Artists on This is Vintage Now Vol. 2

Laura Ainsworth

Dallas-based jazz singer Laura Ainsworth is breathing new life into the “jazz standards” album format. She and her husband, musicologist and author Pat Reeder (Hollywood Hi-Fi), have assembled a repertoire that includes familiar standards that are given fresh treatments; rare period tracks that have only been recorded a few times; and recent songs written in older styles.

Laura’s music became popular with fans of the Vintage movement in the mid-2010s, and her third al1bum, New Vintage, contains numerous tracks that pay tribute to this set of fans. One particular standout is her rendition of “An Occasional Man”, a South Pacific-themed track introduced in the 1955 Rosalind Russell comedy Kiss the Girls Goodbye. Laura’s version pulls out all the stops and gives the song a rich tropicana treatment that was strangely omitted an all previous known recordings.  Her version even goes as far as to include the sounds of tropical birds and ocean waves in the background. New Vintage is available on Amazon.com in the United Sates and is distributed by Ratspack Records in Japan.

Sad Salamanders

Sad Salamanders is a studio project fronted by Emmy-nominated film and television music composer Scooter Pietsch. Scooter’s love for the movies of the 1960s led him to pay attention to their music scores, and he began writing music in similar styles, working in particular to replicate the frenetic atmospheres in the films’ party and club scenes. “The Exotic Sandy Warner” is one of the mellower tracks from the group’s debut album Cigarettes and Fishnets (2008). The song is named for model and actress Sandy Warner, who as mentioned is known as “The Exotica Girl” due to appearing on Exotica and Space Age Pop album covers from Martin Denny, Hugo Winterhalter, and others.

Buy Cigarettes and Fishnets by Sad Salamanders on Amazon.com.

Robert Drasnin

Continuing the exotica theme is the recently departed composer Robert Drasnin. Drasnin’s reputation rests on one album of exotica music entitled Voodoo (1959) that has become a favorite with collectors and lounge music fans.  Some time after retiring as Director of Music for CBS Television in the 1990s, Drasnin revisited his exotica work, performing at Tiki conventions and releasing a follow up album, Voodoo II, in 2007.  Drasnin left a set of unfinished tracks upon his 2015 passing that were completed by longtime collaborator Skip Heller, and were released as a final LP entitled Voodoo III (2017). The 1970s-style lounge and cocktail jazz track “Hulabalu” is taken from this album.

Buy Voodoo III by Robert Drasnin directly from Dionysus Records on LP and CD.

Barry Morgan

Organist Barry Morgan has won the hearts of fans throughout his native Australia, both as a featured tour guest of rock performer Gotye (of “Somebody That I Used to Know” fame), and with numerous appearances on Australian television, most notably on the game show Spicks and Specks. Morgan’s zany personality is wildly entertaining, and he plays up the kitsch factor to dizzying heights as he demonstrates various keyboards with matching sales techniques, such as the “One Finger Method” that manages to bring out the organ player in even the most tone-deaf of novices. Our song, “Big Bossa,” is a slightly edited version of the opening track on Morgan’s debut album The Touch of You.

Buy The Touch of You by Barry Morgan on Amazon.com.

Sunday Combo

Netherlands-based Sunday Combo creates 1960s/1970s-style space-age cocktail lounge music that recalls European soundtrack and library music from the original period. Their debut album Music For Lounge Chairs (2012) weaves Bossa Nova rhythms and vintage synthesizer sounds into an intoxicating Mid-Century Modern relaxation experience. Although Music For Lounge Chairs is largely electronically-generated, Sunday Combo frontman Bas Doppen opted to use real vibraphones, organs, and pianos as lead instruments, and credits this for the high level of authenticity heard on the album.  “Womp” is but a sampling of this atmospheric album that is great for lazy Sundays (and other days as well).

Buy Music For Lounge Chairs by Sunday Combo on Bandcamp.

 Sue Raney

Veteran jazz vocalist Sue Raney released her first album with Capitol Records in her late teens. Sue’s varied career includes the sultry classic All By Myself (1964), in which she pretty much personifies Jessica Rabbit twenty-four years before the latter’s film debut; a run of Sunshine Pop albums recorded with Imperial Records; and a stint as a member of the 1980s vocalese project Supersax & LA Voices. One of her more recent albums is the moving Listen Here (2011), a vocal-and-piano album that features piano accompaniment by Alan Broadbent (Paul McCartney, Natalie Cole, Irene Kral).

“Aren’t You Glad You’re You” is a rare track from the Listen Here sessions that was only released on the Japanese edition of the album. This Japanese edition is currently out of print, but Eastwind Import has a limited supply.

Kenny Sasaki & the Tiki Boys

Japanese bass player and film and television music composer Ken Sasaki is another artist who caught the Tiki/Vintage bug and decided to try his hand in recreating music in the exotica and cocktail jazz genres. His group Kenny Sasaki & the Tiki Boys have recorded four albums to date. The group’s albums started out more electronic in style, but have become more authentically Vintage sounding over the years; three of them actually predate the Tiki music explosion that kicked off in the West starting in 2011. Our track, “Fly Me to the Island”, opens Sasaki’s fantastic third album Island Slumber (2010). The song’s simplicity and brevity are spellbinding, and make for a fantastic album side closer.

Buy Island Slumber by Kenny Sasaki & the Tiki Boys on Amazon.com.
 

Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes

Sarah Jane Ulrich is a St. Louis-based singer and vintage reseller whose unique home, which she calls “The Deco Fortress”, features a carefully curated collection of art deco furnishings and memorabilia, and has become a favorite sleepover destination on AirBnB. Her big band, Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes, features veteran big band musicians who have worked with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, and Rudy Vallee. Our track, “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” is an exclusive and otherwise unavailable song that the group recorded especially for This is Vintage Now Vol. 2 while working on their debut album, Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes (2013).

Go to Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes’ website and scroll down to buy Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes’ album Sarahnade En Bleu (2015), which features Sarah Jane and the band swinging through an hour’s worth of big band and jazz tunes.  It’s a joyous, atmospheric collection that sounds like an underground band rehearsal in an alternate world where swing is still king.

Ìxtahuele

Sweden’s premier exotica group Ìxtahuele (pronounced IHKS-tah-hweh-leh) became a worldwide sensation thanks to their faithful recreations of small-band Exotica in the style of Martin Denny and Gene Rains. Sweden has a rich heritage of music education that gives their renditions of music a “cut above” quality, and Ìxtahuele have continued this tradition of musical excellence in their chosen genre. The tracks on Ìxtahuele’s 2012 four-song demonstration recording initially perpetuated the word of mouth excitement about the group; these tracks were subsequently rerecorded for their debut album Pagan Rites (2013). The edited version of “Searching the Souq” presented here comes from the original 2012 demo recordings.

Buy Ìxtahuele’s debut album Pagan Rites at Amazon.com.

Alika Lyman Group

If the name “Alika Lyman” sounds familiar, well, it should. Alika’s uncle is none other than Arthur Lyman, one of the Big Three pioneers of the Exotica genre alongside Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Lyman is a guitarist and bassist who has followed in his famous uncle’s footsteps, keeping the Tiki torch burning for current fans of Vintage music with his combo The Alika Lyman Group. Their 2013 self-titled album evokes a late-night jazz combo sound that’s ideal for overnight drives and afterhours reminiscing. Our track, “Crude”, is one the moodier selections on the album, and features lounge podcast host Mark Riddle (aka Marty Lush) on vibraphone.

Buy the self-titled album by The Alika Lyman Group at Bandcamp.

Purdy

London-based singer Purdy (real name Rebecca Poole) has achieved a solid reputation in her native UK, touring with British TV personality Jools Holland and hosting the successful concert series “Purdy’s Pop-Up”. Purdy’s love for 1940s British singer Vera Lynn led her to write and produce “This is the Song,” an unofficial follow-up to Vera Lynn’s WWII anthem “We’ll Meet Again.” Once the track was released, Dame Vera Lynn herself commended Purdy in writing for the song.  Purdy then performed the track at Wembley Stadium as Britain’s ITV channel broadcasted the performance. A remixed version of “This is the Song” will be presented on This is Vintage Now Vol. 2 as an exclusive track unavailable anywhere else.

Purdy followed up this single with her debut album Diamond in the Dust (2015), which is available at Amazon.com.  Diamond in the Dust features a vast, Spaghetti Western-cum-Phil Spector sound, with Purdy’s alluring contralto permeating the air like a siren at sea.

Talya Ferro

Talya Ferro is remembered by Vintage music fans for her work as bossa nova vocalist in The Walter Wanderley Group. After successfully auditioning for Sergio Mendes’ Brasil ‘66 as a backing vocalist, Talya confided to Mendes that she would prefer to work in a lead vocal capacity, which resulted in a referral to Brazilian organist Walter Wanderley. Talya toured as lead vocalist with Wanderley for a year and a half. During that time, Antonio Carlos Jobim wrote the song “Wave” specifically for her to sing, even going so far as to write the original lyrics in English instead of Portuguese. Talya’s vocal rendition of “Wave” appeared on Wanderley’s Batucada (1966) album; an instrumental version became the title track of Jobim’s best selling album Wave (1967).

Fast forward to 2014, and Talya revives “Wave (Vou Te Contar)” on her third LP, The Music That Makes Me Dance. This version features Talya singing in both English and Portuguese (she is fluent in both languages). Her husband John L. Rodby was longtime music director for Dinah Shore; he conducts a thirty-three piece orchestra behind her on this new version.

The Music that Makes Me Dance has limited availability on Amazon.com.