Various : Henry Mancini Pink Guitar : CD

 MANCINI: 1) Pink Panther Theme; 5) Peter Gunn; 6) The Thorn Birds; 8) What’s Happening!!; 11) Baby Elephant Walk; 13) A Shot in the Dark :  MANCINI /JOHNNY MERCER:2) Moon River 3) The Days of Wine and Roses ; 7) The Sweetheart Tree;9) Charade: MANCINI /ROBERT WELLS: 4) It’s Easy to Say: MANCINI/RAY EVANS/JAY LIVINGSTON: Dear Heart : MANCINI/ LESLIE BRICUSSE: 12) Two for the Road:

Tracks:- 1)performed by Laurence Juber 2) performed by Edward Gerhard 3)performed by David Cullen 4)performed by Doug Smith 5)performed by Pat Donohue 6)performed by Al Petteway 7)performed by Mark Hanson 8)performed by Mike Dowling 9)performed by Aaron Stang 10)performed by Wayne Johnson 11)performed by William Coulter 12)performed by Amrit Sond 13)performed by Mark Hanson and Doug Smith

Solid Air: B0002X8J6M

This is a brilliant idea for an album. Henry Mancini wrote so many wonderful songs and instrumental pieces that an album of them all played on guitar is a great idea. Now here, every track is played by a different guitarist. Granted they are all played on acoustic steel strung guitars but the arrangements are SO clever, that they really could all be played on classical guitars. Incidentally I wish whoever was in charge of the entire album would get the musical arrangements published in a book, because I would definitely be first in the queue.

Like any album by one composer there are usually one or two you haven’t heard, and when the composer has written so many hundreds of works that it’s not really surprising, and so there are bound to be a few you haven’t heard before, but you certainly won’t be disappointed as they are all wonderful pieces.

Not only that , the recording quality is very clear and close, and there is no difference between the tracks, even though every one is a different player on a different guitar. If you didn’t know, you would be convinced that the whole album was one player.

So in essence this is an extremely listenable album, wonderfully played and full of gorgeous pieces of music. What more could you want?

Chris Dumigan