Newly recorded in 1999 at WDR Studios in Cologne, Germany,
Mannix gives composer
Lalo Schifrin a chance to refine compositions and arrangements that he wrote for the detective series of the same name in 1967. Although not his most famous television work of that period (an honor belonging to Mission: Impossible), Mannix did offer
Schifrin a chance to move into more exotic forms of composition. Once one gets past the main title theme, the music quickly takes on an identity of its own, separate from the series. Some of it evokes places such as South America ("Sao Paolo After Dark") and Austria ("The Vienna Incident"), but most of it is in a light '60s pop-jazz vein, which doesn't mean there isn't some virtuoso playing, especially on the part of the saxmen and the trumpets. The players do what they can to make the most pedestrian of this material come alive, although curiously, the most potentially expansive piece here, the extended version of the title work, is also the most predictable. ~ Bruce Eder