John Williams, Quincy Jones Salute Henry Mancini With New ‘Peter Gunn’

The centennial of Henry Mancini, composer of “The Pink Panther,” “Moon River” and different film songs, isn’t till 2024. However the celebration started on Thursday when an all-star parade of Oscar, Emmy and Grammy-winning musicians obtained collectively to re-record one in all his most well-known works: “Peter Gunn.”

With legendary composers John Williams and Herbie Hancock on keyboards, jazz nice Arturo Sandoval on trumpet and music mogul Quincy Jones conducting an 18-piece band of L.A. session gamers, Mancini’s 1958 TV theme rocked the Warner Bros. scoring stage all afternoon.

It was outdated residence week for a lot of, who seemingly spent half the three-hour session embracing, laughing and snapping photographs. Williams and Jones referred to as one another “Q” and “John T.,” the nicknames they’d when the 2 have been toiling side-by-side at Common Tv within the Nineteen Sixties, earlier than every began amassing Oscars and Grammys for his or her work in movies and data.

Williams, 90, was the one member of the band who was truly on the unique “Peter Gunn” recording classes 64 years in the past. He not solely carried out on the “Peter Gunn” soundtrack album – which received the very first Album of the 12 months Grammy – he additionally performed piano on the weekly scores for “Gunn,” a private-eye sequence that ran on NBC from 1958-1961.

“He had an exquisite, populist contact,” Williams informed Selection after the session. “Issues like this, ‘Peter Gunn,’ and people fantastic songs. Individuals picked up instantly on the broad humanity in his music. He was very gifted. He was a baby of the big-band period so he knew that faculty of writing very effectively. He linked with individuals and so they with him. That’s why we all know and love him.”

Jones, 89, added: “I wouldn’t have been a movie composer with out Sidney Poitier, Sidney Lumet and Henry Mancini,” he mentioned. “Henry had my again, man, they didn’t rent brothers in these days,” he added, referring to the mid-Nineteen Sixties when Common was skeptical about trusting a Black composer with an orchestral movie rating. Mancini, already a serious determine in Hollywood, assured Jones’ work.

Sandoval referred to as Mancini “one in all our largest heroes,” and Hancock mentioned he was “on the prime, with all the best. He was so sort, so selfless, regardless that he had tons of Grammys and Oscars. He did a lot.”

Producer Gregg Area supervised the session, which included Hancock soloing on synthesizer, Sandoval reaching his common excessive notes, and Williams offering help on piano.

Mancini’s twin daughters, Monica and Felice, have been additionally available for the historic session. Monica Mancini, a Grammy-nominated singer, defined that they’re beginning work on a documentary that may focus as a lot on the music as on the person, and that the “Peter Gunn” recording (documented through cameras throughout the stage) might be “one piece of the puzzle. We have now one other three or 4 to slot in,” and people (to be recorded over the following yr or so) are anticipated to incorporate such different Mancini hits as “Moon River,” “The Pink Panther” and “Child Elephant Stroll.”

Felice Mancini, president and CEO of the Mr. Holland’s Opus Basis, spoke of watching middle-school performances of “Peter Gunn” earlier within the day on YouTube and noting that this isn’t uncommon. “Working in faculties as I do every day, I hear them taking part in his music on a regular basis,” she mentioned.

The Mancinis are planning a live performance tour, each within the U.S. and overseas, in addition to the documentary and different occasions but to be introduced.

Henry Mancini received 20 Grammys and 4 Oscars throughout his 40 years as a composer for movies, TV and data. Whereas his largest hits have been “Gunn,” “Pink Panther” and “Moon River,” he was additionally accountable for such in style film songs as “The Days of Wine and Roses,” “Charade,” “Two for the Street” and the songs in “Victor/Victoria.”

He was the primary film composer to change into a family title in America and among the many first to frequently carry out movie music in live performance. His different TV hits included “Mr. Fortunate,” the “NBC Thriller Film” theme, signature tunes for “Newhart” and “Remington Steele,” and the rating for the wildly in style Nineteen Eighties miniseries “The Thorn Birds.” He died of most cancers in 1994.