Various Artists - Minivan Audio Systems: Infinity Acoustic 10 (1994)

Once upon a time, it was rare for a CD player to come standard in a new vehicle. I guess we've come full circle on that one as they've been phased out over the past couple of decades. But if you bought a Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge minivan in 1994 or '95, you apparently had the option of upgrading to the "Infinity Acoustic 10" sound system which included AM/FM radio, graphic equalizer, stereo cassette player, CD player, and 10 speakers.

And it would have come with this CD sampler that not only introduces you to your new sound system, it provides a variety of music from the Sony catalog to play on your minivan's new state-of-the-art stereo system.

Tracks: Imagine sitting surrounded by the fine, supple cloth interior of a new Chrysler Town & Country (MPG: Up to 16 city / 22 highway), and (over the din of your crying, hungry children) trying to hear the following variety of tracks on your way home from the dealership:

1. Introduction to Chrysler Infinity Acoustic 10 Audio System (2:37)
2. How To Set Digital Clock (:54)
3. How To Tune Radio, Set Pre-sets and Adjust Graphic Equalizer (4:56)
4. Hot To Operate Stereo Cassette Player (2:02)
5. How To Operate CD Player (3:40)
6. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - Tower Of Power (5:26)
7. I See Your Smile - Gloria Estefan (4:58) #48 pop, #3 AC
8. Honky Tonk Crowd - Rick Trevino (2:47) #35 country
9. All Shook Up - Billy Joel (2:09). Also on My Lives. #92 pop
10. Hellos & Goodbyes - Tommy Emmanuel (4:35)
11. A Wink & A Smile - Harry Connick, Jr. (2:48) Also on Sleepless In Seattle: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
12. The Hard Way - Mary Chapin Carpenter (4:23) #11 country
13. Keep Talking - Pink Floyd (6:11) #1 rock
14. Said I Love You - Michael Bolton (5:06) #6 pop, #1 AC
15. Silver Threads And Golden Needles - Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn (2:24) #68 country
16. Don't Want To Be A Fool - Luther Vandross (4:37) #9 pop, #4 R&B, # AC
17. Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525, 1st Movement: Allegro - Marlboro Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, Conductor (8:26)

Total time: 67:49 (and, yes, I listened to all of it today, including the excitement of tracks 1-5). The "something for everyone" approach leads to some interesting sequencing choices, but I guess that couldn't be avoided. For my money, the top track is a tie between Harry Connick, Jr. and Luther Vandross. The only new-to-me cut that I had any interest in was Hellos & Goodbyes from Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel. I once had track 6, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride on a prerecorded ToP cassette, so it was good to hear that driving funk instrumental again.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: For our growing family, we bought a base model Plymouth Grand Voyager in 1997, so we missed this disc (and the Infinity Acoustic 10, for that matter) but I couldn't resist it when I saw the CD in the used bin. Plus I had a 10% off coupon.

Chuck Mangione - Journey To A Rainbow (1983)

Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by a CD. The disc I own is the original made in Japan-for-US market pressing in a "Patent Pending" smooth sided jewel case.

Mangione's second of five albums released on the Columbia label, 1982-1988. Mangione hadn't had a hit since 1980 and I completely missed Mangione's 1982 album, Love Notes, when it was released. So this album was an impulse buy - I was at the record store with Burger-King-paycheck money to burn and finding no New Wave/New Romantic synthpop albums to buy, I switched gears to smooth jazz and saw this new release from a familiar artist. And even though was I trying my best to dress like Ren McCormack, Jeff Spicoli, or a member of Duran Duran, I still enjoyed my smooth jazz and must have listened to this thing quite a bit because when I put the LP on again after a couple of decades, I remembered every tune. Within the first few seconds, you can tell you're listening to a Mangione release. It's a happy thing with light jazz/pop melodies and hardly any improvisation. Feels So Good fans would be happy with the purchase - I was and am. Hardly essential, but a nice flashback, nostalgia listen every now and then.

Reviews/ratings:

• Stereo Review: "It's strictly for hard-core Mangione fans, of which I'm told there is a surprisingly large number."
• CashBox: "another fine sampling of frothy free-flight music"
• Billboard (6/4/83): "Mangione's unabashed romanticism brings the usual warmth to this latest smaller group outing."
• Billboard (6/18/83): "Mangione is back on the upswing with his bumptious brand of intoxicating pop-jazz."
• DownBeat (★★★½): "a good album - pleasant, worth a listen, and refreshing for its acoustic quality."
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #154
• Billboard Jazz: #10
• CashBox Jazz: #6
• Radio & Records Jazz Radio National Airplay: #4

Tracks: The title cut, track 1, was released as a single but never gained traction on either the pop or adult contemporary charts. It's decent enough, but my favorites here are the ballads Do I Dare To Fall In Love and Please Stay The Night.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: see above

Previously revisited for the blog:
Everything For Love (2000)
Eyes Of The Veiled Temptress (1988)
Classics, Volume 6 (1987)
Love Notes (1982)/Disguise (1984)/Save Tonight For Me (1986)
An Evening of Magic: Live at The Hollywood Bowl (1979)
Feels So Good (1977)
Land Of Make Believe (1973)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Live/1975-85 (1986)

In late 1986 and early 1987, I often went to the music/electronics section of the Walmart in Commerce, Texas and eyeballed the 5 LP box set of this release, wondering if it was worth the money and would it properly feed my music addiction. I hadn't yet purchased a CD player - that would happen about a year later. The price for the set at the time was around $23 which was $30 more than this poor college student had on hand. The set was never purchased, but many years later, I inherited this CD set from one of my wife's cousins and here we are.

The release on Monday, November 10, 1986 (just in time for Christmas shopping!) was an event, with many stores selling out immediately. The box set debuted at #1 on Billboard's album chart - a rare occurrence at the time. Springsteen is great performer and if you like all his music, this was a prize. However, since I'm admittedly not a hard core fan, I'm of the opinion that listening to the whole thing is a slog (disc 2 in particular) and could have easily been pared down into an epic single disc release. It's taken me three days to get through the set this time. But I guess the words "brevity" and "Springsteen Live" don't belong together so I'll just be moving along now.

Press of the time:

• Stereo Review: "Exhausting, exhilarating, moving, funny, raunchy, majestic"
• Rolling Stone: "the ultimate rock-concert experience of the past decade finally packaged for living-room consumption."
• High Fidelity: "represents as ambitious and fully realized a vision of what has become the American Dream as has been witnessed over the last ten years."
• Smash Hits (7½ out of 10): "Is it worth £25? For the Springsteen fan, yes - it's a wonderful present to give yourself."
• CashBox: "An unparalleled event."
• Billboard: "Superior in every respect"
• Robert Christgau (A-): "There isn't one of its ten sides that excites me end to end, and there isn't one I couldn't play with active pleasure now or five years from now. If anything, it isn't long enough."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #1
• Billboard Pop CD: #1
• CashBox: #1
• CashBox CD: #1
• Rolling Stone: #1

Tracks: Here's my suggested track listing for the aforementioned "epic single disc release"

Side A:

• Thunder Road
• Hungry Heart
• Two Hearts
• Fire
• Cadillac Ranch

Side B:

• War (gotta get the single on there. It peaked at #8 pop, #4 rock)
• Born in the USA
• Born To Run
• Tenth Avenue Freeze Out

CD/cassette bonus track:

• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Which isn't too far removed from the promo-only LP issued by Columbia: https://www.discogs.com/release/4853200-Bruce-Springsteen-The-E-Street-Band-Live1975-85. Now if that album had been released commercially, I wouldn't have hesitated in buying the LP or cassette in 1986.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: see above

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
Greatest Hits (1995)
Tunnel Of Love (1987)

Blog post #2050

Various Artists - Welcome To The Ultra-Lounge (1996)

Capitol's Ultra-Lounge series is consistently inconsistent, so I usually stay away from them when I see them in used bins, but I simply couldn't resist the attractive packaging of this sampler. Turns out it is commonly referred to as the "Fuzzy Leopard" sampler and the faux-leopard skin packaging won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package in 1997.

As for the music, it's mostly from the 1950s and 1960s in such genres as exotica, lounge, cha-cha, space age pop, mambo, and TV themes. The liner notes (and vintage website) describe it thusly:

The neon above the door reads Ultra-Lounge. Enter, and you step back in time. Not too far back. Just a few decades. Back to a time when "revolution" meant watering down your scotch with ice. Back to an era when "evolution" meant taking out the olive and putting in an onion. When Generation X was a secret atomic weapon coveted by secret agents and Cold War spies.

This is a place clothed in leopard and sharkskin. An era bathed in gimlets, hi-balls, straight-up, on the rocks, shaken, not stirred, hi-octane elixirs dressed in garish garni. A time viewed through the seductive haze of slow-burning gazes. Where lipstick-kissed cigarettes ashtray-dance with cigar stubs and cherry stems.

The atmosphere mambos to a soundtrack of cool. Rumbling saxophones, jazzy vibes, over-heated Hammonds, and the sexy chill of a brush across a cymbal. Bold, exotic rhythms strut to the cough and cacophony of the Atomic-Age.

So pour yourself a cocktail, slip off your shoes, shuffle across the shag to your favorite easy chair and enjoy the intoxicating taste of the Ultra-Lounge.

And at 24 tracks over 67 minutes, there's a lot of lounging to do. 2 songs each from the first 12 volumes of the series.

Peak on the US Billboard 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, with my favorites indicated (✔):

Title	Artist	Year
Selections from Mondo Exotica
Swamp Fire	Martin Denny	1959
Voodoo Dreams/Voodoo	Les Baxter	1959
Selections from Mambo Fever
Taki Rari	Yma Sumac	1954
Glow Worm Cha-Cha-Cha	Jackie Davis	1959
Selections from Space-Capades
Holiday For Strings ✔	The Voices of Walter Schumann	1951
Lonesome Road	Dean Elliott & His Big Band	1962
Selections from Bachelor Pad Royale
Theme From Route 66	Nelson Riddle & His Orchestra	1962
Melancholy Serenade	King Curtis	1964
Selections from Wild, Cool & Swingin'
Jump, Jive An' Wail ✔	Louis Prima	1956
More ✔	Bobby Darin	1964
Selections from Rhapsodesia
Girl Talk ✔	Howard Roberts	1965
Go Slow	Julie London	1957
Selections from The Crime Scene
The Peter Gunn Theme ✔	Ray Anthony	1958
Search For Vulcan (from "Thunderball")	Leroy Holmes	1966
Selections from Cocktail Capers
The Pink Panther Theme	Hollywood Studio Orchestra	1964
Teach Me Tiger	April Stevens	1960
Selections from Cha-Cha De Amor
Cha-Cha-Cha d'Amour	Dean Martin	1962
So Nice (Samba de Verão) ✔	Billy May	1972
Selections from A Bachelor In Paris
French Rat Race	The Double Six Of Paris	1960
I Love Paris	Jack Costanzo	1960
Selections from Organs In Orbit
Rockhouse ✔	The Ernie Freeman Combo	1963
Mr. Ghost Goes to Town	The John Buzon Trio	1959
Selections from Saxophobia
Bernie's Tune	Curley Hamner/Milt Buckner	1962
Tanya	Plas Johnson	1963

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Back in the late 1990's, I bought a copy of volume 4 of the series, Bachelor Pad Royale, because I dug the retro design and the fact that it had Route 66 on the track listing. Silly me didn't read that it was the theme to the Route 66 TV show and not a version of the standard (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66. So I was disappointed in it from the get-go and probably didn't give a proper chance. But when my father passed all his vinyl down to me a couple of years later, I was captivated with the album cover of Martin Denny's Exotica album that he must have listened to when he was in college.

However, I didn't care much for that, either. Then I had a friend/co-worker who liked to spin these Ultra-Lounge discs while we had "cocktails" in his apartment. (His idea of a cocktail was limited to mixing Coke and Wild Turkey, but it was free booze so I certainly didn't complain.) It was then I learned how hit-or-miss the Ultra-Lounge compilations were.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Christmas Cocktails (1996)

The Horace Silver Quintet - Song For My Father (1965)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 1999 Rudy Van Gelder Edition with 4 bonus tracks.

Stone cold classic. A fantastic album, worthy of all the praise and inspiration (read: plagiarism) that goes to it and comes from it. Silver wrote a fantastic suite of songs, plays like a man on a swingin', groovy mission, and the rest of the band tries to keep up.

Original liner notes by Leonard Feather and 1999 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• Stereo Review: "further variations in the style that has lately become increasingly mechanical with Silver."
• Downbeat (★★★★): "the prevailing mood, regardless of tempo, is one of complete relaxation and joy."
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ★★★★
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★★

In 1999, this album was inducted to the Grammy Hall Of Fame. uDiscover Music ranked this album at #13 on its list of The 50 Greatest Blue Note Albums, calling the album "an enduring monument to Silver’s genius." And in 1987, this album was selected by Blue Note as one of the 25 Best Albums on the label.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #95
• Billboard R&B: #8

Tracks: My picks today are the title track, the laid back Calcutta Cutie, and the tranquil Lonely Woman.

Bonus tracks: The four bonus tracks include another arrangement of Que Pasa? plus three other tunes that are all very good, they just wouldn't fit in with the motifs that appear throughout the original cuts. Smart to leave them off. I think I'm going to start listening to RVG reissues with bonus tracks in two sittings: one with the album's original tracks as intended, then come back a bit later and listen to the bonus tracks. If nothing else, it's something new to try.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I chose this CD today because my father was born on January 11. Today he would have turned 87.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Blowin' the Blues Away (1959)

Hooked On Classics 3: Journey Through The Classics (1983)

UK import

Louis Clark conducting The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

I was casually flipping through a few of the CDs I inherited from my father and - HAVE MERCY! - looka what I found! Sadly, this third volume was the only one I could locate, but I must spin it post haste to satisfy my appetite for nostalgia. My crack staff tells me this album was certified gold which absolutely amazes me. We sure did love our disco medleys back then. I'm looking at you Stars on 45, Beach Boys, Beatles, Hooked On Swing, Pop Goes To The Movies, and so on.

For those not around in the early 1980s, here's the premise for these things: take a bunch of familiar tunes, arrange a medley, put it to a backbeat. It was simple, quick to produce, and certainly popular. Plus, the classical music was all in the public domain and music executives just love not having to pay royalties. I can just picture the classically-trained musicians leaving this recording session shrugging and thinking, "Meh. It's a paycheck." and heading to the pub.

The original Hooked On Classics single hit #10 on the Hot 100 in January 1982.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #89
• CashBox: #80

Tracks:

The music is hypnotic. And by that, I mean I often found myself staring blankly at the wall in some sort of bizarre trance state while this thing played. My initial excitement with this CD discovery waned quickly upon hearing. Normally being cheesy ain't easy, but it just might be in this case. And 41 minutes of cheese gives poor Mark the collywobbles, especially bad tracks like Dance Of The Furies and Hooked On Rodgers & Hammerstein. It ain't all backbeat, though - Hooked on Romance gives us a taste of Mantovani and, of course, there's bagpipes on Scotland the Brave and tin whistle on the hokey Journey Through America.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None. And I'm hoping I can block today's listen out of my memory.

Dave Grusin - Night-Lines (1984)

This album is a mixed bag, for sure. There's the usual Grusin tracks that sound like his award-winning work for movies and TV plus some filler tracks that sound like Grusin was just playing around with the latest synths (Yamaha GS2 & DZ7, OBX, Fairlight) to see what they could do. But the better tracks on this album are a cover and a couple of West Coast/AOR tracks from Randy Goodrum.

Recorded at a time when the words "all digital recording" were cutting edge so it made sense to plaster "Digital Master" on the front cover and brand the GRP label as "The Digital Master Company."

CD liner notes.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard: "Grusin pushes a little deeper into the pop sphere"
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• Billboard Jazz: #4
• CashBox: #160
• CashBox Jazz: #2
• Radio & Records Jazz National Airplay: #1

Tracks: I can't tell if singer Phoebe Snow ever heard Sly Stone's Thankful N' Thoughtful from the Fresh album, but it's obvious David Sanborn and Marcus Miller grew up with it because they take the cover of that tune to another level. It was released as both a 7" and 12" single but failed to chart. There's two tunes written and sung by Randy Goodrum here which have him sounding a lot like Stephen Bishop. The better of those two is Haunting Me, but the other, Tick Tock, has its moments. Goodrum also co-wrote a ballad with Dave Loggins, Somewhere Between Old And New York, which is sung by Snow and there's not much to get excited about. There's the theme from the TV show St. Elsewhere which peaked at #15 on the Adult Contemporary chart in '84. Also included is a track from Grusin's soundtrack to the movie Racing With The Moon.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Amparo (2008) (with Lee Ritenour)
Two Worlds (2000) (with Lee Ritenour)
Collection (1989)
Harlequin (1985) (with Lee Ritenour)
Out Of The Shadows (1982)