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Category:    Home > Reviews > Movie Soundtrack > Multi Channel Music > Ultimate Mancini (SACD)

Ultimate Mancini (SACD)

 

PCM 2.0 Stereo: B     DSD 5.1: A-     Extras: C-     Music: B

 

 

In honor of his passing, Henry Mancini’s daughter Monica has put together a new set of recordings of her father’s many great compositions for Ultimate Mancini (2004), a boldly titled set that has its moments.  On the good side, the selections are of prime compositions many are familiar with, made better in being issued in the Super Audio Compact Disc format.  On the other hand, the approach of the whole album is to treat all the compositions like they are happy and upbeat, no matter what their original edge or intent.  The tracks are:

 

1)     The Pink Panther Theme (Extended Version)

2)     Charade Theme

3)     Two For The Road Theme

4)     Moon River (from Breakfast At Tiffany’s with Stevie Wonder & Take 6)

5)     Moment To Moment Theme

6)     Days Of Wine & Roses Theme

7)     Peter Gunn Theme: Peter Gunn Suite

8)     Peter Gunn Theme: Dreamsville

9)     Dear Heart Theme

10)  Thorn Birds Theme

11)  Anywhere The Heart Goes (Meggie’s Theme) (from The Thorn Birds)

12)  Mr. Lucky Theme

13)  Whistling Away The Dark (from Darling Lili)

14)  Movie Medley: Life In A Looking Glass (from That’s Life)

15)  Movie Medley: Crazy World (from Victor/Victoria)

16)  Movie Medley: It’s Easy To Say (from Blake Edward’s “10”)

17)  Music On The Way (from The Molly Maguires)

18)  BONUS TRACK: Soldier In The Rain theme

 

 

All the songs are well orchestrated, but the Peter Gunn Theme seems a tad lighter than it should be, while the one sour cover is easily Charade.  It is bad enough dozens of awful versions of the film still circulate on DVD and lesser home video formats, while The Criterion Collection has issued the film twice with color trouble, making it a far from definitive release.  This performance would make one think the film is a light comedy at best.  If you can still get it, we highly recommend the Limited Edition JVC XRCD2 series CD printing of Henry Mancini’s original Charade soundtrack.  It has some of the best sound quality of an older soundtrack on CD you will ever hear.  Maybe RCA will do an actual SACD of it down the line.

 

On Moon River, you can immediately tell the harmonica of Stevie Wonder, one of the few music performers who has had as much commercial and critical success as Mancini, as well as collecting as many Grammy Awards.  The a Capella vocal group Take 6 joins him and it is one of the more interesting entries here.  Like Peter Gunn, we have heard The Pink Panther endless times and to hear a recent recording at this level is especially solid here.  How else could you open up this set but with the theme to Mancini’s one blockbuster franchise, especially now that it is on the verge of being revived?  The Thorn Birds remains one of the classic TV mini-series and Mancini’s compositions are one of the reasons why.  This will be especially refreshing to those who are used to hearing the score in analog TV monophonic sound.

 

Several other Blake Edwards films are covered, which is good, as the Mancini/Edwards collaboration is one of the most underrated of any composer/director team in recent film history.  That makes no sense, but the lack of availability of Edwards’ more adult and mature films on DVD is a likely factor.  A popular set like this can go a long way in correcting that.  It should be noted that Edwards occasionally worked with other composers, like Jerry Goldsmith on Wild Rovers (1971; CD soundtrack reviewed elsewhere on this site), but he is most often associated with Mancini.

 

The PCM CD 2.0 Stereo is not a bad tradedown of the original soundmaster, but the 5.1 DSD (Direct Stream Digital) sound is one of the better we have heard in the playback format.  The liner notes explain that the original master tape was transferred to 24-track DSD form and the SACD was made from that.  Gregg Fields is the producer, Doug Sax and James Gutherie did the 5.1 mix.  It is about as impressive as Concord’s other big recent SACD release, Ray Charles – Genius Loves Company (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and that effort pays off.  Even where you think the covers take liberties, they all sound really good.

 

Once again, Concord has included some video footage on an SACD with the CD-ROM/Enhanced CD format showing a collage of footage linked to this music.  This is not as much as might have fit on either of the DVD formats, Audio or Video, but fans will like it.  Though it may not live up to its lofty title, Ultimate Mancini is not bad for a tribute revisiting of one of the 20th Century’s finest composers, and the enlarged version of his commemorative United States Postal Service postage stamp works just fine.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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