Easy Listening - CDLK4374

Mantovani, light music’s biggest name, makes a welcome return to Vocalion with another two albums from Decca’s archives, both of them serving to remind us just why he was so popular. Gems Forever was originally issued in mono in 1957 under a different title, but here Vocalion present it in all its stereo glory, enabling Mantovani’s trademark sweeping string sound to envelop the listener. As he had done on many occasions, Mantovani dips into the American songbook and comes up with twelve sumptuous orchestral interpretations of numbers including All the Things You Are, A Woman in Love, True Love, Love Letters and Hey, There! From a decade later, Mantovani … Memories serves up more of the same, and, with the assistance of his regular team of arrangers (Roland Shaw and Cecil Milner), we are treated to another helping of elegant ‘Mantovani-style’ versions of standards such as Try to Remember, Sweet Leilani, Sunrise, Sunset, Embraceable You and more.

Track Listing:

1. All the Things You Are (Kern; Hammerstein)
2. True Love (Porter)
3. I Could Have Danced All Night (Lerner; Loewe)
4. You Keep Coming Back Like a Song (Berlin)
5. A Woman in Love (Loesser)
6. This Nearly Was Mine (Rodgers; Hammerstein)
7. Summertime (G & I Gershwin)
8. Something to Remember You By (Schwartz; Dietz)
9. An Affair to Remember
10. Love Letters (Young; Heyman)
11. The Nearness of You (Carmichael; Washington)
12. Hey, There! (Adler; Ross)
13. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Kern; Harbach)
14. What a Wonderful World (Weiss; Douglas) with chorus
15. The Trolley Song (Martin; Blane)
16. Sweet Leilani (Owens)
17. Try to Remember (Schmidt; Jones)
18. Sunrise, Sunset (Bock; Harnick) with chorus
19. The Anniversary Waltz (Franklin; Dubin)
20. In the Still of the Night (Porter)
21. Once Upon a Time (Strouse; Adams)
22. Embraceable You (G & I Gershwin)
23. How Are Things in Glocca Morra? (Lane; Harburg)
24. You’ll Never Walk Alone (Rodgers; Hammerstein) with chorus