Axel Stordahl

Let's start a new series devoted to the vanished genre of easy listening records. This genre was a major factor in the LP era; it was sort of a hybrid of light classical and big band music, and its major practitioners would veer into one or the other depending on the record and their own proclivities and backgrounds.

Morton Gould has been featured several times already on this blog; he put out quite a string of easy listening items in the 10-inch LP era. Another exponent was Paul Weston, Jo Stafford's husband and accompanist.

Most of the easy listening items you find on the web are from its later phases, when it adopted hip and funky trappings that many people like these days (not me; that stuff makes my skin crawl).

But back in the postwar era, easy listening really was easy - so easy, it could lead to "Dreamtime," as this Axel Stordahl item is titled. It was pretty music for relaxation. Sort of like the function of new age music these days, I guess.

Stordahl, a former Tommy Dorsey arranger, made his name as Frank Sinatra's arranger during the Voice's first great era, when he recorded for Columbia. Stordahl's arrangements for Sinatra were consistently inventive and gorgeous, and he maintained a remarkably high standard throughout that period.

This album is not quite on that level, to my ears; just as Nelson Riddle's work on his own was not as consistently inspired as it was when he worked for Sinatra. Not sure why this should be the case, and perhaps I am over-generalizing.

Stordahl died young, at age 50 in 1963, soon after one last recording session with Sinatra, for the Capitol album Point of No Return.

This post is in response to a request by Mel. Sorry, there are a few sonic burbles in the mix, but it's generally quite listenable.