Muzak

[Lexi Darling]

Hello! I hope you are having a lovely day.

Recently, in another thread, myself, @ribbons , @Saulaac and @innerspaceboy all posted about our shared love for muzak, with other subgenres and styles such as, and I quote, elevator, call holding, dentist waiting room, time-share property ads, in-flight, cruise ship and soft-p*rn, being described by Saulaac (great list, by the way!). So post anything that falls under any of those categories here.

I personally tend to prefer light and peppy vintage jazz inspired muzak, in particular stuff made before the 1980s, but feel free to post those delightful canned tunes from any era.

This is a wonderful collection I discovered on archive dot org, a massive playlist formatted in hour plus chunks consisting of material from the Muzak corporation recorded between the 1930s and the 1960s, so right smack dab in my preferred era.
https://archive.org/details/MuzakTranscriptions6331

And here's a Youtube upload of one of those chunks (there has to be a better way to say that, haha).

I'm excited to see what pleasant and inoffensive gems you all have to share!

[Guybrush]

This doesn't strictly fall under muzak, despite my wife's complaints about it being elevator music.

However, you know I love this band and so I hope you'll forgive me for posting Don Tiki. I've chosen a great song with a title that I thought particularly fitting.

[SGR]

This doesn't strictly fall under muzak, despite my wife's complaints about it being elevator music.

However, you know I love this band and so I hope you'll forgive me for posting Don Tiki. I've chosen a great song with a title that I thought particularly fitting.

Hey Guy, I just remembered I need to thank you. You mentioned Don Tiki's debut album (Forbidden Sounds) on MB some time ago. Out of curiosity, I ended up listening to it - then listening again (and again). I absolutely love it. The tropical chill out vibes from that album are immaculate. Great exotica! (And my wife hates it as well  )

[Saulaac]

Thanks @Mrs. Waffles for starting up this great thread. I am more aware of musak inspired music rather than the actual tapes and orchestras which were released by the Musak brand, but it has been interesting reading up on their early development, and also learning via Wiki that they not only made music for commercial venues but also carried out research such as Stimulus Progression:

Stimulus Progression: "[Musak] began customizing the pace and style of the music provided throughout the workday in an effort to maintain productivity. The music was programmed in 15-minute blocks, gradually getting faster in tempo and louder and brassier in instrumentation, to encourage workers to speed up their pace. Following the completion of a 15-minute segment, the music would fall silent for 15 minutes. This was partly done for technical reasons, but company-funded research also showed that alternating music with silence limited listener fatigue, and made the "stimulus" effect of Stimulus Progression more effective."

One of my favourites is Syd Dale who formed the Otto Keller Band / The Otto Keller Orchestra, and played compositions of other composers/arrangers such as the pleasant pieces below. It's very rare to hear vocals in all this library music, but I could certainly imagine a Nat King Cole or a Shirley Bassey joining in.

Otto Keller Band - First Flight - 1975 (composed by Gerry Butler)

The Otto Keller Orchestra - Magic Window - 1972 (composed by Johnny Pearson)

[Guybrush]

Hey Guy, I just remembered I need to thank you. You mentioned Don Tiki's debut album (Forbidden Sounds) on MB some time ago. Out of curiosity, I ended up listening to it - then listening again (and again). I absolutely love it. The tropical chill out vibes from that album are immaculate. Great exotica! (And my wife hates it as well  )

@SGR Yes!!

People are probably getting sick of my fandom as I've been spreading it here too 😄 so happy to have successfully shared the love!

That debut album is so great. It even has Martin Denny playing on it. I have all their albums and there are enjoyable tracks on all (like El Producto), but they (sadly) never made another album quite as great as Forbidden Sounds 🙂

[Saulaac]

Just realised I've been spelling muzak as 'musak' for some bizarre reason. The softer z definitely sounds better.

Also realised that I'd forgotten some more sub-genres in Mrs. Waffles's first post, namely game-show furniture display, weather channel, and garden centre.

Nelson Riddle created some superb orchestral moods. This album has a generous palette of exotic melodies, flute/piccolo combos and gushing strings underpinned by bass guitar smooziness.

Nelson Riddle - Changing Colors (1973)

[larsvsnapster]

I've got a bit of this going on in my collection but it's more of the library music variety.  Tod Dockstader is the big name that comes to mind.  But I am into lots of stuff that "rawk fans" (snort) dismiss as muzak.  One of the absolute favourites is an American-only album (it appears) from Michel Legrand which was originally titled Themes & Variations but was later renamed to Brian's Song because of the TV movie.  I didn't realise when i was a kid that This Was Really Orchestral Jazz.  The whole album is an absolute banger to my ears. 

[Saulaac]

^ I didn't know the Michel Legrand album, lars. Haven't listened to all of the tunes yet, but The Deep Blue C is right up my street.


The name's Love. Geoff Lurve. If one is going to produce a cover of Tubular Bells then it better be a good one. Alternatively, if your name is Geoff Love, and your band is "Geoff Love & His Orchestra", then this gives you licence to cover whatever you bloomin' like and nobody is gonna stop you.

Geoff Love bio

(Discogs)
Geoff Love
b. 4 September 1917, Todmorden, Yorkshire, England,
d. 8 July 1991, London, England.

Musical director, arranger, composer and one of the UK's most popular easy-listening music personalities.

Learned to play the trombone in his local brass band and made his first broadcast in 1937 on Radio Normandy. He moved to the south of England, and played with violinist Jan Ralfini's Dance Orchestra in London and with the Alan Green Band in Hastings. Joined Harry Gold's Pieces Of Eight in 1946, and stayed with them until 1949.

In 1955, he formed his own band for the television show 'On The Town', and soon afterwards started recording for EMI/Columbia with His Orchestra and Concert Orchestra. He had his first hit in 1958, with a cover-version of Perez Prado's cha-cha-cha 'Patricia', and made several albums. In 1959, he started to release some recordings under the pseudonym, Manuel And His Music Of The Mountains. Besides his own orchestral records, he provided the accompaniment and arrangements on record, and in concert, for many popular artists.

In the 70s, he created the Exotica band Mandingo and later formed Billy's Banjo Band, known as Geoff Love's Banjo Band, while still having hits under his own name with his 'Themes' albums. He also capitalized on late '70s disco as Geoff Love's Big Disco Sound. He was consistently popular on radio and television.

[close]

I do dig all these arrangers and their orchestras who unashamedly slap on an extra layer of pastoral groove.

Geoff Love & His Orchestra - Tubular Bells (from "The Exorcist")

And I must be relapsing in my wah guitar addiction as I couldn't stop listening to this one earlier 

Geoff Love & His Orchestra - U.F.O cover

[larsvsnapster]

^ I didn't know the Michel Legrand album, lars. Haven't listened to all of the tunes yet, but The Deep Blue C is right up my street.

That's the big banger on that album, the other ones being "Picasso Summer" and "Pieces of Dreams."  There are so many harmonic yeah moments on that album though, it makes my head spin.  I've been listening to this album since 1972 and it never gets old for some weird reason.  I have this thing for quartal harmony and "The Deep Blue C" is full of that type of harmony. There's also that wild tone row the violins play over top of it in the middle and I remember wondering when I didn't know what a tone row was why it worked so well. 

[Saulaac]

A solid contender for an imaginary 1982 TV theme for something that could have been called "Chicago Central", " Philly Medics" or "L.A Call & Response".

5:20 to 7:30 gives images of zooming in through the 30th-floor windows of a hospital where the doctors are never too busy to glance up from their clipboards, initially surprised but growing into a smile and quick wink to camera. And the staff are great musicians who perform in front of the patients when things aren't too busy. They could have had episodes like "God That Hertz", "My Theremin's Playing Up Again", "I Can't C Sharp", "Stairwell To Heaven", "Fusin' For A Bruisin'", "Interlube"...

Trying to sing along to the melody whilst on the air bass, Donny Benét style.

EDIT EDIT: Having listened to this tune all day, it's starting to dawn on me this may be an example of celestial fusak. Alternating between 4/4, 6/8 and 9/8? A bumpy ride. High quality top notch celestial fusak.

[Saulaac]

Trying to sing along to the melody whilst on the air bass, Donny Benét style.

Still listening to the above "Messagers de Notre-Dame"  by Jean-Paul Prat at various points today, and I must say I'm still amazed by it. Reminds me of Jean-Luc Ponty's "Civilized Evil" album with more brass.

I have to include Jimmy Haslip (Yellowjackets) in there as well as an ideal bass player on this. I think he would have loved to play the deep runs whilst also singing out the brass melodies.

In fact I think it might be synth bass on this track, or perhaps synth bass and electric bass doubled up. Go synth bass!

Right, enough of talking about this good quality stuff on the muzak thread!

[Saulaac]

Alan Holdsworth deserves a mention in the musak/fuzak category. Great guitarist, and his lines are superb. To borrow a term from someone else, he played with "mournful slurs" on these tracks.
JLP and AH are obviously great jazz rock fusion guys but somehow they managed to produce a few tracks together which are so stereotypical of that era that it seems to reach into the fuzak genre.

Also, Randy Jackson on bass.

Jean-Luc Ponty - "In Spite of All" (1983)

Jean-Luc Ponty - "Final Truth Pt. 1" (1982)

[Guybrush]

Nice rracks, @Saulaac though I myself am hesitant to call this Muzak 🙂

Talking of Holdsworth, what do you think of the band Bruford? I've listened to their two first albums but they didn't stick with me. I should take the plunge again.

The thing I do remember is Hell's Bells which is both really goofy sounding and awesome at the same time with Dave Stewart's gnarly sounds.

But I mean.. if they were playing this at a supermarket or in an elevator, I'd be astonished. And very happy!

[Saulaac]

^ Hell's Bells is a great track, Guybrush! I think it's the Holdsworthian influence. These bands were at the conjuncture with jazz rock fusion and commercial music imo. I've heard these types of tracks in restaurants in the Lake District so probably certain head chefs had a) great taste in their garlic mushroom starters and b) great taste in their background music.

You're right, we should probably bring this back into the Jazz Rock & Fusion thread. And I need to lsiten to Bruford more.

I probably first heard Bruford, Stewart, Holdsworth and Jeff Berlin at this student concert which I think was at Oxford Brookes or Oxford Poly (same thing).