Easy Listening
The whole notion of Easy Listening was until recently considered to be the domain of music prepared for people who didn't really like to think about music. It was considered pre-digested for easy consumption: baby food for the ears! Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth, for this music is rooted in the most revolutionary 20 th century musical form: Jazz. It is sophisticated, witty and urbane. Mature, yes, but a maturity born of experience. Witness the man who first epitomised Easy: Mr Bing Crosby. From his early days as a big band vocalist, the master of pipe-assisted ease achieved his laid-back approach by the use of one invention: the electric microphone. Rather than shouting, Bing could croon and the intimacy resulted in the warmth and familiarity that we now associate with the cardigan-clad, golf-playing star.
Building on this model, the ex-teen star Frank Sinatra found that, when backed by the swinging arrangements of Nelson Riddle or Billy May, his newly-deepened voice had the power to convey jazzy leisure crossed with the ultimate in bachelor chic. His Capitol albums still remain the zenith of easy swinging greatness. Now the cocktail lounge and piano bar became the domain of this genre and the great, predominantly white singers of the time all fitted the mould. Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco , Andy Williams listened to music to watch girls by, Dean Martin swayed, Perry Como had some magic moments and Nat 'King' Cole found it all unforgettable.
By the 60s and the birth of pop and rock had started to influence the direction of easy. While Burt Bacharach and Hal David's songwriting skill introduced a whole new generation to the joys of worldly pop by stars such as Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick and Herb Alpert, a cultural schism was leading older people into the more anodyne orchestral stylings of people like Ray Coniff, Bert Kaempfert or even Mantovani.
The term Easy will always have somewhat gauche connotations yet today the genre plays host to a whole new audience who see the wealth of diversity and craftsmanship as a welcome relief from the mass-produced pop aimed purely at some mythical lowest common denominator. From Scott Walker's versions of Jacques Brel's Euro-angst to the Latin-flavoured exotica of Esquivel, Easy Listening is very much alive.