Music to Change her Mind

Jackie Gleason - "Music to Change Her Mind" (1956) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

Its been a while since we've had The Great One on the VITV turntable and tonight we've got a classic piece of Gleason "mood" music spinning.  And just what mood is that?  How about the mood to feed our date some red wine and sleeping pills while taking complete advantage of her! 

You think we're kidding?  All the clues are there friends.  Something is amiss! Just check out some of these song titles: "You've Changed", "GUILTY", "It WAS so Beautiful", "She's Funny That Way", "All By Myself", "You and the Night and the Music", "Dancing in the Dark", "You Call it Madness", et cetera.  It reads like some creepy night stalker's diary entries!

Music to Change Her Mind is the sound you hear in the wee hours of the morning, just before you fall asleep, with a good buzz going, after you smoked your last cigarette.

It's the sound of your brainwaves in a dense fog: misty, muddled, familiar and dreamlike.

The ethereal horn of Bobby Hackett is present throughout like a beacon in the night guiding us to shore!

FUN FACT: Side One's haunting "You're My Greatest Love" is also the theme music to The Honeymooners!

RATING: 4 Strings of Poloponies out of 5

Music for the Love Hours

Jackie Gleason - "Music For the Love Hours" (1957) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

More like "Music for the Love Minutes"... am I right?

Once again, this Jackie Gleason LP is like audio dilaudid.  Lush, soothing arrangements that flow into one another like a hypnotic stream.  String arrangements aplenty, punctuated by Bobby Hackett's trumpet-in-the-fog cornet.

Its the perfect soundtrack for a lazy, snowed-in Saturday!

Why is the nightgown lady with the piercing blue eyes smoking a cigarette on the cover of this LP? Doesn't she know that that can be dangerous?  That nightgown looks flammable!

RATING: 4 Serenades in Blue out of 5

12 Days of Xmas: Jackie Gleason "Merry Christmas" (1959)

Jackie Gleason - "Merry Christmas" (1959) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

We're kicking off our 12 days til Christmas countdown with this criminally underappreciated LP by Vinyl in the Valley favorite, Mr. Jackie Gleason.

This is holiday mood music at its absolute best!  Each song is deconstructed to an atmospheric and slowed down tone poem.  Melodies are buried in a snow drift of lush strings and haunting vocalise.  In lieu of Bobby Hackett's iconic cornet solos, there's a fellow by the name of Hercules playing sparse and fragile solos on an electric celeste!  It really doesn't get more lush and relaxing than this!

"Comin' down my chimney?"
(Alberto Vargas)

Now friends, this ain't a record for your next Holiday party... unless, of course, your party includes strong whiskey, slow-dancing and quaaludes!   But, hey who are we to judge?

Tiki T. loves falling asleep to this record, snuggled up on the couch, drink in hand, in front of a roaring fire!  Now, if we only had a fireplace...

RATING:  5 Holiday Hangovers out of 5

Night Winds (100th Post, Bitches!)

Jackie Gleason - "Night Winds" (1956) - Capitol Records

Hello friends,

Is there anything better than a chilly November evening, a tall bottle of red French wine and Jackie Gleason on the turntable?  Well, we don't think so! 

Using an ensemble of 23 flutes (count 'em) to replace the Bobby Hackett's ghostly cornet solos, Night Winds is some more of the same lush and soothing mood music that Gleason made famous in the mid 1950's.  The songs flow into one another seamlessly-- each side of the record is like a dreamy soundscape. 

Fat, sweaty, chain-smoking and mostly drunk, its truly amazing what Jackie Gleason would accomplish in 1955-1956.  Not only was his recording career hugely successful but, "The Jackie Gleason Show" was a top- rated variety show on television and "The Honeymooners" were at their creative height!  (The last episode of the "classic 39" would air on September 26, 1956.)  I guess they don't make them like they used to!  The Great One, indeed!     

RATING: 4 packs of cigarettes a day out of 5  

Live at the Roosevelt Grill

Bobby Hackett - "Live at the Roosevelt Grill" (1977) - Chiaroscuro

Hello Friends,

Jazz trumpeter Bobby Hackett is perhaps best known for his work with the Jackie Gleason orchestra playing atmospheric trumpet and cornet solos against a back-drop of lush string arrangements that conveyed both dreaminess and solitude.  He was an accomplished jazz musician who played with Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, The Andrew Sisters, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and many other jazz greats.

In 1970, Bobby's quintet had a regular gig at New York's Roosevelt Grill and producer Hank O'Neal had the good sense to record a number of these gigs.  This album was recorded in 1970 but released posthumously in 1977 (Hackett died of a heart attack in 1976.)  

Unlike his "easy listening" work of the late 50's and early 60's, these live recordings are tried and true tributes to Dixieland music.  The arrangements are solid and upbeat, definitely tipping a hat to the early Hot Fives' and Hot Sevens' recordings of Louis Armstrong.  Some very good cornet work by Hackett and some nice trombone solos by Vic Dickenson.

Perhaps the best thing about this LP are the really snarky and cantankerous liner notes written by producer, Hank O'Neal.  He uses this space as his pulpit to really demolish contemporary jazz/dixieland music, musicians and audiences.   For instance, he writes how contemporary musicians became "victims of their own laziness" with an "audience... so generally stupid that they couldn't tell the difference."  OUCH!  And how "the fault lay with the guys... that kept playing the same tunes over and over because the drunks who listened to them wanted to hear them!" YIKES!  And how by giving "these tunes a listen" you'll realize "what time, tone and taste can do for a tune!"  MEEEEEOWWW!

RATING: 3.5 Fidgety Feet out of 5     

I Wanna Be Sedated

Jackie Gleason - "Opiate d'Amour" (1960) - Capitol Records

Hello Friends,

Back in an earlier post, we compared a Jackie Gleason record to taking Nyquil.  That was nothing! As the title implies, this LP is literally like being on some strong, strong opiates!  This is mood music for heavy eyelids.  Sleepy and sedate, but in the best possible ways!

As the liner notes state, 

Into this intensely romantic album, Jackie Gleason has decanted a tranquilizing potion as dreamily hypnotic as a warm breeze caressing a field of poppies.

Whoa!  They ain't kidding!  Pass the morphine!

Here the songs flow into one another, calmly and uninterrupted, like a lazy river.  Each album side is a medley of sorts with no pauses between songs.  Not sure if this is the first time something like this was being done on a non-classical LP?  Anyone?  

The songs feature more of those lush & laid back string arrangements punctuated by brass sections that sound as if they're playing inside a fog!  Side One is an ethereal sixteen minutes of some of the best "mood" music you're ever likely to hear!  However, if this keeps up we're probably gonna nod off before this record's even done!  

Side Two opens with "Melancholy Serenade"-- a Gleason original that is also more famously known as the theme to "The Jackie Gleason Show".  This lithely segues into the Jerome Kern standard, "Yesterdays" which in turn floats into another... zzz...  zzz... zzz... zzz... zzz... zzz...

RATING: 4 poppy fields out of 5        

Champagne, Candlelight & Kisses

 Jackie Gleason - Champagne, Candlelight and Kisses (1963)

Hello Friends,

Tonight on "Vinyl in the Valley" we're enjoying the swooning sounds of our favorite fat bastard, Jackie Gleason.

Actually, by this point in his music career, I don't think Gleason had much to do with the recording of these albums and instead let producers and arrangers handle most of the workload.  Hey, why conduct an orchestra when you could be drinking?

"Let me show you what you can do..."

In any case, like most of his Capitol LP's this one plays out like the soundtrack to a Woody Allen movie.  There's the familiar-sounding arrangements complete with lush strings and muted horns ("Theme from Bus Stop", "Its Been a Long, Long Time", "Everything Happens to Me"), but there's also some uncharacteristically bouncy, upbeat and even dixieland-inspired jazzier tunes ("Undecided", "All By Myself", "Just You, Just Me").  I guess between the champagne, candlelight & kisses we're supposed to squeeze in some calisthenics!  

The album cover looks like a service cart in James Bond's hotel room:  Champagne on ice, vintage-looking crystal goblets, a glass tumbler with hand-rolled cigarettes,  softly burning candles and... OMG is that a Pu-Pu platter?!?!?

RATING:

3.5 Trips to the Moon out of a possible 5

This shit's better than Nyquil

This is like audio Ambien.    Seriously, if you're having trouble sleeping put this on.  Its so lush and smoldering that it will probably put you to sleep before you even have to flip it to side B.  

The Jackie Gleason LPs on Capitol are all pretty stellar examples of lounge music from the late 1950's and early 60's.  The funny thing is that Jackie Gleason was best known for his portrayal of the brash, Ralph Kramden, on television's "The Honeymooners"-- his albums, however, are quite the opposite of that fat, sweaty, manic, spousal-abusey loudmouth. 

Also, he's on my top 10 list of favorite drunks.