Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Mandel was born John Alfred Mandel on November 23, 1925 in New York, New York. His mother, an opera singer, discovered he had perfect pitch at age five. Piano lessons ensued but Johnny switched to the trumpet and later the trombone.
Johnny studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Julliard School. By 1943 he was playing trumpet with Joe Venuti, in 1944 with Billy Rogers and then trombone in the bands of Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich, George Auld and Chubby Jackson. In 1949 he accompanied singer June Christy in the Bob Cooper Orchestra, then with Elliot Lawrence’s outfit, followed by a stint with Count Basie and a move to Los Angeles, California to play with Zoot Sims.
In the late Forties and into the Fifties he wrote jazz compositions like “Not Really the Blues” for Woody Herman, “Hershey Bar” and “Pot Luck” for Stan Getz, “Straight Life” and “Low Life” for Count Basie as well as “Tommyhawk” for Chet Baker. Mandel composed, conducted and arranged the music for numerous movie sound tracks with his earliest credited contribution to “I Want To Live” in 1958 being nominated for a Grammy. Mandel’s most famous compositions include “Suicide Is Painless” from M*A*S*H, “Close Enough for Love”, “Emily”, “A Time for Love”, and “The Shadow Of Your Smile” which won an Oscar for Best Song and a Grammy for Song Of The Year in 1966.
Mandel is a recipient of the 2011 NEA Jazz Masters Award, has won several Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Arrangements Accompanying Vocals for Quincy Jones’ Velas, Natalie & Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable and Shirley Horn’s Here’s To Life. He has composed music with lyricists Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Paul Williams and Johnny Mercer; and arranged for Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Diana Krall, The Diva Jazz Orchestra and Ann Hampton Calloway among numerous others.
