detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau, is full of that gorgeously feline mixture of mystery and loping gait.

  • Breakfast At Tiffany's (Music from the Motion Picture) [Remastered]
    Breakfast At Tiffany's (Music from the Motion Picture) [Remastered]
    Breakfast At Tiffany's (Music from the Motion Picture) [Remastered]

    When we think of Breakfast at Tiffany's, the exquisite "Moon River" immediately comes to mind, whether it's the elegant main title theme or Audrey Hepburn's plaintive guitar-and-voice rendition. But the rest of Henry Mancini's score for this 1961 classic is equally fine, from the dreamy "Sally's Tomato" to the jaunty, jazzy bounce of "Something for the Cat." The Far Eastern exotica of "Mr. Yunioshi" and the south-of-the-border vibe of "Latin Golightly" perfectly capture the film's time and place.

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About Henry Mancini

What makes Henry Mancini’s film music immediately recognizable and evergreen is his infusion of a truly American sound into a European style of film scoring. Born in Cleveland in 1924 and raised in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, Mancini was a supreme craftsman, giving us unforgettable songs like the nostalgic, Oscar-winning “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and “Days of Wine and Roses” from the movie of the same name. Showcasing a different side of his diverse sound palette, the themes for The Pink Panther and for the TV show Peter Gunn have a cool, jazzy presence, echoing the influential Glenn Miller Orchestra, in which Mancini worked as a pianist and arranger after serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. The Mancini sound we know today can be traced back to 1952, when he joined Universal Pictures, working on more than 100 movies in just six years; The Glenn Miller Story (1954) landed him his first Academy Award nomination. In a career that spanned another 40 years, Mancini became both a Hollywood icon and a songwriter of beloved pop standards before passing away in 1994.

HOMETOWN
Cleveland, OH, United States
BORN
April 16, 1924
GENRE
Soundtrack

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