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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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| Review: Mancini By Howard Ho DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF hho@media.ucla.edu What award doesn't Clint Eastwood deserve? He's been an Oscar-winning director, one of the most recognizable actors in films, a producer, a military man, a lumberjack and the mayor of Carmel, a small California town. It's a shame we won't have Dirty Harry on the ballot for governor. In light of his versatility, it wasn't all too surprising when he won the Henry Mancini Institute's Hank Award for "distinguished service to American music" on August 16 in the annual Mancini Musicale at Royce Hall. On the music front, Eastwood has collaborated with Lennie Niehaus on the scores of many of his films, directed a biopic of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, produced a documentary on jazz pianist Thelonius Monk, played jazz piano in the film "In the Line of Fire," and even had a Carnegie Hall concert devoted to his film scores and his love for jazz. Enough to merit an award? Why not? One big name begets others, of which the HMI organizers are obviously well aware. Eastwood and a select crowd of music philanthropists including Diana Krall, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and comedian Craig Kilborn, were in for a rare treat when film composer Bruce Broughton came out of the woodwork to play with HMI's student orchestra, the product of 84 musicians on full scholarship and four weeks of training at UCLA. Former Hank Award winner Quincy Jones presented the Hank Award to Eastwood, followed by the unveiling of the new Henry Mancini stamp honoring the man who wrote "Moon River" and the "Pink Panther" theme, among others. Ginny Mancini, the composer's surviving spouse, then delivered a preaching-to-the-choir exhortation to increase music education in schools. The concert was a mixed bag of film and TV scores (including Mancini's "Peter Gunn" theme with giddily slap-happy bassist Abraham Laboriel Sr.), orchestral/big band jazz featuring a visceral Sandoval as soloist, and, yes, even a Clint Eastwood tune performed wistfully by sensually soft-spoken Krall. |
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