Have a Merry Mancini Christmas!

Since I can't find the object of my Christmas desire: ¡Esquivel! merry xmas from the space-age bachelor pad, I've decided to adopt Henry Mancini's 1966 album A Merry Mancini Christmas as my favorite this year. (Juan García and Henry were, after all, good friends.) Sure, the kitsch is a little different; this is the stuff of drunken grandparents, tomato aspic and mini foods with toothpicks, but it's still a really great album. Mancini is King of the Medley.

Easy listening? Yeah, I guess that's how it's categorized. But if you're going to toss back a few Manhattans, you need a soundtrack this easy to mellow that incredibly strong booze into your system (I like mine with about a dozen maraschino cherries, I'm weak.)

After you've Decked the Halls, I encourage you to curl up by the fire with your significant other, a few intimate friends or just a bottle of shame and allow yourself to be lulled into a melodic coma. May the merriment begin!

Esquivel, The Space Age Bachelor

Every self-respecting mid-century spy-lover has at least one Esquivel album in her possession. I have a few: Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music being my favorite. It's the ultimate in kitschy, quirky cocktail tunes from another time that, strangely, doesn't seem too out of place in the here and now. Standouts are Mucha Muchacha, Baia, Begin the Beguine and the Xylophone-Happy ditty Latin-Esque. Who can't help but succumb to the charm of all of the "zoo-zoo-wows" and "zoom-zoom-zoo-wahs"?

Esquivel should be included in some sort of instant-party-kit, complete with jiggers and shaker, cocktail-length cigarette holders and a lampshade hat for that crazy guy from the office.

I'm hoping for a re-release of Merry Xmas From The Space Age Bachelor Pad, it would definitely make my Christmas merry and bright! Listening to all this Space Age Pop Jazz makes me want to go on some sort of caper. Of course, that could also be the result of a few gin gimlets. I know this music is geared a little more toward swilling martinis, I just prefer a good gimlet.

Over the Moon for Chet Baker

I was going to post about "Moon" songs in general after I saw the moon in the middle of the day Wednesday afternoon. I think it's weird when that happens, that's the kind of thing that belongs on Endor, Tatooine or Alderaan (before it went ka-blooey) but that's an entirely different post.

Specifically, I was thinking of Chet Baker's song The Night We Called It A Day. It begins with the most melancholy "There was a moon..." and just unfolds from there; by the end of the song I'm fully relaxed and feel better than I do after an hour long massage. The only side effect is a slight case of ennui but, to be honest, life in general gives me that side effect. Sure, others have recorded it but I bet they don't sound as handsome and deep and troubled as Chet Baker. Can someone sound handsome? Yes. And what is more appealing than a deep and troubled musician? Not much.

In search of other moon songs in my collection, I noticed two more on my Moon-Romeo's album My Funny Valentine: Moonlight Becomes You and Moon Love and also Moonlight In Vermont on The Best of Chet Baker. So, I guess you could say Chet Baker lassoed the moon for me. *sigh*

Take Five

I can't think of a better way to start this blog than with DBQ's Take Five from the 1959 experimental album Time Out. You won't get any technical mumbo-jumbo from me about common vs. non-common-time signatures; my musical appreciation is all about...well, appreciation.

I believe I first heard Take Five on my grandparents' hi-fi system some 20-odd years ago. Since then, I've heard it in numerous movies and television commercials and for good reason. Can you think of another jazz tune that can travel time so smoothly? One turn of the record and I'm in a cool apartment in New York City in 1959, windows open, surrounded by like-minded, Kerouac-reading, gin-drinking amies. This was a time when losers were 'chumps' and if a fella you weren't interested in was bugging you at the bar, you'd tell him to 'scram' or 'beat it'. Women dressed like women, men smoked cigars and drank too much at the country club and no self-respecting female ever left her home without a solid foundation on.

Of course, the irony is that Dave Brubeck is an instrumental player in the West Coast Jazz movement and was himself from that Sunny coast but his music always places my daydreams in a metropolitan mid-century Manhattan. Go figure, must be the influence of my grandparents and the cinema and the similarity between Cool Jazz and West Coast Jazz, sometimes also referred to as Cool-Style Jazz. But thank goodness for West Coast Jazz, my entree into the hipster-cool Dave Brubeck Quartet, the wonderful melancholy world of Chet Baker and the distinctly-pop-cultural Vince Guaraldi, even if I do force it all into an East Coast lifestyle. And you youngsters thought the East-Coast/West-Coast rivalry was a new thing...

So, throw the windows open, mix yourself a gin gimlet and Take Five...