Mandel and a big band make one stellar night

There’s not much that composer Johnny Mandel hasn’t done in the creative end of the music business. He has written arrangements for such artists as Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. His innovative jazz score for “I Want to Live” opened the way for other jazz composers to enter the film music business. And he has written a small but memorable catalog of songs -- “Suicide Is Painless (The Theme From MASH),” “Emily” and “The Shadow of Your Smile” among them.

What he hasn’t done, however, is lead a big jazz band on anything like a regular basis. All of which made his one-night appearance at the Jazz Bakery on Monday a very special event (and a sold-out event, at that).

Mandel’s approach to the performance was not complicated: collect some of the Southland’s top musicians, especially those with extensive studio experience; place a book full of Mandel big-band charts in front of them; count off the time; and let them start swinging.

He began the set with a hard-grooving original, “Low Life,” in which the band’s two tenor saxophonists, Pete Christlieb and Doug Webb, romped through a series of improvisational exchanges in high-spirited fashion. “Not Really the Blues,” a powerful, hard-driving number originally written for the Woody Herman Herd, followed.

Then a change of pace into the ballad “Close Enough for Love,” featuring Christlieb’s muscular, low register sound, followed by selections from Mandel’s “I Want to Live” score. Curiously, Mandel did not offer up arrangements for “Emily” (from the film “The Americanization of Emily”) or the “MASH” theme. But trumpeter Carl Saunders’ chart for the former was first-rate, and the latter was handled by the rhythm section and individual soloists.

One player after another in this veritable all-star aggregation stepped into the spotlight: trumpeters Saunders, Ron King and Bobby Shew, saxophonists Kim Richmond, Sal Lozano and Bob Efford, trombonist Andy Martin and pianist Mike Melvoin among them.

Even all-stars need rehearsals, and there were a few moments indicating a need for additional preparation. More frustrating was the relative brevity of the numbers -- some of which consisted of barely more than a few choruses -- and the set, which lasted less than an hour. But those carps aside, this was an evening to savor, an opportunity to experience a Southland jazz legend in action.