The Music from Peter Gunn

(1958-1961 TV Series)

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1. Peter Gunn

2. Sorta Blue

3. The Brothers Go To Mother's

4. Dreamsville

5. Session At Pete's Pad

6. Soft Sounds

7. Fallout!

8. The Floater

9. Slow And Easy

10. A Profound Gass

11. Brief And Breezy

12. Not From Dixie

13. Walkin' Bass

14. Blue Steel

15. Spook!

16. Blues For Mother's

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. Composer Henry 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 Music from Peter Gunn became a huge hit, charting extraordinarily high for a television soundtrack and doing so well that RCA Victor came back the next year asking for a second helping (More Music From Peter Gunn) from Mancini. 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 Barney Kessel's electric guitar gets the spotlight during "Dreamsville"; 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. Vibraphonist Victor Feldman is heavily featured and his instrument's soft, ringing tone plays a key role here. Occasionally Mancini slips into turning out indistinctive, generic pieces, and soundtrack-composer-to-be John Williams's piano playing can be plinky and stiff. In 1999 the reactivated Buddha Records label gave The Music from Peter Gunn a new and sharper digital transfer and added the four best tracks on More Music from Peter Gunn. 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.

Outro comentário: Henry Mancini was so successful with his Music From Peter Gunn album that RCA-Victor brought him back into the studio for a second LP's worth of music from the Blake Edwards-produced program. The second Peter Gunn album didn't do as well as the first, but it is almost as strong musically. Notables on the sessions included drummer Shelly Manne, trumpet virtuoso Pete Candoli, and pianist (and future film music giant) John Williams. Thanks to American BMG's unwillingness to pay the higher mechanical royalties involved, they refused to combine the two Peter Gunn albums on one CD when they upgraded the first album on the Buddha label, choosing instead to simply add four bonus tracks off the second album to the CD. The remaining eight numbers are about as strong as anything on Music From Peter Gunn: "Timothy" may have its weak moments of comic effect, but even it includes some diverting trumpet passages, and none of the rest needs any apology or explanation; "My Manne Shelly" surprisingly isn't given over to Manne's drumming, though the latter does get spotlighted in some surprisingly subtle playing for a featured number; "Goofin' at the Coffee House" is a fine showcase for Victor Feldman's vibraphone, Pete Candoli's trumpet, John Williams' pianio, and Ronnie Lang's flute work; "Odd Ball" is an exciting piece of effect music, evoking action and suspense with some virtuoso playing by all concerned; and "The Little Man Theme" is a great workout for Lang's flute, Ted Nash's piccolo, Williams' piano, and Bob Bain's electric guitar. The CD reissue of More Music From Peter Gunn is a European import that has been augmented with four additional tracks: the original "Peter Gunn," Mancini's main title from the series Mr. Lucky and its Latin variant, and Mancini's main title theme from the Blake Edwards movie Experiment in Terror. The CD has been remastered using a process called "advance noise reshaping," which has yielded a warm yet clear and detailed sound.