Johnny Mandel, who composed and arranged for some of the major great bands of the 1940s and 1950s before establishing himself as a writer of memorable sheet music for films and themes such as “The Shadow of Your Smile”, “Emily” and “Suicide is painless” . “He died Monday at his home in Ojai, California. He was 94 years old.
Her daughter, Marissa, confirmed the death.
Mr. Mandel was for many years an official jazz trumpet player and trombonist, a trusted member of the brass section of any band but not an outstanding soloist. He found his vocation when he diversified to organize.
His arrangements were heard on Sid Caesar’s groundbreaking 1950s television series “Your Show of Shows” and on the first recordings Frank Sinatra made for Reprise, the record company founded by Sinatra in 1960. He wrote a new Grammy-winning arrangement. (based on original Nelson Riddle’s) from Nat King Cole’s hit “Unforgettable” for the record which, through overdubbing, posthumously reunited Cole with his daughter Natalie.
The longest chapter of his musical career began in 1958, when he began writing for Hollywood.
His lush songs for the 1964 film “The Americanization of Emily” (“Emily”) and for “The Sandpiper,” released the following year (“The Shadow of Your Smile,” which won an Academy Award and a Grammy Award. by song of the year), they are probably best remembered now than the movies themselves. Her hauntingly serene “Suicide is painless” became the subject of the movie “M * A * S * H” (1970) and the subsequent full-length television version. Among the many other films he scored were “The Last Detail” (1973), “Caddyshack” (1980), and “The Verdict” (1982).
In an interview with the JazzWax website in 2008, Mandel attributed his success as a film composer to his years writing for, among other things, floor shows in Las Vegas. He recalled his experience in the first film he got, Susan Hayward’s black film “I Want to Live!” (1958), based on a true story, unexpectedly harmonious.
“When I started on ‘I want to live!’ I realized, hell, where have I been all my life? he said. “I have been writing and arranging for hours and capturing visual cues for dancers for years. I just got the two together and was able to make movies. “His score was one of the first to make extensive use of jazz.
Even after settling in Hollywood, Mandel maintained a parallel career as an arranger for many well-known singers. She arranged Sinatra’s first Reprise album, “Ring-a-Ding-Ding!” She also worked with Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee, Rickie Lee Jones, Diana Krall, and even Michael Jackson. She arranged several of the tracks on “Unformunications”, the 1991 album of songs associated with Natalie Cole’s father that revitalized her career.
His approach, he explained to The New York Times in 1992, had as much to do with composing as with organizing: “I always harmonize everything again. I like to leave the singers alone and go where they are not. “
In addition to winning an Academy Award and five Grammy Awards, Mr. Mandel was included in the songwriters. Hall of Fame in 2010 and recognized as the Jazz Master, the nation’s highest honor for a jazz artist, by the National Endowment for the Arts next year.
John Alfred Mandel was born on November 23, 1925 in Manhattan. His father, Alfred, worked in the garment district, and his mother, Hannah,. I had aspired to be an opera singer. Her father’s clothing store, Mandel & Cash, collapsed during the Depression, and the family moved to Los Angeles in 1934.
Although he, his mother, and his sister moved to New York after his father died three years later, his time in California was crucial to Mr. Mandel. When he was 11, a cousin came to visit while on tour as a drummer with band leader Harry Reser, sparking a lifelong fascination for music.
That fascination soon turned into an interest in organizing. “Lying in bed with my ear glued to the radio listening to bands playing the same songs,” he told JazzWax, “I said to myself about the arrangements, ‘What’s the problem?’ Those broadcasts were like a laboratory for me.
“It took me a couple of weeks to listen as a kid before the light bulb went out,” he continued. “It wasn’t about the songs. It was about how the band performed the song. “
After enrolling at the New York Military Academy in northern Cornwall-on-Hudson state, where he played the bugle, Mr. Mandel began to take a bus to Manhattan to study arrangements with noted conductor and arranger Van Alexander.
With so many musicians abroad during World War II, Mandel spent summers playing the trumpet at Catskills resorts as a teenager. He finally played trumpet, trumpet, and trombone in bands led by Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Jimmy Dorsey, Henry Jerome (where the saxophone section included Alan Greenspan, the future Federal Reserve Chairman, and Leonard Garment, the future White House Lawyer), before switching exclusively to arrangement and composition in 1954.
Several of the leading jazz musicians had Mandel songs in their repertoires: Stan Getz recorded “Hershey Bar”, Chet Baker recorded “Tommy Hawk” and “Not Really the Blues” was a staple of the band’s Woody Herman book, but He didn’t have a hit song until he collaborated with Johnny Mercer on “Emily” in 1964.
Other lyricists who worked with Mr. Mandel included Paul Francis Webster (“The Shadow of Your Smile,” “A Time for Love”); Paul Williams (“Close enough for love”); and, most unusual, Mike Altman, the teenage son of Robert Altman, the director of M * A * S * H. Mike Altman wrote the words for “Suicide is painless,” Mandel told JazzWax, after his father He tried to write them himself, but decided: “I can’t write anything as stupid as what we need.”
Apparently his son could, and Robert Altman later said the song was much more lucrative for his son (and Mr. Mandel) than the movie “M * A * S * H” for him.
Mr. Mandel married Lois Lee in 1959. That marriage ended in divorce. In 1970 he married Martha Blanner; she died in December. Her daughter is her only immediate survivor.
As befits a man who left life at the music kiosk to focus on life behind the scenes, Mr. Mandel did not like it when the songs in his movie overshadowed the surrounding material.
“If you leave the theater saying it was a really good image, it was a successful score,” he told Les Tomkins, the jazz journalist, in 1970. “If you leave saying that the image was terrible but the music was good.” I am not so sure that the score was successful, except perhaps from the composer’s point of view. It is another way to outshine. “
Julia Carmel contributed reporting.
