Standards to Love: Lounging in Love
With Valentine’s Day right round the corner, I know many are assembling playlists for their upcoming celebrations, whatever they may look like. For me, the perfect Valentine’s Day playlist MUST include a generous assortment of lounge singers.
Lounge singers is a term often applied to singers, particularly women, who performed in intimate nightclubs. While there are definitely lounge singers today, the prevalence of this style reached its apex in the 1950s and 1960s.
Why are lounge singers perfect for a Valentine’s Day playlist? Their music, their voice, their style oozes intimacy. The music is relaxed. The voice is sultry. The style is sexy. It says, come on in, have a glass of wine, settled yourself down, and just listen.
There’s also a jejune quality, too, which is appropriate. A lounge singer cares that you’re there, but she’s confident in herself and takes true pleasure in her singing, so much so that’s she content to be singing to an empty room just as much as crowded one. That sort of confidence is 100% sexy.
There’s a smokiness to lounge singers, a correlation with the lounges of old where people dressed to the nines would sit round cocktail tables with an old fashioned or a dirty martini, light their cigarettes, mumble conversation, and listen. And because this image is indelibly linked with the idea of lounge singer, she will always exude a singular allure.
Julie London
The quintessential lounge singer in my book is Julie London. The woman herself is a study in contradictions. In the recording studio, where ever breath and whisper was captured, her sultry, torch smoldering voice exuded complete self-assurance, but when faced with an audience on stage, that confidence was sorely tested.
Daughter to vaudevillian parents, Julie London was born and raised in California. During her youth, her parents moved to Hollywood where they enrolled her in the private Hollywood Professional School, which boasted such alumni as Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. It was during this time that Julie would sneak out and perform in small jazz clubs in the Hollywood area, until she was thrown off the circuit because she was underaged. From there, Julie went on to have a nominally successful acting career in B-movies. After the failure of her first marriage to jazz enthusiast and actor Jack Webb, Julie London found solace immersing herself in the jazz music that she loved; she would listen to it and when attending small parties, she would even do informal performances. It was at one of these parties that composer Bobby Troup heard her. With much cajoling, he was able to convince her to perform for him in a nightclub. He arranged all the details, making certain to have several prominent men within the recording industry present for her performance.
The rest they say is history. From that night, Julie London was snapped up. She recorded her first album Julie is Her Name which featured her smash hit Cry Me A River. In my opinion, this is one of the best albums to begin with if you’re uncertain whether you are a fan of this sort of mellow, warm jazz. After the massive success of her first album, Julie went on to record over 30 albums with Bobby Troup arranging many of the songs.
What’s quite wonderful about Julie London is the dichotomy between her media perception and who she really was. With a voluptuous figure many woman would envy, her luscious blonde locks, and clear blue eyes, she was a publicists dream girl. Her album covers all highlight her physical features to advantage, bolstering the sex symbol status that her music already evoked. However, in real life, Julie London was not a siren, but rather a woman content to embrace domesticity. She married Bobby Troup and together they had a very large family. This is beautifully apparent on her album Julie At Home which was recorded in her palatial California home. (I’ve included the full album on the Whiskers on Kittens: Lounging In Love playlist.)
Julie London is the quintessential lounge singer because her personality shuns the big lights and media attention, but yearns for the intimacy and communicativeness afforded in a small jazz club. While most artists aspire to arenas and concert halls, happy to live in the limelight, Julie London expressed herself best in an atmosphere that was dim, slightly hazy, and entirely sensual.
Peggy Lee
What captures me so entirely about Peggy Lee is the fact that so many people would be inclined to overlook her because of her style while singing. As is customary of lounge singers, there’s a laid back, conversational quality to her. However, she is fully in control of her vocals to say nothing about the power she exudes over her audience. The moment she took the stage, she demanded the attention of every person in the room. This is no small feat.
Furthermore, Peggy Lee is one of the first notable female composers of her day. When it came to her music, she wanted in on every aspect from the arrangement of the accompaniment to the composition of the music and lyrics. Because she maintain such a stringent participation in all aspects of her music career, she possessed a deep-seated confidence that comes through not only on her recordings but also when she performed live.
My first introduction to Peggy Lee was at a very young age while watching Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. Two voices in that animated film were voiced by Ms. Lee. The voice of Darling, which can be heard singing a lullaby to the newly arrived baby, and the voice of Peg, the glamorous, slightly mysterious stray Lady meets when she’s thrown into the pound. In that scene, you get a prime glimpse of the perfect lounge singer when she performs He’s a Tramp. Sheer perfection!
I think Peggy Lee’s most famous recording may be Fever. At ease, composed, entirely filled with aplomb, the song is an excellent representation of her talents. While Peggy Lee’s music is serious jazz, what I appreciate about her is that fact that she’s not afraid to play around. This is the mark of a truly creative individual. On any given album, she’ll have cuts that exude depth and pathos right along ones that will make you laugh out loud.
Of all her albums, my personal favorite is Mink Jazz. The title alone promises sophistication. Two personal favorites are I Never Had a Chance and Where Can I Go Without You. Those songs feel as though she is singing them directly to the listener. And, for a glimpse of her playfulness, take a listen to Please Don’t Rush Me and I Didn’t Find Love. They will leave you smiling, to say nothing of the superb arrangements. The most unfortunate aspect of the album is that it was recorded during a period of history when song lengths were curtailed. Nearly every song on the album could easily have been lengthened two or three minutes. Regardless, it’s a fantastic album that is a perfect addition to any Valentine’s Day playlist. You will find the whole album as well as some other inclusions from Ms. Lee on the Whiskers on Kittens: Lounging in Love playlist.
Diana Krall
It is my hope that you, dear readers, are at least familiar with Diana Krall. With her stellar proficiency at the piano and her bedroom voice, Diana burst on the scene at a very young age. Her lengthy, highly accoladed and awarded career speaks to her the depth of her talent.
What is a true enjoyment where Diana Krall is concerned is that she draws from multiple musical inspirations. The lounge singers of the 1950s and 60s were fortunate to sing new compositions that would ultimately affix themselves as hits within the Great American Songbook. Diana Krall records many of these songs, apply new arrangements to them that provide a unique reimagining of them, whether its apply a bossa nova arrangement to a 1940s song or taking a rock n roll classic and turning it into a jazz number. Following further in Peggy Lee’s footsteps, Diana Krall is not afraid to include playful pieces, whether that playfulness is in the song selection or the musical arrangement.
Diana Krall embraces the classic small combos for many of her songs, but there are times when she utilizes a large orchestra as well. Whichever arrangement she goes with, the listener is left with the same elements of intimacy one can expect from a lounge singer.
There are a wealth of material to choose from where Diana Krall is concerned. However, I have selected four specific albums that all possess a mellow ease about them. When I create a playlist, I find it discordant when there’s a rambunctious jazz number randomly thrown in the mix with gentle euphonious ones. I’ve included all these albums on the Whiskers on Kittens: Lounging In Love playlist. Make sure to check out Gentle Rain from her Love Scenes album, Popsicle Toes from When I Look In Your Eyes, Besame Mucho from The Look of Love, and You’re My Thrill from Quiet Nights. I’ve also thrown in a couple of other songs of hers from different albums. If you only listen to one, make sure it’s Temptation. It’s perfect for any, and I do mean any, Valentine’s Day playlist.
Melody Gardot
Up till now, I have included singers who draw their material almost exclusively from American Popular Standards. However, I wish to include Melody Gardot in my Lounging in Love post because I think she is a prime example of the modern day lounge singer. Her material pulls from a lot of contemporary compositions as do the musical styles which she embraces, yet her methodology, poise, and style fit in the genre sublimely.
If you close your eyes, you can envision yourself seated in a darkened, slightly smoky corner, the band silhouetted against a velvet curtain on a dais, resonant chords vibrating through the air, and a smoldering, sonorous rising over the buzz of conversation in the room.
Personal favorites are Your Heart Is As Black As Night and So We Meet Again My Heartache, both of which are included on the Whiskers on Kittens: Lounging in Love playlist.
Regardless of what your Valentine’s Day plans may be- whether you have a date, are making dinner at home for a loved one, or have nothing planned whatsoever- I believe the Whiskers on Kittens: Lounging in Love playlist is a perfect a listening party for anyone. And, because I have been thinking about smoky nightclubs with dim lighting and a slightly erotic atmosphere, I’m leaving you with a short video from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It thoroughly encapsulates the Lounge atmosphere and the music found therein.
