Johnny Mandel
Johnny Mandel (born 23 November 1925 in New York) is an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz.
Among the musicians he has worked with are Count Basie (for whom he arranged in the 1950s), Frank Sinatra (for whom he arranged Ring-A-Ding-Ding, [1960]), Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day and Shirley Horn.
Johnny Mandel studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School. In 1943 he played the trumpet with Joe Venuti, in 1944 with Billy Rogers and trombone in the orchestra of Boyd Raeburn, Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich, Georgie Auld and Chubby Jackson. In 1949 he accompanied the singer June Christy in the orchestra of Bob Cooper. From 1951 till 1953 he played and arranged music in the Band of Elliott Lawrence, and in 1953 with Count Basie. Later he resided in Los Angeles, where he played the bass trumpet for Zoot Sims.
He wrote jazz compositions like "Not Really the Blues" for Woody Herman in 1949, "Hershey Bar" (1950) and "Pot Luck" (1953) for Stan Getz, "Straight Life" (1953) and "Low Life" (1956) for Count Basie as well as "Tommyhawk" (1954) for Chet Baker.
Mandel's most famous compositions include Suicide Is Painless (theme from the movie and TV series M*A*S*H), "Close Enough for Love", "Emily" and "A Time for Love" (nominated for an Academy Award). He has written a great many film scores, perhaps most notably The Sandpiper.
His song The Shadow of Your Smile (Love Theme from The Sandpiper), co-written with Paul Francis Webster, won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Song Oscar and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1966.
He performed an interpretation of Erik Satie's "Gnossiennes #4 and #5" on the piano for the 1979 movie "Being There".
He won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) in 1981 for Quincy Jones' album "Velas", and again in 1991 for Natalie Cole and Nat King Cole's Unforgettable and one year later once more for Shirley Horn's album "Here's to Life".
At the age of 80, he contributed importantly on Tony Bennett's Grammy-awarded 2004 The Art of Romance as the arranger and conducting the orchestra. Both had collaborated before on Bennett's classic Movie Song Album in 1966, for which Mandel arranged and conducted his own two standard film songs and was the album's musical director.
In 2006, Australian comic band Tripod released their CD "Songs From Self Saucing" which features a song titled "Theme From Mash Guy" all about Johnny Mandel (though his name is never mentioned).
Selected discography
- 1958 I Want to Live
- 1965 The Sandpiper
- 1966 The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
- 1970 MASH
External links
- Johnny Mandel at Allmusic
- Johnny Mandel at the Internet Movie Database
- Interview with Marc Myers at JazzWax
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