Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini on April 16, 1924 in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio and was raised in the steel town of West Aliquippa near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began piccolo lessons at age eight, by 12 began piano lessons and played flute in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, “Sons of Italy”. After graduating from high school he went to Juilliard School of Music and after one year of study was drafted into the Army, where in 1945 was part of the liberation force of a southern Germany concentration camp.
After the war years Mancini entered the music industry as a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra. He went on to broaden his skills in composition, counterpoint, harmony and orchestration during subsequent studies. By 1952 he joined the Universal Pictures music department and over the next six years contributed music to over 100 movies, most notably The Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story, Touch of Evil and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was also during this period that he wrote his first hit single for Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians titled I Won’t Let You Out of My Heart.
Henry left Universal International to work as an independent composer and arranger in 1958 and soon scored the television series Peter for writer and producer Blake Edwards. This was the genesis of a relationship in which Edwards and Mancini collaborated on 30 films over 35 years and was one of several pioneers introducing jazz elements in the late romantic orchestral film and TV scoring prevalent at the time.
Mancini’s scored film songs Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, The Pink Panther, A Time For Us, Baby Elephant Walk, and the Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet as well as many TV shows and movies such as the Thorn Birds, Peter Gunn and Remington Steele. Among his many singers he worked with frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Julie London, Peggy Lee among a host of others. He recorded over 90 albums, eight certified gold by the RIAA, a twenty-year contract with RCA that culminated in 60 commercial albums. Many of his songs have become jazz standards, most notably, Charade, Moment To Moment, Two For The Road, Love Story, Slow Hot Wind, Moonlight Sonata, The Pink Panther, The Days of Wine and Roses and Moon River.
Composer, arranger and conductor Henry Mancini died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles, California on June 14, 1994. He was working at the time on the Broadway stage version of Victor/Victoria, which he never saw on stage. Mancini was nominated for an unprecedented 72 Grammys, winning 20; nominated for 18 Academy Awards, winning four; won a Golden Globe Award, nominated for two Emmys, was posthumously Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and honored with a 37 cent postage stamp in 2004.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Coco Rouzier was born on April 14, 1966 in Washington, DC and began singing as a child by imitating the sounds that came from her mother. She sang in the Concert Choir at Kelly Miller Jr. High School taught her harmony. While working summers in musical theater she learned acting and subsequent immersion into cabaret taught her to and learned to connect intimately with the audience.
While at Howard University, Rouzier won the amateur singing contest and that led her straight to the Apollo Theater in New York City where she performed on “It’s Showtime at the Apollo”. New York City become her home, where she discovered jazz and started to swing with The Jerry Kravat NY Orchestra, now called Tribeca Rhythm.
Coco’s performances have garnered her the labels of a Jazz Diva in France, the Soulful Swinging Songstress in America, and The Jewel in China. She has performed in Norway on some of stages her heroes stood decades before. As yet she has not led her own recording session to showcase her own style she has developed and for the past 15 years. Vocalist Coco Rouzier continues to perform for audiences around the world with a blend of straight-ahead swing, blues and old-school soul.
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Hollywood To 52nd Street
Beyond the Sea was originally titled La Mer, and the lyrics were written by sixteen-year old French lad named Charles Trenet. It wasn’t until 1943 while riding on a train that he composed the music for the song. Jacques Lawrence translated the original French lyrics into what has been widely known to the English-speaking world as Beyond The Sea. Though already a hit around the world as La Mer, it became a huge hit for jazz singer Bobby Darin and has been associated with him ever since.
The song became the title of the 2004 Bobby Darin biopic starring Kevin Spacey and has been heard in the 1995’s French Kiss starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, and as the end music for the 2011 film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and in the 2003 movie Finding Nemo.
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Requisites
This is My Beloved, recorded by Arthur Prysock, eight years before the author, Walter Benton, death in 1976. His recitation of the poems written in diary form are addressed to Lillian and is set to a beautifully scored background of jazz. The book was first published in 1943 and became one of the bet selling books of poetry, selling over 350,000 copies at that time. This landmark recording is a necessity for every collector who has ever wanted to understand love.
Record Label: Verve
Record Date: December 16,1968 / Los Angeles, California
Producer: Hy Weiss, Pete Spargo
Music Accompaniment Composer: Mort Garson
Liner Notes: Helen Hanff
Playing Time: 37 Minutes
Songs: I Need Your Love, Your Eyes, Your Words, Your Body Makes Eyes At Me, Come Love Me, I Was Very Tired And Lonely, You Did Not Come, I Stood Long Where You Left Me, Each Season, Every Year, Eleven Years, Remembering How We Could Be Warm Together, Sleeping…So Still, So Still, I Shall Wish For You
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbert Alpert was born on March 31, 1935 and raised in the Boyle Heights section of East Los Angeles, California. His family was Jewish, emigrating from Radomyshl, now present day Ukraine and Romania. His father, a talented mandolin player, his mother taught violin, and his older brother a drummer. He began trumpet lessons at the age of eight and played at dances as a teenager. Acquiring an early wire recorder in high school, he experimented on this crude equipment.
Following graduation in 1952, he joined the U.S. Army and frequently performed at military ceremonies. After his service in the Army, Alpert tried his hand at acting, but eventually settled on pursuing a career in music. While attending the University of Southern California he became a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band, and appeared in the un-credited role as “Drummer on Mt. Sinai” in the film The Ten Commandments in 1056. In 1962, he had an un-credited part in a scene in the film Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation, playing a solo in a dance band.
In 1957, Alpert teamed up with Rob Weerts, co-wrote a number of Top 20 hits including Baby Talk for Jan & Dean and Wonderful World for Sam Cooke. By 1960 he was signed with RCA Records as a vocalist under the name of Dore Alpert.
In 1962 along with Jerry Moss they founded A&M Records and their very first hit was “The Lonely Bull” adapted from the mariachi bands and the cheers of bullfighting spectators. The title song reached No. 6 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and became A&M’s first album with the original release number being #101.
By the end of 1964, with top session players he began touring with the Tijuana Brass. Television specials followed by 1967, as well as two albums, Whipped Cream and Other Delights and Going Places. The single “A Taste Of Honey” won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year.
The Brass would go on to perform the title tack to the first movie version of Casino Royale in 1967. His music would be used on The Dating Game, bringing him greater exposure. The band would win six Grammy Awards, fifteen of their albums went gold, fourteen platinum, and in 1966 outsold the Beatles.
Alpert’s only No. 1 single during this period, and the first No. 1 hit for his A&M label, was a solo effort of “This Guy’s In Love With You” by Bacharach/David. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Alpert enjoyed a successful solo career. In 1979 he had his biggest instrumental hit titled “Rise”. He would go on to work with Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson and Lisa Keith. He performs with Gato Barbieri, Rita Coolidge, Brian Culbertson, and others. With his wife kani Hall (Sergio Mendes fame), they have released the live album Anything Goes. In 2013, he released a new album, Steppin’ Out which won a Grammy.
Herb and Moss received a Grammy Trustees Award, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2013, has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, and received the “El Premio Billboard” for his contributions to Latin music. Trumpeter, pianist, vocalist, composer, arranger, songwriter, record producer of jazz, Latin and pop music continues to perform, record and tour.
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