Easy-Listening Acid Trip…Goes Jazz!

Joseph Lanza’s delightfully entertaining Easy-Listening Acid Trip (2020) superbly chronicles the psychedelic transformation of the mid to late-sixties pop of Beatles, Donovan, the Beach Boys and others into the easy-listening other-worlds of such long-forgotten mood makers Ferrante & Teicher, the 101 Strings, the Hollyridge Strings, Mariano and the Unbelievables and the anonymous artisans behind the reviled system of music known as Muzak.

Considering the former list of names is likely better known than the latter (which also includes the slightly better-remembered Percy Faith, Ray Conniff and Bert Kaempfert), it is amazing the sheer volume of easy records made in the sixties and seventies – and their genuine popularity back in the day.

Lanza makes a solid case for the defense in the lasting value of these musical transformations, even going so far as to provide evidence that some of the same people behind the hip hits (H.B. Barnum, Beatles producer George Martin and Galt Mac Dermot, to name a few) ingeniously crafted their own easy-listening variations.

The same could be said of jazz players. Many of the folks who played on the pop hits of the day – most notably, the Wrecking Crew in L.A., the Memphis Boys in Memphis and New York session players like Eric Gale and Richard Tee – were also featured on the jazz covers of the hit songs.

Additionally, players in the orchestras of Henry Mancini and Bert Kaempfert effortlessly switched between jazz and the easy world, often without a second thought or judgment against either.

Even though it was never his mission, Lanza skims the surface of jazzers who lightened up their load with the melodically intoxicating psychedelic pop of the day. That hardly reflects badly on the author’s entertaining and informative celebration of psychedelic music, but it helps avoid the uncomfortable discussion of how this music began to change jazz and the way it was perceived.

Another book could be written about all that. Unfortunately, most histories revel in the “transformation” by Betty Mabry’s turning on Miles Davis to Sly Stone. But the shift happened well before that. Miles – or his fans or his publicity machine – just made it sound cooler.

Miles’s fellow Birth of the Cool ”innovator” and, later, cool-jazz icon Gerry Mulligan named his 1965 album If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em!, acknowledging that the rise of rock was out-popularizing the art of jazz, be-bop, cool, modal or otherwise. There, Mulligan covered “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” among others, suggesting, however reluctantly, that he might be open to the new sounds commanding the attention of the record-buying public.

He didn’t stay here for long, though; trying to accommodate, he tiptoed through the new sound, never really finding any sort of footing.

The year before, Hammond B-3 player Shirley Scott and arranger/vibraphonist Gary McFarland (separately) were among the earliest jazzers who realized the Beatles had something to offer to jazz. Around the same time, out of fashion or necessity, West Coasters Bud Shank and Chet Baker opened their minds to the new wave of rock overtaking their otherwise staid retreads of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley tunes.

While Joseph Lanza never set out to consider jazz in any way, his excellent book inspired me to chronicle those in jazz who mined much of the same material. There were many.

The final 30-some pages of Lanza’s book examine the “50 Psychedelic Favorites Refurbished.” It is a collection of the fifty most prominent mod pop in Lanza’s estimation (some like “Paint it Black,” that had jazz or easy transformations, are missing) that were covered by the mood maestros and easy orchestras. Lanza’s text and his breezy wit makes you want to track these easy covers down.

The occasional jazz guy, like Gabor Szabo or Kai Winding, get an easy nod from Lanza. But it’s not nearly enough. Guitarist Joe Pass waxed the all-Rolling Stones program The Stones Jazz in 1967 (David Matthews’s Manhattan Jazz Orchestra issued its all-Stones disc, Paint it Black, in 1996). Producer Creed Taylor had guitarist George Benson pay tribute to just one Beatles album with The Other Side of Abbey Road (1969).

Band leader Count Basie put out a Beatles tribute album in 1970 (with endorsements from no less than George Harrison and Ringo Starr) while Sarah Vaughan waxed her Beatles tribute in 1981 (backed by Toto, of all people).

As recently as 2020, the Impulse! label put out A Day in the Life: Impressions of Pepper (pictured above), a remarkable set that finds a new generation of jazzers like Antonio Sanchez, Mary Halvorson, Makaya McCraven and Brandee Younger reimagining the iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for a new generation of Pepper poppers.

Oddly, though, while Lanza’s psychedelia favors the Beatles and the Beach Boys, both of whom are well-represented in the easy and jazz fields, the extraordinarily melodic Donovan gets surprisingly short-shrift in jazz.

A while back, I went through a phase where I discovered the appeal of Donovan’s imaginative, nearly folksy music and determined to locate the best Donovan covers in jazz. All I really found was “There is a Mountain” by Herbie Mann or Joe Jones and Gabor Szabo’s “Sunshine Superman,” “Three King Fishers” and the extraordinary take on the too-little known “Ferris Wheel.”

Lanza’s Psych 50 takes in a good deal of Donovan’s body of work, but could have gone further (what, no “Barabajagal”?). But jazz doesn’t even go this far; so you won’t find any notable jazz covers of Donovan’s Lanza’s-listed “Catch the Wind” (#5), “Colours” (#6 – excepting Shake Keane), “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (#18), “Jennifer Juniper” (#21) or “Lalena” (#22) – except on the 1968 Vic Lewis album Donovan My Way.

On the other hand, arranger Don Sebesky dipped his technicolored pen into the psychedelic-pop ink pool on a number of exciting occasions. Even though he was chided for his “sweetening,” he often did the music proud.

From Lanza’s list, you’ll hear Sebesky waxing eloquent on covers of “Aquarius” for Cal Tjader (1968), “California Dreaming” for Wes Montgomery (1966) and George Benson (1971), (the brilliant) “A Day in the Life” for Wes Montgomery (1967), “Eleanor Rigby” for Wes Montgomery (1967), “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Never My Love” for himself (1968), “Scarborough Fair” for Wes Montgomery (1968), Soul Flutes (1968), Kenny Burrell (1968 – unissued) and Paul Desmond (1970) and “With a Little Help From My Friends” for Jack Sheldon (1968).

That said, here are the rest of Joseph Lanza’s “50 Psychedelic Favorites Refurbished” as heard by those in jazz who decided to “join ‘em” as they skip the light fandango through the marmalade skies:

1. “All You Need is Love” by Don Costa (1967), Wayne Henderson (1968).

2. “Aquarius” by Barney Kessel (1968), Bobby Bryant (1969), Dizzy Gillespie (1969), Eddie Higgins (1969), Charlie Byrd (1969), Stan Kenton (1969), Gerald Wilson (1969), Rob McConnell (1969), Tom Scott (1969), Woody Herman (1969), Benny Goodman (1970), Doc Severinsen (1970), Peter Herbolzheimer (1970), Charles Earland (1970), Dick Schory (1971), Maynard Ferguson (1971), Freddie McCoy (1971), George Shearing (1975), Ramsey Lewis (1978).

3. “As Tears Go By” by Bud Shank (1966), Joe Pass (1966), Shake Keane (1966 and 1968).

4. “California Dreamin’” by Bud Shank (1966), Hugh Masekela (1966), Rune Gustafsson (1969), Lionel Hampton (1971), Doc Severinsen (1973), David Matthews (1975).

7. “A Day in the Life” by Gabor Szabo (1967 – discussed in Lanza), Nobua Hara (1968), Brian Auger (1968), Wolfgang Dauner (1969), Les De Merle (1969), Grant Green (1970), Peter Herbolzheimer (1977), Jun Fukamachi (1977).

9. “Eleanor Rigby” by Warren Kime (1967 – not listed in Lanza), Joe Torres (1967), Dick Hyman (1967), Kai Winding (1967), Trudy Pitts (1967), Maynard Ferguson (ca. 1967-73, issued 2007), The Crusaders (1968 and 1975), Pat Williams (1968), Ray Charles (1968), The Young-Holt Unlimited (1968), Craig Hundley (1968), Sonny Criss (1969), Mike Melvoin (1969 – listed in Lanza), Lonnie Smith (1969), Oscar Peterson (1969), Vince Guaraldi (1969), The Third Wave (1970), Count Basie (1970), Gene Harris and the Three Sounds (1970), Mal Waldron (1970), Collins/Shepley Galaxy (1970), the riveting Don “Sugarcane” Harris (1971), Bucky Pizzarelli (1971), Klaus Weiss Orchestra (1972), Pure Food and Drug Act (1972), Les Strand (1972), George Shearing (1974), Frank Cunimondo (1976), Elliott Fisher (1976), Gene Bertoncini and Michael Moore (1977), Sarah Vaughan (1981).

10. “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” by Nina Simone (1969).

11. “Fool on the Hill” by Bud Shank (1968), Barney Wilen (1968), Stanley Turrentine (1969), Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 (1968), George Shearing (1969), Maynard Ferguson (1969), Rob Franken (1969), Harry South (1969), Joe Morello (1969 and 1977), the studio band Living Jazz (1969), Rune Gustafsson (1969). Dorothy Ashby (1969), Jonny Teupen (1969), Count Basie (1969), Lena Horne & Gabor Szabo (1970), Frank Wess (1971), Ramsey Lewis (1971).

12. “Good Morning, Starshine” by Galt Mac Dermot (1968 and 1970), Ted Heath (1969 – not listed in Lanza), Barney Kessel (1969), Bobby Bryant (1969), the studio band The Terminal Barbershop (1969), Stan Kenton (1969), Benny Goodman (1970 – listed in Lanza), Doc Severinsen (1970).

13. “Good Vibrations” by The Young-Holt Unlimited (1967), Gordon Beck Quartet (1968).

14. “Green Tambourine” by Steve Allen with Oliver Nelson (1968), Les Brown (1968 – not listed in Lanza).

15. “Hair” by Galt Mac Dermot (1968), Sandy Brown and his Gentlemen Friends (1969), Bobby Bryant (1969), the studio band The Terminal Barbershop (1969), Tom Scott (1969).

16. “Hello Goodbye” by Bud Shank (1968), James Moody (1970).

17. "Here, There, and Everywhere" by Mike Melvoin (1966), Chet Baker (1966), Hugh Masekela (1967), Doc Severinsen (1967), Charles Lloyd (1967), Kai Winding (1967 – listed in Lanza), Jackie Gleason (1968 – not listed in Lanza), Gary McFarland (1968), Stanley Turrentine (1968), Sadao Watanabe (1969), Tubby Hayes (1969), Gene Bertoncini (1969), George Shearing (1971 and 1976), Bucky Pizzarelli (1971), Mal Waldron (1972), Bobby Pierce (1972), Sarah Vaughan (1981).

19. "I Am the Walrus" by Bud Shank (1968).

23. "Let the Sun Shine In" by Bobby Bryant (1969), Dizzy Gillespie (1969), Galt Mac Dermot (1969), Charlie Byrd (1969), the studio band The Terminal Barbershop (1969), Rob McConnell (1969), Yusef Lateef (1970 – unissued), Ramsey Lewis (1978).

24. “Light My Fire” by Bob Thiele with Gabor Szabo and Tom Scott (1967), Wynton Kelly (1968 – issued 1979), Joe Jones (1968), Johnny Smith (1968), Gerald Wilson (1969), Woody Herman (1969), Stanley Turrentine (1969), Julie Driscoll/Brian Auger & The Trinity (1969), Billy Larkin (1969), Ted Heath (1969 – not listed in Lanza), Young-Holt Unlimited (1969), Paul Horn (1970), Toots Thielemans (1970), Friedrich Gulda (1970), Lionel Hampton (1971), Freddie McCoy (1971).

25. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by Gabor Szabo (1967 – discussed in Lanza – and 1968), Terumasa Hino (1968), John Blair (1977).

26. “Lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby (‘Sleep Safe and Warm’)” by Krzysztof Komeda (1968), Stan Kenton (1968), Rob McConnell (1968), Charlie Byrd (1968 45-rpm), Gerald Wilson (1969), Michal Urbaniak (1973), Zoot Sims (1973 and 1974), Michael Naura (1977), Ran Blake (1984). Later recordings include Komeda tributes by Simple Acoustic Trio (1995, with Marcin Wasilewski) and Tomasz Stanko (1997).

27. "MacArthur Park" by Doc Severinsen (1968), Stanley Turrentine (1968), Freddie McCoy (1968 45-rpm and 1970), Monk Higgins (1968), Woody Herman (1969), Brooks Arthur Ensemble with Vinnie Bell (1969 – not listed in Lanza), Kurt Edelhagen arranged by Quincy Jones and J.J. Johnson (1970), Sonny Stitt (1970), Maynard Ferguson (1970).

28. "Mellow Yellow" by Don Randi Trio (1967), Young-Holt Unlimited (1967), Odell Brown and the Organ-izers (1967), Tom Scott (1967), Steve Marcus (1968), Herbie Mann (1974).

29. "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Gerry Mulligan (1965 on the aptly titled album (i>If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em!), Shake Keane (1966), Brass Fever (1976).

30. “Never My Love” by Tom Scott (1967), Bud Shank (1968) by K & JJ (1968), Cal Tjader (1968), George Shearing (1968), Trudy Pitts (1968), Harold Betters (1968), Brooks Arthur Ensemble featuring Vinnie Bell (1969), Grant Green (1971), Henry Mancini and Doc Severinsen (1972 – listed in Lanza).

31. “Nights in White Satin” by Ted Heath (1969 – not listed in Lanza), Tim Weisberg (1971), Ramsey Lewis (1972), Deodato (1973).

32. "Norwegian Wood” by Gene Russell Trio (1966), Charlie Byrd (1966 and 1974), Bud Shank (1966), Terry Gibbs (1966), Gary Burton (1966), Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo (1966), Paul Horn arranged by Oliver Nelson (1966), Hugh Masekela (1966), Henry Mancini (1967 – not listed in Lanza), Trombones Unlimited (1967), Buddy Rich Big Band (1967), Ira Sullivan (1967), Herbie Mann (1967), Gordon Beck (1968), Volker Kriegel (1968), Roy Meriwether Trio (1969), Vic Lewis (1969 – surprisingly not listed in Lanza), Collins/Shepley Galaxy (1970), Count Basie (1970), Ted Heath (1970 – not listed in Lanza), Dave McKenna (1973), Clark Terry (1974), Horst Jankowski (1974), Don Randi (1979). Later recordings include those by L.A. Workshop (with Tom Scott) (1988), Allan Holdsworth (with Gordon Beck) (1996), Herbie Hancock (1996), Joe Beck (1996), Milcho Leviev (with Herbie Mann) (1998).

33. “Penny Lane” by Kai Winding (1967), Electronic Concept Orchestra (Eddie Higgins) (1969), Collins/Shepley Galaxy (1970), Count Basie (1970).

35. “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” by Wilbert Longmire (1968), Gap Mangione (1968 and 1976), Steve Marcus (1968), Harry South (1968 – not listed in Lanza), Jack Wilson (1969 – unissued), Klaus Doldinger (1969), Ray Bryant (1969), Roy Ayers Quartet (1969), Jean Luc Ponty (1969), Dick Schory (1970), Peter Herbolzheimer (1970), Oliver Nelson with Nobuo Hara (1970), Ack van Rooyen (1971), Henry Mancini (1971 – not listed in Lanza), Eric Kloss (1975). Later recordings include those by Herbie Hancock (1996), Hubert Laws (2002) and Don Friedman (2005).

36. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by Brian Browne (1969), Jun Fukamachi (1977).

37. “She’s Leaving Home” by Tom Scott (1967), Cal Tjader (1971), Jun Fukamachi (1977). A surprising number of later recordings of “She’s Leaving Home” include those by Jaco Pastorius (ca. 1982 issued 1993), McCoy Tyner (1995), Larry Coryell (2002), Brad Mehldau (2005), David Benoit (2007), David Liebman (2012).

39. “Strawberry Fields Forever” by Stardrive with Robert Mason (1973).

40. “Sunday Will Never Be the Same” by Gary McFarland (1968) and George Benson (1968 unissued).

41. “Sunshine Superman” by Harold Betters (1966), Les McCann (1966), Willie Bobo (1966), Victor Feldman (1967), Brian Bennett (1967), Lionel Hampton (1967), Gabor Szabo (1968), Lonnie Smith (1970 and again on his 2021 album Breathe, with Iggy Pop), Moe Koffman (1970), Eric Kloss (1970), Jerry Hahn (1973), Brass Fever (1975).

42. “There is a Mountain” by Herbie Mann (1967 and 1968) and Boogaloo Joe Jones (1968).

43. “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” by Cal Tjader (1971).

45. “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Hugh Masekela (1967), Trudy Pitts (1967), Freddie McCoy (1968), Pat Williams (1969), King Curtis (1969 and 1971), Herbie Mann (1974), The Gadd Gang (1988).

46. “With a Little Help From My Friends” by Herb Alpert (1967), Jean-Luc Ponty (1968), Volker Kriegel (1968), Wilton Felder (1969), Count Basie (1970), René Urtreger (1970), David T. Walker (1973), Dom Minasi (1974), Jun Fukamachi (1977).

47. “Within You, Without You” by The Soulful Strings (Richard Evans) (1967), David Liebman (1975).

48. “Woodstock” by Barry Miles (1971), Tom Scott (1972).

49. “Yellow Submarine” by The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (1967), Franco Ambrosetti (1987).

50. “Your Mother Should Know” by Bud Shank (1968), Kenny Ball (1970).

Years after the acid-trip hangover yielded to Watergate, Reagan, Thatcher and other such bonfires of vanity – not to mention the unlikely morphing of easy listening and jazz into the Stay-Puft monster that is Smooth Jazz – a new generation of jazzers tuned out Tin Pan Alley and turned on to The Beatles.

Jazzy Beatles tributes appeared by the L.A. Workshop (with Tom Scott) on two volumes of Norwegian Wood (1988 and 1989), the GRP set (I Got No Kick Against) Modern Jazz, Bob Belden Presents Strawberry Fields (1996), two volumes of “Beatle Jazz” (with David Kikoski, Charles Fambrough and Brian Melvin) (2000-01), the David Matthews band Manhattan Jazz Quintet’s Come Together (2005), Al Di Meola’s All Your Life (2013) and Bill Frisell’s John Lennon tribute All We Are Saying… (2011).

There are also such revisionist compilations as Blue Note Plays The Beatles (2004), Ramsey Lewis Plays The Beatles Songbook (2010), the German Beatles vs. Stones: British Pop Hits Go Groovy (2010) and the French The Beatles in Jazz (2017).

Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you bring a little psych pop, bring a little jazz. Put it all together, you’ll like what you have. You know that you want to. And I know that you do. Come in here and love with me.

Easy-Listening Acid Trip

Whether you like it or not, easy-listening music can be fairly considered the soundtrack of life for Americans who grew up in the sixties and seventies. As soon as you left the house, it was everywhere: in the mall, grocery stores, department stores, five-and-tens (remember those?), restaurants, the doctor’s office and in the one place that earned the music – or Muzak – its often-derogatory name, the elevator.

Suburban parents even spun such “background music” at home, a habit that was popular among the better-off in the fifties with what is now regarded as “bachelor pad” or “lounge” music. Back in the seventies, I had relatives likely living well beyond their means who played these easy records day and night; it was a sign of class, sophistication and good taste to a certain generation.

American listeners could skip the light fandango to the orchestras of Ray Conniff, TV star Jackie Gleason, Andre Kostelanetz, 101 Strings, Mantovani, Mystic Moods Orchestra, Lawrence Welk (another TV star), Enoch Light and the Light Brigade and Ferrante & Teicher. The best of this bunch were easily the records of Henry Mancini, who was churning out many memorable film scores at the same time, and Percy Faith.

But America had no special claim on easy listening. Indeed, the music was even more popular in other countries. The soft parade marched through the British orchestras of Frank Chacksfield, Ronnie Aldrich and Cyril Stapelton. France gave us Francis Lai, another renowned film composer, Paul Mauriat and Franck Pourcel. But it was Germany that surely produced the two greatest practitioners of the art of easy with Bert Kaempfert and James Last.

To some, such orchestras spun silk out of the classics, Tin Pan Alley, Broadway numbers and film themes. For others, it turned good music to aural mush. In either case, these mood maestros smoothed whatever edges popular music possessed and spread a kind of hush over any memorable melody.

With the influx of rock and roll in the early sixties, prompted, of course, by the rise of the Beatles, popular and profitable tastes began to change. All of a sudden, orchestra leaders heard what was “happening” and hipped up quick.

Once everyone from Dylan and Donovan to the Stones and the Beach Boys started steering things down trippier roads, the easy fellows were close behind, ready to make bread out of the electrical banana.

This is where Easy-Listening Acid Trip: An Elevator Ride Through ‘60s Psychedelic Pop (Feral House), Joseph Lanza’s intoxicating journey through the mellow yellow of, well, “Mellow Yellow” and other strange trips, begins.

Lanza emerged as a specialist in easy-listening music during the last decade of the previous century when forgotten fifties easy favorites from the likes of Esquivel, Les Baxter, Martin Denny and so many others were repackaged and repurposed as mad-mod “space age,” “exotica” and “bachelor pad” music.

He wrote enthusiastic notes for CD compilations of mood makers like Ferrante & Teicher, Nelson Riddle, John Barry (who he calls a “master of moods”), Gunther Kalman Choir and Andy Williams’s wife, Claudine Longet while supervising easy compilations of his own for Time Life Music. One of those sets, Spirit of the ‘60s: Pop Troubadours (2000), a collection of songs by the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas and Donovan, of course, tiptoes through these tulips.

Lanza also authored the well-regarded, yet little-known Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong (2004). That book earned plaudits from no less authorities than author J.G. Ballard, composer Wendy Carlos and documentarian Errol Morris, who hailed Elevator Music as “the definitive history of twentieth century music.”

It was in Elevator Music where Lanza turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor for what he called “metarock,” the art of reinterpreting rock songs into dreamlike, string-laden, easy-listening alternatives.

That is the seed that flowered into the fascinating and engaging Easy-Listening Acid Trip. Joesph Lanza looks back at the major psychedelic pop and rock hits that emerged during the fluorescent fever dream of the mid to late sixties, then considers the magical mystery makeovers of those songs the mood maestros offered up.

While Lanza has always been especially adroit with words, particularly in describing the mood or a feeling a song or a cover means to evoke, he’s at his very best in this battle of the batons. The number of thoughtful ruminations and clever turns of phrase Lanza offers on nearly every page make this book a true page turner.

Consider this Hair-raising consideration: “the ‘hippie musical’ ended up at the split-end of a counter-cultural mindset that had been growing for years.” Before you exhort a chuckle or a groan, you realize the clever wordplay makes perfect sense.

“Easy Listening,” writes Lanza, is “a musical terrain that has been ignored or belittled for so long that reappraising it often calls for aesthetic refocusing or perceptual cleansing.” Lanza not only has a gift for reappraisal but a flair for refocusing listeners’ attention on the marvel of good songcraft and even expert “softcraft.”

Deeply thoughtful and particularly well informed, Lanza effortlessly places the music in its historic context, noting not only the origin of a lyric but what else was “happening” in the world outside the song. He approaches his subject as an academic but reports on it with the love, respect and joy only a fan can bring to the music.

Lanza’s key insight in Easy-Listening Acid Trip is that for all the scary new-thing bluster that psychedelic pop initially proposed, much of it was often inspired or informed by the easy-listening music of the past, from the vaudeville, American Tin Pan Alley and British Musical Hall traditions. That, in turn, made songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” and “Penny Lane” so easy – and appropropriate – to easy-fy.

Lavishly illustrated in Milton Glaser-styled swirls and pop art sign posts, E-LAT also features a good number of the covers of those records discussed in the book, including such favorites as Paul Mauriat’s painted lady on Blooming Hits (one of the first record covers I ever saw), Billy Vaughn’s sci-fi scape on The Windmills of Your Mind and the Johnny Arthey Orchestra’s oddly wicked-looking Donovan kaleidoscope on The Golden Songs of Donovan.

The book deserves an equally colorful soundtrack. I lost count of the number of times I went online to check out the easy variations Lanza discusses so vividly – and often right on point. (I was also enticed to track down several long out-of-print LPs Lanza reviews that more than piqued my curiosity, including the Alan Lorber Orchestra’s delirious 1967 Verve record The Lotus Palace, which features Colin Walcott and Vinnie Bell and was surprisingly reissued on vinyl not too long ago by Modern Harmonic.)

While Lanza makes a compelling case that “Easy-Listening should not be confused with lazy playing,” he doesn’t make much of how easily many of these tunes seeped into the jazz repertoire. Jazz players like Bud Shank, Kai Winding, Woody Herman and George Shearing were all busy taking acid trips of their own at the time, much to derision of fans and critics alike. Indeed, Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan devoted full albums to the Beatles.

Surprisingly, though, the Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo gets some Lanzafaction for the “breezier elevator ride” of his 1967 album Wind Sky and Diamonds. Lanza reflects and refracts on the album’s genuine jazz-lite takes of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “A Day in the Life” and “White Rabbit,” of which he writes so marvelously:

”Gabor Szabo, on Wind, Sky, and Diamonds, harnessed the wonky proportions of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” with [Bill Plummer’s] sitar accompaniment. This time, his California Dreamers chime a wordless chorus. Grace Slick’s defiant anthem, favoring hipper pills over mother’s little helpers, was not the most inviting to elevator-ready adaptations, but Szabo draws on the song’s bit of Ravel’s Bolero and other influences, while the sitar opening seduces listeners to fall deeper into the rabbit hole’s escalating rhythm."

This is a fine example of the wit and wisdom Lanza brings to the party; it’s all that a high is supposed to be with none of the hangover such excess often brings. While the focus on this one Szabo album is as far into jazz Lanza is willing to go, I can’t help but wish he waxed as poetically on Light My Fire, another of Szabo’s “easy-listening jazz-id trips” with Bob Thiele and the New Happy Times Orchestra.

Sometime in the mid-seventies it seemed like easy-listening music just disappeared. The records vanished from the record stores’ shelves while the malls, stores and offices began playing the whispery soft-rock hits of the day and mellow anthems that used to get covered by the orchestras of yore.

Lanza chalks it up to younger editors deleting the “uncool” easy-listening charts from the magazines, while insisting easy-listening continued to sell well. I’m not so sure. Tastes changed – again – and when all is said and done, how much easier can you make a song like “How Deep is Your Love”? (Both Conniff and Kostelanetz gave it a shot.)

A generation that can produce such treacle as Barry Manilow or Air Supply needs no help from the easy riders. But just as the older listeners out there began dying off – their vinyl collections landing at the Goodwill and musty old used-record shops – we started losing those orchestral behemoths, too: Percy Faith passed away in 1976 while Andre Kostelonetz and Bert Kaempfert both died in 1980.

Ray Conniff recorded up to his death in 2002, though Columbia stopped issuing his records in the United States in 1980, a sign that there was no longer a market for his brand of music. At least here. The Spanish arm of CBS issued scores of Conniff aperitifs for fans throughout the rest of the world.

James Last moved to the U.S. in the early eighties, shortly after scoring his sole American hit, “Seduction” (1980), while Polydor continued issuing countless records under Last’s name (including truly cool mash-ups with hip-hop groups like Fettes Brott) until his death in 2015 – everywhere but in his adopted home country, the United States.

Lanza reasonably argues that easy-listening didn’t disappear so much as transform itself. Much the same could be said of jazz by its stauncher defenders. But he didn’t set out to chronicle the easy-fication of everything pop.

Here, Lanza focuses his sights on the multi-hued colors of psychedelic pop, which he successfully argues has the lyrical and melodic fortitude of all great music worthy of such genre transformation.

His respect and admiration for the multitudes of easy variations – and his keen sense to suss out and defend some of the craftiest and most obscure adaptions (Johnny Arthey’s Donovan set is as worthy as Lanza makes it out to be and he nails the Brass Ring’s strange yet captivating cover of “Rosemary’s Baby”) – is positively contagious.

Sorting through vinyl’s trash bins, Joseph Lanza finds a trove of trippy treasures, restoring a much-deserved respect to an inexplicably maligned genre that once was known as beautiful music. Easy-Listening Acid Trip makes for an enlightening and equally beautiful reading.