cocktail music is a term that encompasses a variety of styles of “mood music” originally produced from the late 1940s through the late 1970s. Technology helped to birth the genre via the 33 1/3-rpm long playing vinyl record album, introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, then a new medium for sound reproduction. The LP, as it was known, could hold over forty minutes’ worth of material over two sides, as opposed to the six to eight minutes offered by the two-sided shellac 78-rpm record it replaced. This format was envisioned for releases of orchestral/classical works, which previously had to be reconstructed over multiple 78s. But in short order a new breed of “concept albums” appeared, many marketed as “music for relaxation”—especially since you no longer had to get up off of the couch every five minutes to change the record. These records could also set the mood at social gatherings, such as dinner parties—and particularly for cocktail parties.
Popular songs about spirits existed long before the dawn of high fidelity. During the first seventy years of audio reproduction, songs about drinks and drinking were often humorous and bawdy, especially in the “rhythm & booze” worlds of what were then known as “race” and “hillbilly” platters. In these styles one could hear tunes such as Amos Milburn’s “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer,” George Jones’s “White Lightning,” or the Four Deuces paean “WPLJ,” a blend of white port and lemon juice that was enjoyed for being both high octane and economical. The first major hit song about a cocktail, albeit not an actual one, appeared early in 1942 when the Glenn Miller Orchestra released “Moonlight Cocktail” (adapted into an actual cocktail, a riff on the Aviation, by bartender/author Gary “Gaz” Regan some sixty-five years later). See Aviation Cocktail and Regan, Gary. Lyrically, the song related the mixing of a cocktail to a budding romantic relationship; curiously, it was banned by the BBC as being “sentimental slush.” In 1945, the swinging Andrews Sisters recorded “Rum and Coca-Cola,” a ribald Trinidadian calypso hit. Many radio networks initially refused to play a song about an alcoholic beverage, but the public thrilled to its lilting tropical rhythm and drove the song to the top of the pops.
In contrast, most cocktail music of the 1950s was instrumental, comprised of relaxed, slightly swinging jazz, sometimes with Latin (and later Brazilian bossa) accents: artists such as George Shearing, Buddy Cole, the Three Suns, Sid Bass, and accordionist Art Van Damme’s quintet (whose mid–’50s LPs Martini Time, Manhattan Time, and Cocktail Capers exemplify the sound and attitude) provided cool grooves on popular hits that could be complemented by the sound of a cocktail shaker joggling in the background. Bandleader Cedric Dumont took this concept a step further, when his “Musical Cocktail Party” (1956) featured the sound of the shaker recorded and mixed as a percussion instrument. The flamboyantly influential Spanish/Cuban musician Xavier Cugat doubled down on this and produced an album entitled Cugi’s Cocktails (1963), on which every song was named after a cocktail—not only classics such as “One Mint Julep” and “Rum and Coca-Cola” but new pieces including “Daiquiri,” “Grasshopper,” “Singapore Sling,” and “Zombie.” See Mint Julep; Daiquiri; Grasshopper; Singapore Sling; and Zombie. Legendary New Orleans saxophonist Plas Johnson, renowned for his performance of “The Pink Panther Theme,” concocted an album titled Blue Martini with composer John Neel, with the cocktail photographed on the album cover in all its aquamarine splendor.
Stereophonic LPs were introduced in late 1957, showcasing a new type of gimmick—sounds and instruments traveling from speaker to speaker, hurtling across the room like Sputniks in space. These recordings delighted hi-fi enthusiasts, especially those who might have a few highballs under their belts (by the psychedelic ’60s, the same technique applied on rock recordings would thrill listeners experiencing mind-altering drugs). Arranger Bob Thompson released an LP titled On the Rocks, adorned with an iconic “woman in a cocktail glass” on the cover. Mexican composer/arranger Esquivel! (yes, only one name and always with an exclamation point) added electronic instruments and effects, wordless vocals, and bodacious production techniques to his “sonorama” space-age arrangements. The space age was on everyone’s mind during that time, and records such as Music from Outer Space (Frank Comstock), Moon Gas (Dick Hyman and Mary Mayo), Fantastica (Russ Garcia), and Music for Heavenly Bodies (Paul Tanner) sonically explored the cosmos; Les Baxter’s Space Escapade even featured astronauts drinking fluorescent, dry-ice garnished libations on another planet, surrounded by pink- and green-skinned moon maidens.
Many of these records were made with seduction in mind, designed to be played as a romantic aperitif for listeners before heading to the boudoir. Comedian Jackie Gleason, an amateur musician with a hit TV show, conducted a series of records with just that concept in mind. Armed with luxurious arrangements, dripping with saccharin, and bathed in reverb, Gleason’s music was there to help listeners get the job done over dozens of LPs; choice titles included
Another new style of music, which later came to be called exotica, was first heard on the album Ritual of the Savage, by Hollywood composer Les Baxter, in 1952. Fusing imitation orchestral film music with “exotic” rhythms/percussion loosely (very loosely) based on the music of the South Pacific, South America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, Baxter crafted a colorful and relaxing if inauthentic hybrid. In the mid-1950s, pianist Martin Denny, working in Honolulu cocktail lounges, took Baxter’s themes and rearranged them in a light jazz motif, replete with the band members imitating bird calls and monkey squeals, replicating a tropical jungle. Hawaii reacted to Denny’s group with SRO crowds packing their performances at the Kaiser Aluminum Dome at Waikiki nightly. Their recording debut, the LP Exotica, along with its 45-rpm single “Quiet Village,” topped the pop music charts in 1958, quickly followed by Hypnotique, Afro-desia, Forbidden Island, Primitiva, and more. The record industry jumped on the trend, and soon the record bins were overflowing: Jun’gala (Marty Wilson), Surfer’s Paradise (Alex Keack), Taboo (Arthur Lyman), Tropicale (Tommy Morgan), and Voodoo (Robert Drasnin) were among the best. The music became synonymous with tiki, as it provided the soundtrack at Polynesian restaurants around the world. To this day, it’s considered the perfect aural accompaniment to a Mai Tai, Zombie, and the like. See Mai Tai and tiki.
By the late 1960s/early 1970s, cocktail culture had declined, eclipsed by the rise of recreational drug use. The popularization of the Moog synthesizer in 1967 produced a wellspring of electronic mood records, including Martin Denny’s Exotic Moog and Les Baxter’s Moog Rock among them. The era’s sexual revolution was amalgamated into heavy breathing “orgasm” records, the mod sound of seduction. Acts like the Mystic Moods Orchestra, who often recorded in four-channel quadraphonic sound, and the 101 Strings, whose The Sounds of Love LP is perhaps the ultimate absurd artifact of this kind, filled the gap between Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin’s 1969 hit international bedroom heavy-breather “Je t’aime … moi non plus” and the disco porn of Donna Summer’s 1975 big O-fest “Love to Love You Baby.” Poet Rod McKuen celebrated gay sexuality in the same way on his (Crisco) Disco LP. But if the music was changing, so were the cocktails: tiki drinks were out, and Harvey Wallbangers were in—and soon Sex on the Beaches and, inevitably, Screaming Orgasms. See Harvey Wallbanger.
The musical landscape changed as the 1970s chugged along, with disco and punk on the outside looking in at the AOR mainstream, while cocktail music lost much of its appeal. During the 1980s, hipsters immersing themselves in thrift stores and flea markets began picking up the “moldy oldie” LP’s, lured by the kitschy cover art and cheap prices. When combined with other mid-century detritus found in these shops—1950s/1960s clothing, mod furniture, cheesy bric-a-brac, cool kitchen/barware, grimy paperback books, and so on—one could decorate a pretty groovy living space curated from the discarded past. Ultimately, that would make a cool place to throw a retro cocktail party for your friends.
As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened. The revival of the cocktail in the late 1980s coincided with the (some would say ironic) hip appreciation of cocktail music, alongside other remnants of the era (bowling shirts, grindhouse/drive-in movies, Googie coffee shops, neon signage, etc.) that had been relegated to history’s scrap heap. As the 1990s progressed, record companies dug into their vaults to reissue compilations of this “space age bachelor pad music” (a term coined by Los Angeles artist Byron Werner as the title of a mixtape he recorded of his cocktail music favorites, copies of which traveled throughout the tape traders collective in the early 1980s). Many of the CD packages enclosed cocktail recipes, some vintage, some not. Young musicians updated old sounds—the band Combustible Edison referred to their fans as “the Cocktail Nation.” They even had their own eponymous signature cocktail, consisting of brandy, Campari, and lemon juice and printed the recipe on the back cover of their 1994 debut album. “Lounge Music” sections grew in record shops as more and more albums were distributed. Capitol Records, for example, released twenty-five volumes in their Ultra Lounge series. An electronic version called “loungecore” became a dance club style and boutique hotel accessory, especially in Japan and Europe, with producers/DJs (Ursula 1000, Thievery Corporation, the Karminsky Experience, Tipsy, Fantastic Plastic Machine, the Gentle People, and Nicola Conte among them) sampling the vintage LPs for sounds and beats. The new sound of cocktail music was paired with the revitalized cocktail scene at parties around the globe.
Countryman, Dana, ed. Cool and Strange Music magazine. 28 issues, 1996–2003.Jones, Dylan. Ultra Lounge: The Lexicon of Easy Listening. New York: Universe, 1997.
McKnight-Trontz, Jennifer. Exotiquarium: Album Art from the Space Age. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999.
Vale, V., and Andrea Juno. Incredibly Strange Music. 2 vols. San Francisco: RE/SEARCH, 1993–1994.
Wick, Sam, David Wick, and Bradley Temkin, eds. Lounge Magazine. 13 issues, 1994–1997.
Wooley, John, Thomas Conner, and Mark Brown. Forever Lounge: A Laid Back Price Guide to the Languid Sounds of Lounge Music. Norfolk, VA: Antique Trader, 1999.
By: Brother Cleve