Henry Mancini

For a while, Henry Mancini was ubiquitous. It seemed as if he had written the music for every television show and movie there was. If you know him for nothing else, you know him, first, for "Pink Panther" (you'll have to go there, because embedding is disabled), and second, for "Moon River." But that just scratches the surface. I think he did write the music for every television show and movie there was, at least most of the good ones, at least for a while. He had the knack for catchy tunes, but more than that, as Christopher Bray puts it, he had the knack for writing music that pulled you in:

Mancini liked to call his theme tunes question marks—pieces of music that made the audience ask “what’s going on here, and what’s going to happen?” They worked by wrong-footing the listener, by fooling you into thinking they were going to go one way when all the time they were sneaking over somewhere different.

The music for Panther definitely does that job. On the other hand, "Moon River" is very much a song, Mancini's contribution to the Great American Songbook, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Here's the original (plus some extra stardust from Ms. Hepburn—the interwebs are choked with AH tributes):



The song is simple and straightforward and haunting. When Dr. John released his album of Johnny Mercer songs, he talked about that simple phrase, "my huckleberry friend," as being pure Mercer. Definitiely, and yet, I personally don't even know what it means. It is pure Mercer though, pure southern (although AH is anything but). Dr. John's version of the song shows how malleable Mancini's music is (and a lot more southern):



Bray's article about Mancini starts by critiquing a monograph he doesn't seem all that fond of, then he goes on to give us a bio of the composer, and some meaningful thoughts on his career in music and where he fits in the world of pop. Read Crossing You in Style, then go listen to a lot more Mancini music. You'll enjoy it.
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