Friday nights at 8 & 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.
On The Atomic Age Cocktail Party this week, we’re taking you away to a Polynesian Paradise. It’s another musical journey to the tropical hi-fi genre known as Exotica. We’ll hear from Gene Rains, Eden Ahbez, Don Tiki, The Out-Islanders, and more.
This time, on The Atomic Age Cocktail Party, we take a visit to The Big City. Songs about the hustle and bustle of busy streets, skylines filled with tall buildings, and living the metropolitan life. We hear from Nancy Wilson, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, Elmer Bernstein, and more.
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!
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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