Johnny Mandel

John Alfred Mandel (November 23, 1925 – June 29, 2020) was an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. The musicians he worked with include Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Diane Schuur and Shirley Horn. He won five Grammy Awards, from 17 total nominations; his first nomination was for his debut film score for the multi-nominated 1958 film I Want to Live!. In 2011, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Among his other film accolades, Mandel also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper (1965), and was nominated three times each for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. He received the Grammy Trustees Award for his contributions to the music industry, in 2018. His father, Alfred, was a garment manufacturer who ran Mandel & Cash; his mother, Hannah (Hart-Rubin), had aimed to be an opera singer His family was Jewish. They moved to Los Angeles in 1934, after his father's business collapsed during the Great Depression. He subsequently resided in Los Angeles, where he played the bass trumpet for Zoot Sims.

Composer and arranger A 1944 Band graduate of New York Military Academy, in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York,

Mandel performed an interpretation of Erik Satie's "Gnossiennes #4 and #5" on the piano for the film Being There (1979).

He won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) in 1981 for Quincy Jones's song Velas, and again in 1991 for Natalie Cole and Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable", and one year later once more for Shirley Horn's album Here's to Life.

In 2004, Mandel arranged Tony Bennett's album The Art of Romance. Bennett and Mandel had collaborated before on Bennett's The Movie Song Album (1966),

In 2012, he worked on one of Paul McCartney's most recent songs at the time, "My Valentine". He provided the song with a new and original arrangement. It appeared on McCartney's expanded version of his album Kisses on the Bottom in November of that year.

Film and television scores Mandel composed, conducted and arranged the music for numerous movie sound tracks. His earliest credited contribution was to I Want to Live! in 1958, (theme song for the movie and TV series M*A*S*H), "Close Enough for Love", "Emily" and "A Time for Love" (nominated for an Academy Award). "Emily" was a favorite of pianist Bill Evans and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, both of whom included it in live performances until they died, and Evans included it in a duo recording with Tony Bennett.

Mandel wrote numerous film scores, including the score of The Sandpiper. The love theme for that film, "The Shadow of Your Smile", which he co-wrote with Paul Francis Webster, won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1966. He was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010. He was a recipient of the 2011 NEA Jazz Masters Award.

Personal life Mandel married Lois Lee in 1959, and Martha Blanner in 1972, and had a daughter, Marissa, born in 1976. Mandel was also the cousin of fellow film composer Miles Goodman.

Death Mandel died on June 29, 2020, at his home in Ojai, California. He was 94, and suffered from a heart ailment. "Close Enough for Love" (lyrics by Paul Williams) "Emily" (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) "Little Did I Dream" (lyrics by David Frishberg) "The Shadow of Your Smile" (lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) "Suicide Is Painless" (lyrics by Mike Altman) "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" (lyrics by Alan Bergman & Marilyn Bergman) "A Time for Love" (lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) "Where Do You Start?" (lyrics by Alan Bergman & Marilyn Bergman) "You Are There" (lyrics by Dave Frishberg) "The Moon Song" (aka "Solitary Moon")

Arrangements

1956: Hoagy Sings Carmichael by Hoagy Carmichael 1960 Jo + Jazz by Jo Stafford 1960: Ring-a-Ding-Ding! by Frank Sinatra 1962: I Dig the Duke! I Dig the Count! by Mel Tormé 1966: "Emily" and "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Movie Song Album by Tony Bennett 1975: "Mirrors" by Peggy Lee 1979: "Coolsville" and "Company" from Rickie Lee Jones by Rickie Lee Jones 1999: When I Look in Your Eyes by Diana Krall 2001: You're My Thrill by Shirley Horn 2003: "Summer Wind" ,"That's All (1952 song)" by Michael Buble 2004: The Art of Romance by Tony Bennett 2009: Love Is the Answer by Barbra Streisand 1961: The Lawbreakers 1963: Drums of Africa 1966: Harper 1967: Point Blank 1972: Molly and Lawless John 1980: Caddyshack 1989: Brenda Starr 1966: Quietly There, Bill Perkins Quintet (Riverside) 1958: A Sure Thing: David Allen Sings Jerome Kern (Pacific Jazz) 2011: Johnny Mandel, A Man and His Music, with The DIVA Jazz Orchestra and Ann Hampton Callaway (Arbors)

Awards and nominations