Mannix was a television detective series that had a substantial run, from 1967 to 1975. It aired on CBS at a time when you only had a few choices each night. I recall watching it faithfully.
The plot revolved around Joe Mannix (starring Mike Connors), a private investigator who took on different cases from week to week. If you are not familiar with the show, you can certainly grasp the basic premise: tough guy, clever fellow, heart of gold, you know.
I was poking around the Internet today looking for examples of jazz tunes or jazz influenced tunes used as theme music for television. There are a bunch, as you might imagine. This one caught my attention because I remember it so well. When I listened to it, it was oh-so-familiar.
The music is by Lalo Schifrin, Argentine pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He is no doubt better known for writing the Theme From Mission: Impossible. And for the fact that he has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations, with a number of well known movie scores to his credit.
He has also been featured on albums with Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, and many others. So he’s a jazz guy.
About the theme, though I didn’t know it when I started digging, Schifrin decided, in some time ago to redo some of his earlier work, including the theme from Mannix, which was written in 1967. For that, he went to Cologne, Germany and worked with the WDR Big Band. The results are below.
As you listen, note that you will hear things you did not hear on the original TV series, which is fair. Themes are generally about a minute long and songs are longer. So there.