A Merry Mancini Christmas and More

This post presents Henry Mancini's well-known holiday LP A Merry Mancini Christmas, along with other seasonal favorites by the great composer and arranger. This is a joint post with Christmas music maestro Ernie.

To the LP we've added five songs from the Mancini catalog along with three voice tracks from the man himself (Hank, not Ernie).

Note that Mancini made a great many recordings, so I may have missed some seasonal items. Let me know if anything comes to mind. Also note that there are a few deliberate omissions, which are explained at the end of the post.

A Merry Mancini Christmas

Despite what the cover photo may suggest, this is not a familial enterprise a la The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas, even though both Henry's wife Ginny O'Connor Mancini and his daughter Monica (at right) were singers. No, it's the usual orchestral and choral effort you might expect from Hank.

Most of the LP is standard fare - "The Little Drummer Boy," "The Christmas Song," "White Christmas" and a medley of "Jingle Bells" and "Sleigh Ride" on side one, and three carol medleys on the other side. 

The one exception is a Mancini instrumental called "Carol for Another Christmas," whose ambiguous title is perhaps appropriate to a diffident melody that never achieves Mancini levels of memorability. The melody comes from a 1964 Rod Serling-scripted television film of that name, which was an updating of Dickens' A Christmas Carol for the age of nuclear weapons. Mancini wrote the score.

All in all, the LP makes for pleasant listening, but does not entirely fulfill the high expectations of the Mancini fan who happens to be writing these words. That said, it's a favorite of many people.

More Songs and Voice Tracks

The extra items start with a short Christmas greeting from Mancini, courtesy Ernie, followed by Hank's excellent version of Claude Thornhill's "Snowfall," which he makes sound new, partially by taking the ostinato away from the piano and giving it to Bob Bain's guitar. This selection comes from the terrific 1959 LP The Mancini Touch.

The composer returned to the winter theme in his fantastic score for the 1963 film Charade. This is in the form of his "Latin Snowfall," which is unrelated to Thornhill's tune.

"Latin Snowfall" is an Ernie contribution, as are all the following items. First we have the old favorite "Baby, It's Cold Outside." It always sounds strange to me sung by a group as it is here, but Mancini makes it work. This is from his 1966 set The Academy Award Songs. (Frank Loesser won an Oscar for the song's use in 1949's Neptune's Daughter, even though he wrote the song five years earlier.)

At right is the Army Reserve promo cover

Next we have a minute-long holiday greeting that Hank taped for the US Army Reserve in 1976. Mancini was a polished presenter, particularly considering that this was likely a cold reading.

The two final songs come from one of the Goodyear's final promotional Christmas LPs - Henry Mancini Selects Great Songs of Christmas by Great Artists of Our Time, from 1975. Hank anointed himself as one of the great artists and who can blame him?

The Goodyear promo

Mancini's numbers lead off the LP and close it. They are "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? / Auld Lang Syne." You can tell these arrangements are from that era because of the prominent electric bass line throughout. The album also include a Mancini recording of "White Christmas," but this is taken from A Merry Mancini Christmas.

To end the set, we have New Year's greetings from Hank. This comes from the same circa 1965 promo record that also contained the Christmas greetings mentioned above.

Omissions

Ernie reminded me that Mancini's score for the film Gaily, Gaily includes a number called "Christmas Eve on Skid Row," which is in the form of a wrenching soliloquy by Melina Mercouri that ends in death. We left it out.

Also, he notes that Mancini wrote the score for Santa Claus: the Movie in 1985, with songs by Leslie Bricusse. It's so much later than these other materials that it's not included here.

Thanks again to Ernie for his sterling contributions and good cheer, and be sure to join him on his blog for his traditional onslaught of Christmas audio goodies. Also, if you are interested in collecting the Goodyear Christmas LPs, Ernie has a checklist available on Discogs.

LINK