___ _ __ __
___/ (_)_________(_)___/ /__ ____ / /_
/ __ / / ___/ ___/ / __ / _ \/ __ \/ __/
/ /_/ / (__ |__ ) / /_/ / __/ / / / /_
\__,_/_/____/____/_/\__,_/\___/_/ /_/\__/
d i s s i d e n t
_______________________________________________________________________
a r t i s t : Henry Mancini
t i t l e : The Music from "Peter Gunn" (re-issued w/ bonus tracks)
d a t e : 1959/1999
l a b e l : Living Stereo/Buddha Records
g e n r e : Soundtrack/Easy Listening
r l s. d a t e : Oct/2003
t r a c k s : 16
b i t r a t e : 224kbps
s i z e : 87,8 MB
_______________________________________________________________________
AMG REVIEW: This is not only a great CD but a key piece of jazz and
pop music history. Back in 1958, Peter Gunn was one of the unexpected
hits of the new television season, capturing the imagination of
millions of viewers by mixing private eye action with a jazz setting.
Essential to the character of private investigator Peter Gunn (Craig
Stevens) was that his base of operations was a jazz roadhouse called
Mother's, and the jazz music background figured prominently in the
scoring. Composer Henry Mancini, a classically trained pianist/
arranger/composer with a big-band background, who'd spent much of
the previous decade working in near anonymity at Universal Pictures,
was chosen by director/producer Blake Edwards to write the score for
Peter Gunn. Although he later became associated with a string of hit
movie soundtracks in a pop vein ("Moon River" from Breakfast at
Tiffany's, etc.) and easy listening albums, Mancini was more than
fluent in jazz, and his music nailed down the popularity of the
series. With the main title theme, a driving, ominous, exciting
piece of music to lead off the album, the Peter Gunn soundtrack
became a huge hit, charting extraordinarily high for a television
soundtrack and doing so well that RCA-Victor came back asking for a
second LP of music from the series the next year. The music holds
up: "Session at Pete's Pad" is a superb workout for the trumpets of
Pete Candoli, Uan Rasey, Conrad Gozzo, and Frank Beach, while Victor
Feldman's vibraphone and John Williams' (yes, the future film music
giant) piano are the dominant instruments on "Soft Sounds"; Barney
Kessel's electric guitar gets the spotlight during "Dreamsville,"
which is also a great showcase for Williams' fluid piano; guitarist
Bob Bain gets to show off his bluesy solo technique on "The Floater";
and "Sorta Blue" and "Fallout" are full ensemble pieces that
constitute quintessential "cool" West Coast jazz of the period. In
other words, it's all virtuoso orchestral jazz, presented in its
optimum form. The Peter Gunn soundtrack was previously available on
an RCA CD, but in 1999 the reactivated Buddha Records label gave it
a new and sharper digital transfer and added the four best tracks off
of More Music From Peter Gunn to bring it up to nearly an hour's
running time and restoring the rich "Living Stereo" ambience off the
original LP to the CD. The tracks off the second LP, "Walkin' Bass,"
"Blue Steel," "Spook!," and "Blues for Mother's" are all worth the
inclusion, some of the coolest jazz ever written and recorded for
television, with superb solo passages. "Blue Steel," in particular,
is a killer guitar showcase on which Bob Bain's electric chording
shares the spotlight with the saxes and trumpets. The improved sound
and the extra tracks definitely justify the upgrade for those who own
the old CD and make this a doubly valuable addition to any jazz or
soundtrack collection of the era. - Bruce Eder
_______________________________________________________________________
01-Peter Gunn [02:07]
02-Sorta Blue [02:58]
03-The Brothers Go The Mother's [02:56]
04-Dreamsville [03:56]
05-Session At Pete's Pad [04:00]
06-Soft Sounds [03:35]
07-Fallout! [03:16]
08-The Floater [03:18]
09-Slow And Easy [03:07]
10-A Profound Grass [03:20]
11-Brief And Breezy [03:33]
12-Not From Dixie [04:10]
13-Walkin' Bass (bonus track) [04:24]
14-Blue Steel (bonus track) [03:44]
15-Spook! (bonus track) [02:59]
16-Blues For Mother's (bonus track) [03:19]
-------
54:42 min
_______________________________________________________________________
e m a i l: diss@subdimension.com
inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes