js After the disappointing “Symphonic Soul”, Henry Mancini returned the following year with the far more jazzy/funky “Cop Show Themes” featuring blistering modern big band tracks topped with plenty of virtuoso solos. These tracks are of course based on well-known 70s cop show themes, which when stretched out into full songs make for great jazz workouts. Mancini stays close to the original orchestrations on most, (in fact, some these TV themes are his tunes and arrangements to begin with), but modifies “The Rockford Files” to be less Americana country and more funky mod-pseudo classical. Throughout this album Chris Mancini adds nice subtle touches on the Arp for a slight exotic flavor. This is one of Mancini’s best albums and compares well to Quincy Jones funky jazz noir cop themes and Don Ellis’ exotica flavored big band albums, in fact “The Cop Show Themes” makes a great companion to Ellis’ progressive big band pop masterpiece, “Connections”.

Some album highlights include “Streets of San Francisco” where funk driven horn sections alternate with high speed bop rides featuring excellent rapid fire Fender Rhodes solos from Artie Kane, and “S.W.A.T.” which opens with wah-wah guitar and a sly nod to Isaac Hayes before settling into a funky groove topped with a building horn melody. Back in the late 80s a very creative rap group (forget their name) cut this song up and used the building horns to re-create this song’s tense atmosphere. Those two songs are not the only good cuts on here, almost the entire album smokes. Mancini’s music is usually of high quality, but rarely is it this funky and energetic. Highly recommended for fans of that special genre known as “crime jazz”.