It’s easy to criticize Mancini for having written this piece and use it as an example of a lack of skill in writing a movie score. Yet this particular piece is supposed to be light and frothy. The inspiration for this work came from the basic walk of the little pachyderms which matched perfectly a boogie woogie beat (eight to the bar). To make this even more funny is the inclusion of a calliope, slyly muted trombones, a cheeky clarinet, and four piccolos (Mancini was a flutist as a young boy).
Posted on 04/04/2008
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My Trusted MOGs
This was another selection which the band of the high school I attended part time during my junior and senior year played, but this could have been on the recording made the year before I came since, as already related, the selections on the record made during my first year (the Mancini ones that is) were all from _Mr._ _Lucky_ so far as I can recall.
By the bye, another legally-blind MOGGER was kind enough to give me some idea as to where this red circle with the arrow in it is located, but thus far I have been unsuccessful in pressing the Left Mouse Button when the Arrow Keys are lined up with the areas where this individual believes that circle is. Yet could this also be due to me not being subscribed to Rhapsody, though, again as already related, I do have Real Player?
Hoping, as usual, that this finds you well,
JVaughan
My Trusted MOGs
Possibly after I wrote the above, it occurred to me to ask if this Mancini tack on which you have been this week had anything to do with it being his birthday week. Then I checked in a music diary I have, and found that, in fact, he was bborn on 16 April, so we are indeed in his birthday month, though nearly two weeks away from the actual day.
Yet further, when I was growing up, some radio stations would play a march each morning, and one of these stations frequently featured marches conducted by Mr. Mancini, either by Sousa or by himself, one of these latter, if I recall correctly, being "The Great Waldo Pepper." There was another called "The Great Race," though I do not recall precisely if that was by him as well, though he at least may have conducted it.
J.V.
My Trusted MOGs
A very worthy post. I have loved this since I was a child.
My Trusted MOGs
The "cheeky clarinet" had me at hello.