Customer Reviews

Happy Radio Days

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O.K., so you're forty-ish or fifty-ish (or sixty-ish) and nostalgia is a creeping threat to your mental health. Insidiously, snatches of old tv shows or radio tunes suddenly enter your head, at odd hours of the day. You find yourself humming - OUT LOUD - and your loved ones are annoyed and perfect strangers concerned. "WHAT IS THAT TUNE?" Well, you might find out if you buy this disc. French composer ("Umbrellas of Cherbourg," etc.) and arranger Michel Legrand is a fellow sufferer and he did something about it. He started looking for recordings of some of his favorite radio memories from the 1950s (and 1940s - O.K. so he's a little older than us!) and, when he discovered the records were out of print, he persuaded the fine, adventuresome people at Erato (OK, OK, the once-vast-now-significantly-deflated-AOL/Time-Warner media empire, really) to let him record the things all over again. My favorite is "Holiday for Strings" by David Rose. I used to hear that piece again and again in the 60's, usually to introduce the "matinee movie" on the local independent TV station. Never knew what it was. Always wondered. Drove me nuts. Now I know. I'm still nuts but, hey, at least I've got this nifty CD! Do yourself a favor and order it. Call it "lounge classics" and indulge your ears. You won't regret it!

In this album, arranger and conductor Michel Legrand presents a modern interpretation of 18 musical standards that were popular in radio broadcasts in the wake of the World War 2. If you like lush instrumental music with muted brass and the ear-kissing sounds of magical violins, all with a modern bass beat, you will enjoy this album. The tempo varies from "drifting and dreaming" to the infectuous sounds of "toe tapping" Latin rythms. This is easy listening music that sounds great in the background or in the foreground.