Here’s two earworms for you: the man who wrote the Mission: Impossible and Mannix themes, Lalo Schifrin, died on June 26. He was 93. The Argentinian born pianist, conductor, and composer was leading his own jazz band in Buenos Aires when discovered by Dizzy Gillespie. He joined Gillespie’s quintet and composed Gillespiana for the band. In addition to the two TV themes already mentioned, Schifrin wrote theme or incidental music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Wagon Train, The Cincinnati Kid, Murderers’ Row, Cool Hand Luke, The Fox, Bullitt, Eye of the Cat, THX 1138, Dirty Harry, Night Gallery, Medical Center, Enter the Dragon, Starsky and Hutch, Telefon, The Amityville Horror, and many, many more. Of his Mission: Impossible theme, Schifrin said, “Orchestration’s not the problem for me. It’s like writing a letter. When you write a letter, you don’t have to think what grammar or what syntaxes you’re going to use, you just write a letter. And that’s the way it came.”
Mannix! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRypuFiuXQo
