Friday nights at 8 And Saturday nights at 10 & 11 (bonus episode) on Illinois Classical, FM 90.9.
The show, simply put, is a celebration of the golden age of the hi-fi and beyond! It's American popular music from the 1950s and 1960s with a few modern numbers thrown in for good measure.
This week on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we dig Mancini! And hour featuring of artists of the hi-fi era putting their spin on classic tunes from Henry Mancini. We’ll hear from Si Zentner, Plas Johnson, Quincy Jones, and many others!
On this edition of The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we feature the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, the pair behind such classic songs as My Funny Valentine, Isn't It Romantic, and Blue Moon. We’ll hear from Bobby Short, Vic Damone, Carmen McRae, and many more!
This week, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we celebrate the season with our annual Hi-Fi Christmas program—a collection of some of the swingingest holiday music of all time! We’ll hear from The Three Suns, Patti Page, Mel Tormé, and many more!
Coming up on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we look at Capitol Records, one of the most important record labels of the hi-fi era. We trace its early history and spotlight some of the label’s biggest artists. We’ll hear from Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole¸ Judy Garland, and Capitol Records co-found Johnny Mercer.
On the next The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we look at the career of Oscar-award winning songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen. The man, who among other things, added to The Rat Pack's musical swagger. We’ll hear from members of the Rat Pack, of course, but also Blossom Dearie, Nancy Wilson, and many more.
On this episode of The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we’re all about Playful Percussions. Another look at those great ping-ponging stereophonic percussion records that came out in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We’ll hear from Enoch Light & The Light Brigade, The Frank Barber Percussion Ensemble, Terry Snyder, and many more.
This week on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, it’s a whole lot of musical treats with our annual Halloween special! Lots of great music for you cool ghouls including classics and not-so-classics from Robert Drasnin, Milton DeLugg and His Orchestra, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, and many more.
On this episode of The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we’re Cooking with Cole Porter! All those classic Cole Porter numbers served up hot just for you! We’ll hear from Tony Bennett, Cannonball Adderley, Louis Prima and many others.
Coming up on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, it's Private Eye Cool. A look at the cooler side of crime jazz during the hi-fi era. We’ll hear from Henry Mancini, Irving Joseph, Nelson Riddle, and many others.
This week, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, it’s another look at Grooving Guitars…a spotlight of some of the great guitar players and innovators of the hi-fi era. We’ll hear from Tony Mottola, Les Paul, The 50 Guitars Of Tommy Garrett, Vinny Bell, and many others.
Jason Croft has been collecting, enjoying, and programming lounge, easy-listening, and other music of the Atomic Age for over two decades. Now he is sharing this genre with you every Saturday and Sunday night with the Atomic Age Cocktail Party on WILL-FM. When he’s not knee-deep in his record collection, he’s the Technical Director for The 21st, local host for Here and Now, and one of the voices of AM580 on the weekends.
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