Family celebrates Henry Mancini's legacy on what would have been his 100th birthday

When famed composer Henry Mancini discussed his childhood with his family, he made sure to stress exactly where he grew up.

“He used to talk about it a lot. From his lips, see, there was always quite this distinction between Aliquippa and West Aliquippa,” said his daughter Monica Mancini. “He made it very clear that it was West Aliquippa.”

The Aliquippa High School graduate went on to an illustrious career, with four Academy Awards plus 20 wins and a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys. Famed for songs like “The Pink Panther Theme,” “Moon River” (from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and the theme from “Peter Gunn,” Mancini died in 1994.

His 100th birthday would have been April 16, so his family is taking the opportunity to “preach the gospel of Mancini, far and wide,” Monica Mancini said in a recent phone call from Studio City, Calif.

“(My mother) just wanted his music to be heard,” she said, “and she was very instrumental in music education particularly, wanting symphony orchestras and children’s orchestras to have my dad’s music be accessible to them so that kids could grow up — well, kids grow up on the ‘Pink Panther’ anyway — with or without its help that’s just something that they know, but my mom really wanted to just have his music played and heard and so as a family we have taken on many, many projects coming up for next year.”

The biggest of those projects is “The Henry Mancini 100th Sessions — Henry Has Company,” an album slated for a June 21 release. The first single, “Peter Gunn,” was conducted by Quincy Jones and features John Williams (who played on the original recording), Herbie Hancock and Arturo Sandoval. The album also includes appearances from Lizzo, Stevie Wonder, Michael Buble, Pat Metheny and more.

“We had all of these big musical all-stars come in and record Dad’s original arrangements of his stuff and put their spin on it,” she said. “So it’s a tremendously beautiful recording, and we’re excited about it… We are in the throes of all this very exciting everything Mancini. Our lives are all about Mancini for the next year.”

The Henry Mancini 100th Celebration will open the season at the Hollywood Bowl in California on June 23, with special guests like Buble, Cynthia Erivo, Dave Koz and Monica Mancini, who is also a singer. There’s also a planned “Great Performances” showcase on PBS, as well as a documentary, graphic novel and other concerts around the world.

Through all these years, Mancini’s music seems to have withstood the tests of time. But what is it that keeps it so timeless?

“Well that is the question, isn’t it?” Monica Mancini said. “There’s a lot of music that was written around the same time that sounds dated and sounds stale and just has not maintained a life, but there is something — Dad had a real gift for melody, and I think that people respond to that. People can remember a good melody, and it’s something you can sing along to.

“It’s just something that resonates with people. And that was really his gift, just to, when you hear a piece of music, you feel something. That’s what any artist really wants is to make that heart connection. And so I think he was brilliant at doing that.”

While celebrating his legacy, Mancini shared her thoughts on some of her father’s most well-known compositions:

“Moon River”

Dad had a real gift for writing great themes, for one thing. That was one thing that he, as a composer, a lot of composers write some great music, but there were no hit songs from their scores. There are a handful of people who, John Williams did have a couple of hit songs from his movies, and you know maybe “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic,” I mean classics like that, but mostly composers score pictures and they’re lucky they have a theme that resonates with people.

And Dad, what he used to do is, take “Moon River” for example, it starts off the movie and he’s got it, if you watch the movie, he got it in there all the way through it. It plays in different scenes and in different ways. That’s the kind of thing where you leave the theater and you end up going (hums “Moon River”) by the time the movie is over, you know it. And not only that, but I tell people a song, that’s a melody, but it doesn’t become a song until there’s a lyric to it.

And Dad used to work with, he won two Oscars with Johnny Mercer. And Johnny Mercer was a gifted American poet. And so when you hook up two geniuses like that, you just kind of get what you get. And “Moon River” was one of those songs, and people can’t get it out of their minds. It’s been recorded over the last few years by Beyonce and Frank Ocean and Morrissey and Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton just put out a video this past year and recorded it. You’d have to ask them why that song meant something to them that they would want to record something that was written in 1961, but it’s just one of those melodies that just gets you.

“Lujon”

That’s another one of these melodies Dad wrote back in the ‘60s for an album called, “Mr. Lucky Goes Latin.” And the lujon, it refers to a musical instrument. It’s called the lujon. He just wrote it as a piece of music.

Even today, there’s a band called Inhaler. And Inhaler is fronted by one of Bono’s son. And we were watching a YouTube video and before the band comes out, all of a sudden they play Dad’s original version of “Lujon.” And then the whole stage goes like green and wavy, lights are all over the place to set up the band coming on. And as soon as the music hit, and “Lujon” started to play really loud in the arena, everybody got on their feet and there was just this roar throughout; they just loved it.

And it’s kind of this sensation on TikTok. People are using it for — I don’t watch Tiktok — but from what I hear, if there’s an influencer or somebody’s just doing their whatever they do on TikTok, a little dance or something, “Lujon” is playing on a lot of these kids’ (videos) or using for their background music. Again, it’s just one of these kind of cool, there’s a hip factor that apparently is resonating with young and old alike.

“Days of Wine and Roses”

That is one of my favorites for whatever reason. Again that’s a Johnny Mercer lyric, and Dad won his third Oscar for “Days of Wine and Roses.” It’s just the way that the lyric gives meaning to that song, especially if you know where it came from. The film is totally about addiction and alcoholism. And it’s just this really profoundly deep lyric that once you know what it’s about, it takes on a whole new meaning.

A lot of people play it as a jazz instrumental, which it works that way. It’s a real popular thing that the jazzers play. But once you start to put the lyric to it and you do it in a jazz vibe, it’s wrong. It’s like, ‘No no, you don’t know what this song’s about’ if you’re kind of singing it all jazzy. And I’m thinking, no no no, that’s not at all what this was meant to be, like I need to tell anybody what to do. But nevertheless, it is a really deep, intense piece of business and I appreciate it when people really have an understanding about what it is and what it means.

“The Pink Panther Theme”

I don’t know what it is about that that children respond to, but I guess if it’s hooked up with a cartoon, then that’s what kids are fed growing up. So it’s pretty woven into their childhood, which is great. It’s a little melody, you hear that first da-dum, da-dum, I mean, everybody knows what the hell that is. So again, it’s one of those things that, I don’t know how to put words to it, it’s got a catchy thing and Dad had a gift for catchy things.