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)