Mancini a Hit With Philadelphians
by Don A. Metivier, The Post-Star, August 14, 1978
“I want to thank Eugene Ormandy for the use of the band, they were great,” Henry Mancini told a sold-out crowd at Saratoga Performing Arts Center Saturday evening as he and the Philadelphia Orchestra received a standing ovation.
Mancini and the “band,” the 100 members of the Philadelphia Orchestra joined by five jazz musicians who travel with Mancini, had performed a concert of pop music, much of it written and all of it arranged by Mancini.
Mancini is credited with changing the direction of background music for film and television, taking away the massive sound made popular by such writers as Alfred Newman and replacing it with music that had jazz roots.
His breakthrough came on the music for “Peter Gunn,” and he has gone on to become America’s foremost composer and arranger for television and films, gaining 13 nominations and three Oscars for his movie work and 20 Grammy Awards for his records.
The orchestra had fun Saturday night. Musicians got to see the Mancini arrangements for the first time at mid-morning rehearsal, and played the charts like they had studied them for months.
Early on in the concert, Mancini and the orchestra played the academy-award-winning song, “Evergreen,” and the Philadelphia strings demonstrated why they are considered one of the best sections in the world.
Mancini called the moment “an emotional experience; it was beautiful. Aren’t they marvelous?”
The first half of the program featured a variety of movie and television music, with a medley of motion picture songs that demonstrated the progression from Newman’s “Captain from Castile” to John Williams’ “Star Wars Theme.”
Mancini’s new works, “Symphonic Soul” and “Ohio Riverboat,” written about his growing-up days on the Ohio River, opened the second half of the concert.
He concluded the regular portion of the evening with a medley of his hit songs, closing with “Moon River.”
The standing ovation called for an encore, and then a second encore to close, “The Stripper.”
There are those purists who will insist that to have the talent that is the Philadelphia Orchestra perform an evening of light, popular music is a “waste.”
Not so!
Music is meant to be enjoyed, and the large crowd that packed the amphitheatre enjoyed every note, and so did most of the players.
“It was a change, it was fun,” an orchestra member said, “he’s so easy to work with, he’s as nice and smooth as his music.”
One sour note on the evening was the decision to place microphones throughout the orchestra and have the Philadelphians heard over the speaker system. The acoustics of the amphitheatre and the power of the orchestra make that unnecessary and the amplified sound distasteful, along with the amplifier hum. Before the sound system got the tone of the orchestra figured out, it was like listening to a good record on a bad system: you know the quality is in there, but you can’t get it out.
Mancini, who alternated between the podium and the piano bench, is a clever, talented, glib performer who provided one of the summer’s most pleasant evenings of music.
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