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Johnny Mandel, 1925-2020
Composer, arranger and musician Johnny Mandel died at his home in Ojai, California, on June 29, 2020, at the age of 94.
One of the most sophisticated voices in American film, jazz and popular music, Mandel wrote scores for more than 30 films and created such enduring songs as “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “Emily,” “A Time for Love” and “Suicide Is Painless.”.
John Alfred Mandel was born in New York City on November 23, 1925. Blessed with perfect pitch, he studied at the Manhattan School of Music and briefly at Juilliard, and became a professional trumpeter and trombonist while still young. During the 1940s and 1950s he played or arranged for bands led by Buddy Rich, Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw and Count Basie, developing the deep understanding of jazz harmony and orchestral color that would define his later film music.
Mandel moved to Hollywood in 1957 and made an immediate impact with Robert Wise’s I Want to Live! (1958), starring Susan Hayward. The score integrated modern jazz directly into the dramatic fabric of the film rather than treating it merely as source music, and its soundtrack brought Mandel three Grammy nominations. He followed it with films including The Third Voice (1960), Drums of Africa (1963) and Arthur Hiller’s The Americanization of Emily (1964), whose lyrical main theme became the song “Emily” after Johnny Mercer added lyrics. Read more…
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