The Velvet Lounge CD-Album-Series by Bear Family

The Velvet Lounge

Exotica Heroes and Easy Listening Troubadours

The title says it all: The 'Velvet Lounge' is a remarkable series for all things elegant, entertaining, and sometimes even exotic. This addition presents itself as a comfortable and welcoming home for terrific treasures from the fabulous Fifties and the strange Sixties. A mark of quality for all kinds of audio-finds from long ago and far away.

From a time and place between Rock- and Beat-ecstasy and psychedelic populism. These signs of the times come to us straight from the archives of the record-companies. Larger as well as a small labels, re-mastered in excellent quality. Of course, most often as a direct digitalization of a master-tape. Sometimes as a recording from an acetate, always with the best possible sound. If what you hear is what you get, the artists’ names alone make the series proud.

The Motto Was "Anything Goes"

The listener is more than tempted to relax into these recordings, to just enjoy and savor them. While maybe putting up his and/or her feet, and slowly stirring a long-drink. When Earthy Kitt, for example, "the most exciting woman in the world" according to Orson Welles, does her purring 'thang' on the album 'St. Louis Blues', alongside legendary West-Coast-trumpeter Milton 'Shorty' Rogers with an extravagantly exciting (and highly entertaining) Blues program.

Or when Shorty’s trumpeting colleague Al 'Jumbo' Hirt dedicates himself to a sort of 'symbolization in sound' of sex-bomb Ann Margaret, some twenty years his junior, on songs like My Baby Just Cares For Me or Baby, It’s Cold Outside on the album 'Personalities'. Despite numerical evidence to the contrary, Jazz was not a four-letter-word back then, and even Entertainment did not smell funny, yet. The motto was "anything goes" rather than "is that allowed?".