Friday nights at 9 & Saturday nights at 11 on WILL-FM
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 time, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we enjoy a little sleepy time. It’s a program featuring music about sleep and dreams and those worlds we inhabit when we close our eyes at night. We’ll hear from Art Farmer with the Quincy Jones Orchestra, Anita O'Day, The Three Suns, Frank Sinatra, and more.
On this edition of The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, it's a show filled with lots of ooohs and ahhhhh and even a few zu zu zu’s. We take a look at the wordless vocal style that was all the rage during the hi-fi era. We’ll hear from The Anita Kerr Quartet, The Voices of Walter Schumann, Juan Garcia Esquivel, Neal Hefti, and more.
This time, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, it’s More! More! More! Mambo! Another deep dive into the mambo craze of the 1950s and early 1960s. We’ll feature tunes from The Woody Herman Big Band, Tito Puente, Pérez Prado, Belmonte and His Afro Latin Seven, and more.
This week on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we’re feeling the heartbreak. Song about what happens when love goes wrong or when a love affair ends. We’ll hear from Vic Damone, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, Arthur Prysock, and more.
Coming up, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we’re spending an “Evening in Roma!” Songs about Rome and Italy and other Italian songs that made their ways to American hi-fi’s during the Atomic Age. We’ll hear from Jerry Vale, Buddy Greco, Sophia Loren, and even Annette Funicello.
This week, we spotlight some of the great vibraphone players of the hi-fi era as well as those modern lounge vibes players who are keeping the tradition going. We’ll hear from the likes of Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Cal Tjader, Arthur Lyman, Terry Gibbs, Roland Remington, and more.
Coming up, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, the first installment in our Great Arrangers series. This time, focused on the man who was the go-to arranger of the hi-fi era, Nelson Riddle. We’ll hear his collaborations with folks like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Oscar Peterson, Linda Ronstadt, and many more.
This week, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we take to the skies, ride the rails, and hit the open road. It’s a show filled with songs about Planes, Trains, and Automobiles! We’ll hear from Jeri Southern, Jack Sheldon, Louis Jordan, Bobby Troup, and more!
This time, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we ring in the new year with a hi-fi dance party! Lots of great tunes to keep you moving until the stroke of midnight. We’ll hear from Quincy Jones, King Curtis, Baja Marimba Band, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, and many more.
Hang up your stockings for this week’s The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, because we’re celebrating the holiday season with a Hi-Fi Christmas! Tons of fun…and unusual…Christmas tunes from hi-fi era. We’ll hear from Kay Starr, Eddie Dunstedter, The Three Suns, Allan Sherman, and more.
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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