If I remember correctly all of Mancini's RCA albums have now been re-issued in one form or another (apart from one live album). It's great to see this finally happen. I wonder if we will get more Mancini re-issues from Dutton...
I'm struggling to decide on this new release. Whilst I love much of Mr. Mancini's output, these easy-listening albums can be hit and miss.
His album A Warm Shade of Ivory is superb! Six Hours Past Sunset is pretty good, too. I'm not so fond of Theme from 'Z' ... . And, I heard the album The Mancini Generation many years ago - a poor library copy with much surface noise! - and was not impressed. But my tastes have broadened over thirty years and today - in clear CD sound - who knows.
The track listing for the album Hangin' Out - with those iconic themes from the 1970s: Love Theme and TSOP - are most off-putting. Still, I'd probably enjoy some of the other tracks.
"The Mancini Generation" was the syndicated musical variety show hosted by Mancini for one season ('72-73), and featured musical guests and sometimes had shows done on location.
A truly lovely theme. A shame that it's not available on CD - as are many other single titles by Mancini. Unfortunately, a serious re-issue project of his single titles could only be carried out by Sony Music in the US, since only they would own the tapes. Unfortunately, I see no interest there. We only get compilations with the same stuff over and over again. Virtually all Mancini re-issues come from local tape copies all over the world
I just gave the first title on this two-fer another listen - and to be honest, it's one of the very few Mancini albums I can say I'm not really excited about.
More important, however, is the fact that three years after this release, some of Mancini's RCA efforts - single titles (like "Man Of The World") plus "Country Gentleman" and the recordings with Artie Kane - still haven't been re-issued (not to mention the possibility of unreleased items).
With Quartet recently taking care of the UMG titles and the download of "The Versatile Henry Mancini" all of Mancini's commercial recordings - save for the RCA titles mentioned above and a few early Decca items - have been available on CD at one time or another (some of the 1950s titles only on public domain CDs).
Dutton Vocalion currently seems to be issuing all kind of items - many of which didn't sound that bad when they were on CD for the first time, but nobody seems to care about the few titles that have never been available in digital format - let alone those albums that are really in need of proper mastering. I really hope that finally ALL of Hank's output will be available on CD - not being unhappy about releases of original tracks owned by MGM/Universal/Paramount/Warner either
I just gave the first title on this two-fer another listen - and to be honest, it's one of the very few Mancini albums I can say I'm not really excited about.
These are dollar bin albums. A few good cuts surrounded by schlock. Like most of Mancini's combover period albums ("The Cop Show Themes" and "Symphonic Soul" being exceptions).
