Did They Mention the Music? [antikvár]

Prefaceby Gene LeesN'ovember 12, 1987 _ The great scar of the Grand Canyon passes slowly under the jet's wings as it courses eastward at 35,000 feet. Henry Mancini doesn't even look out the window. He's seen it all before. He flies far too much, has been doing it for years now, to record his movie scores or conduct symphony orchestras, to perform in big cities and small or at the White House for three different presidents, or in London for members of the royal family. Now he is going home. Not to the big house in Holmby Hills, or the other one he owns in Malibu, or the third in Vail, Colorado, which he visits mostly in the winter, to ski. But to his original home in Pennsylvania.I first met Henry Mancini in Chicago in 1959, when he was on a promotion tour for the "Peter Gunn** album and I was the editor of down beat magazine. This was shortly before the success oiBreakfast at Tiffany's, and the song that has ever since been identified with it, "Moon River." It was still possible for songs with tunes as melodic as that and lyrics as literate as those Johnny Mercer attached to it to be hits in America; the great American song tradition had not yet been effaced by rock and roll.The mood of the man during our first encounter has stayed with me all these years, though I am not sure what to