YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO MY “SAKE PARTY” (Please RSVP)

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BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S: Movie Soundtrack

by Henry Mancini and his Orchestra

recorded: 1962

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Back in the mid-1980s, I had an idea for a “theme party” I wanted to throw. Unfortunately, life (lower case L) obstructed my plan and I never got around to it. {*Truth is, he never managed to save up enough money to buy friends to invite.*} But I did record four 90-minute cassette tapes of background music for the party that never was. (Remember, this was before recordable CDs and all the other technocrap.) 

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Oh, the music would have been great: Booker T And The MGs, Three Dog Night, Bobby Darin, Stevie Wonder, Muddy Waters, The Partridge Family, War, and Wild Cherry (guess which Funky song, White Boy!) But each side of every tape ended with MR. YUNIOSHI, the theme song for Mickey Rooney’s angry Japanese character in the movie, Breakfast At Tiffany’s. MR. YUNIOSHI was to be the cue for me -- wherever I was mixing, or whoever I was mixing it up with -- to prepare to turn over the tape.

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I may throw this party yet... someday. The house is going to be jammed -- floor to ceiling -- with helium-filled balloons, so as you push your way through them, you’ll never know who or what you’re about to run into. {*Fun, eh? If you’re smart, you’ll have a prior engagement.*} Hey, never mind that voice behind the curtain -- it IS going to be fun! But there is one thing that every person at this party will have in common: Regardless of who ends up kissing whom, or who ends up punching whom, or regardless of For Whom The Bell Tolls {*Sounds like it’s going to be an exhausting evening for Whom! I hope he or she is up to it.*}, each and every person will have knocked back a slug of SAKE as a prerequisite for gaining admittance to this soiree.

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SAKE (pronounced “Sock-ee”), in case you don’t know, is the traditional fermented Japanese beverage made from rice. It’s served hot in small ceramic cups. Being hot, it seems to assimilate in a person’s bloodstream fairly quickly and makes one feel real good, real fast. For many, it’s an “acquired taste”, although I took to it immediately. {*He’s an alky; he took to all booze before he took to the bus for elementary school.*} I have two nice sake sets that I purchased ages ago in Chinatown, near downtown Los Angeles, and you’ll need to suck a shot of sake before you’re permitted to enter my pagoda to hear MR. YUNIOSHI. {*And burst his bubble and pop his balloons!*}

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But MR. YUNIOSHI is far from being the only track I like from Henry Mancini’s BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S soundtrack. I’ve seen the movie a few times and I’m just not one of its biggest fans. But the music, now that’s another thing! BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (the film) won none of the Academy Awards, but the Oscars for “Best Music Score” and “Best Song” (MOON RIVER) went to Mr. Mancini. What does that tell you? {*Think, McFly! Think!*} This entire album is delicious; it’s one of my 10 or 15 most frequently played compact discs!

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It starts with the award-winning bittersweet song MOON RIVER, written by Mancini and the equally legendary Johnny Mercer. I love the song even if my favorite version was recorded later by Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. This is the only “song”, literally speaking, as it contains lyrics sung by Mancini’s Chorus. All other tracks are instrumentals unless you’re counting the Chorus singing “Oohs” and “Ahhs” on a couple of the other cuts.

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Some of the instrumental pieces have that unmistakable “Mancini” stamp: Distinctively pronounced beats (a la “The Pink Panther”). Others are the antithesis of that style, with a tremendously yearning emotional content conveyed through the subtle interplay of his impeccable Orchestra and the smooth harmonic layering of his Chorus of male and female voices doing little more than humming the melodies.

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And yet again, on some pieces, Mancini’s charts propel his dynamic, top-notch Orchestra into bright, soaring flights that seem almost on the verge of running off the pages and into improvisational exuberance. {*Don’tcha just love how he nearly sounds like he knows what he’s talking about?*} 

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I mean, listen to that Orchestra crank it up on THE BIG BLOW OUT, or SOMETHING FOR CAT, or LOOSE CABOOSE. Mancini directed highly accomplished musicians as befitting a man of his genius. And I never use the word “genius” lightly, but this man was indeed just that! How he was able to translate the action of a scene into corresponding “music pictures” in pieces like THE BIG HEIST and the playful striptease-cum-cartoon, HUB CAPS AND TAIL LIGHTS! {*Some would say, if you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em.*}

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But nothing moves me more than SALLY’S TOMATO, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, and HOLLY -- three instrumentals that float like some tear-drenched, melancholic sunbeam. They were recorded at the dawn of the 1960s, just before all hell broke loose in this country and we found ourselves embroiled in a cultural revolution that pierced an ineffable something deep within us and from which we’ll never recover. There’s a desperate “looking back at innocence” captured in these three pieces that crushes my heart and forces my eyelids closed. It’s a long ago memory of serene joy, it's a goldenshadow that’s gone and not returning. It’s long, gently swaying grass growing around the headstone of a deceased lover. {*Aw, cap it, will ya? Yer bumming everyone out.*}

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Alright then. Let me just say that this soundtrack is Five Star from top to bottom, and in short {*It’s too late for THAT!*}, there are two things that I really recommend you do: You should acquire a copy of Henry Mancini’s musical masterpiece, and later you should come to my SAKE PARTY. {*If you pass out, and you’re still there in the morning, he’s gonna treat you to BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S!*}

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~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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