Lounge Listening Recommendations For Your Sipping Pleasure

I recently tossed up a post about the Martini Mood complete with a basic martini recipe. Now I've got some lounge music recommendations for your sipping pleasure. These are reviews that I originally wrote for Mr. Suave's Swingin' Cocktail Lounge about a decade or so ago, at the birth of the cocktail nation. But, they're as true now as they were then, and having been listening to these disks again lately, I'd have to say my thoughts then are maybe even more right now. I mean when you consider the dreck that is passed off for lounge music these days, you have to admit that these earlier comps --while cheesy to be sure-- were the real deal.

The Love Handle Lounge is one of those rare CD compilations that grows on you a little more every time you play it. When I firts listened to it I was disappointed, hardly touched it for several months. Then one magical day I went back to it, and I became a believer. Tracks from Tito Puente, Bert Kaempfert, Xavier Cugat and others will burn up your disk player. But nothing burns as hot as Jeri Southern's An Occasional Man. Recommended.
Download: Jeri Southern -- An Occasional Man

NovaBossa: Red Hot on Verve highlights Bossa Nova, the new wave of the 1950s and 60s. A beautiful blend of samba, Afrocentric Brazilian rhythms and eccentric harmonies created by Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. After Jobim's and Gilberto's smash hit The Girl From Ipanema, American jazz artists like Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd made Bossa Nova all the rage in the states. Sergio Mendes, Walter Wanderly and others followed. This disk highlights some of the era's best Bossa Nova. Highly recommended.
Download: Edú Lobo -- Upa Neguinho

Racey. Sexy. Sensual. Beat at Cinecitta has all of that covered with its "sensual homage to the raunchy, erotic, filmmusic from the vaults of Italian 60s & 70s cinema." This is music so cool is steams when you play it. A tremendous blending of sounds and harmonies, like pornmusic meets hipster-beat jazz. Italian arrangers Riz Ortolani, Teo Usuelli, Piero Piccioni and more make up one of the best disks of the year. Beware the accompanying booklet: if your aesthetic tendencies shy away from sexy photos and poster art from Italian erotic films, you'll want to leave it unopened when you listen to this one. Very hip and Highly Recommended.
Download: Francesco De Gemini -- Cheops and Nefertiti

Bachelor in Paradise is not the best compilation of lounge music I've ever heard, but it does have a few standout tracks. Ferrante & Teicher's Theme from The Apartment gets things off on the right foot. Nelson Riddle, Andre Previn, Juan Esquivel, and Percy Faith fill in the holes nicely. Except for some bizarre Germanish version of Dancing in the Dark, this disk is worth recommending. The tone is decidedly cinematic, and mellow. But lush as well, so the feel of the music goes beyond the movie score and creates a real lavish lounge sound that goes well with any cocktail. Recommended.
Download: Nelson Riddle-- Lisbon Antigua

Easy Rhythms for Your Cocktail Hour: Music for a Bachelor's Den; Volume 4 If Your Cocktail Hour is bordering on the absurd you might want to throw this disk in the changer and let it run wild. The synthesizers, the organs, the zany Mel Henke. This CD has a little something for every lounge lover -- Richard Hyman, Ray Coniff, Enoch Light, and the ever suave Julie London -- and it delivers it all with a charge of electrcity so 60s like you'll be looking for the moog everytime you hear it. Recommended.
Download: Mel Henke -- The Lively Ones