Take Five: Introduction

Image by me

. . . . .

One would think I have initiated enough serieses.

But an idea for another one recently presented itself in my consciousness,

and I pondered, considered, ruminated, and outlined myself into going for it.

This new series is called TAKE FIVE – yes, in honor of the Dave Brubeck classic,

and also because each post in the series will feature five songs,

similar to other serieses on Trivial Music Silliness.

By the way, I know ‘serieses’ is not spelled correctly, but I like the quirkiness of this spelling.

Let’s take a step back in time…

about sixty years…

When I was a child my dad liked to listen to FM radio stations whenever we were riding in the car.

Back in those days many FM stations were primarily what was called ‘Easy Listening’ or ‘Mood Music’

[…what my generation tended to call ‘Elevator Music,’ but I don’t think I hear music (Muzak) in elevators anymore. Today’s generations might call this kind of music ‘Hold Music,’ right?]

meaning there was a lot of Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer, Percy Faith, Montovani, Andre Kostelanetz, Jackie Gleason, Nelson Riddle, Billy Vaughn, Frank Chacksfield, Ferrante & Teicher, et al in their programming, as well as classic Big Band, Swing, and Jazz.

Hence I developed a kind of sentimental attachment to that basic style of music.

Over the past several decades this general ‘style’ has seen many sub-genre, including Jazz Fusion, Smooth Jazz, New Age, and World Music.

This new series will include songs that might be characterized by any of the aforementioned categories, plus maybe Ragtime, Boogie Woogie, Be-Bop, Doo-Wop, Creole, Zydeco, Blues, and more.

I decided to present each post as a ‘survey’ of the past 100 years in these categories of music.

This means, usually the five songs in each post will be one from each of the following periods:

1) 1920s-30s;

2) 1940s-50s;

3) 1960s-70s;

4) 1980s-90s;

5) 2000-Present.

That’s the plan, anyhow.

Let’s see where it takes us, shall we?

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