A Taste of Nostalgia
from Cocktail Music
THE VAULTS
CD REISSUES
***
VARIOUS ARTISTS
“Bachelor's Guide to
the Galaxy”
Rhino
If you wait long enough, you'll find
virtually everything in pop music being revived—either out of legitimate
creative appreciation or as camp fascination.
Hence the
rush of retrospectives devoted to novelty-tinged, adult-oriented pop from
the early days of rock. Lots of record companies must believe there
is truth to all this talk about a mid-‘90s yearning a for glamour-tinged
break from the alienation and grunge of today's rock.
The music
in these collections is drawn from a strange mix of styles—mainstream pop
to dance-minded remakes of pop standards to exotic sounds designed chiefly
to show of the liveliness of new hi-fi and stereo sound systems.
Rhino Records
has just released a three-volume series under the umbrella term “cocktail
music,” while Capitol Records has its own six-volume series titled “ultra-lounge”
music.
At its
best, this music is good-natured and fun. Some is even wonderfully
inventive. But buyer beware: Some of the music in these collections
is so middlebrow that it doesn't even work as camp amusement.
Of the
Capitol and Rhino packages, the Rhino volumes tend to put the music in
the most engaging and lighthearted context. But Capitols “Mambo Fever”
is worth a try, thanks to such unlikely Latin dance tracks as “Hooray for
Hollywood (Cha-Cha)” and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans Mambo.”
“Bachelor's
Guide to the Galaxy,” the first volume in the Rhino series, is an entertaining
introduction to the cocktail/lounge concept—starting with the liner notes,
which list the titles of the ‘50s and ‘60s albums that some of the 18 tracks
come from. Among the: “Zounds! What Sounds!” and “Dee-Most!
Hi-Fi Organ Solos With a Beat!”
The names
used on the original album covers to suggest an irresistible sonic experience
are equally colorful: from “Visual Sound Stereo” to “Stereo Action: The
Sound Your Eyes Can Follow.”
The musical
journey is equally zany. As the liner notes suggest, Dean Elliott
and His Swinging Big, Big Band's version of “Will You Still Be Mine” is
such a bright merger of big band discipline and audio oddities that it
combines the “orchestral explosiveness of Nelson Riddle with the percussive
deviltry of Spike Jones.”
The 1963 recording—in which “brass
and reeds compete against short-wave signals, mechanical teeth, squeaking
doors, bowling balls, hoot owls, pogo stick springs and underwater detonation”—was
reportedly inspired by the rhythm of a cement mixer that Elliott heard
while stuck at Woodland Hills traffic light.
Though the whole
things wears thin, the best of the instrumental selections gibe you a welcome
party-brightener by showcasing some of the playful sound experiments from
the past. Other artists featured in Vol. 1: The Three Suns, Alvino Rey
and Felix Slatkin.
Vol. 2, “Martini
Madness,” mixes upbeat vocals (the Cold War novelty of Ann-Margret’s “Thirteen
Women” to the R&B push of Mel Torme’s “Comin’ Home Baby”) with dance-minded
instrumentals from the likes of Quincy Jones and Les Elgart. Vol. 3, “Swingin’
Singles” is more of the same, including vocals by everyone from Peggy Lee
to Robert Mitchum. Have fun.
--ROBERT HILBURN
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