Herb Alpert And Cleaning The Apartment

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

There are many ways where I know I'm an old man at fifty three. Not least because adverts on the TV tell me in no uncertain terms that life insurance/funeral policies on the event of death start at fifty. So I'm at the age where I'm looked at as a marketing opportunity for when that bucket is kicked.

Fairly recently Easy Listening has entered my sphere. In the eighties I would have considered Easy Listening to have been akin to  having my ears mugged by BBC Radio 2. But no longer. To mix metaphors musically speaking I'm wearing slippers.

Now let me clarify what I don't mean by Easy Listening. I still cannot stand musicians who take a "pop" tune and try to middle age it. Recently on the otherwise excellent Clare Teal show I heard an Easy Listening/Big Band rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" sung by Paul Anka as chosen by a studio guest. Something I'm sure had people of all generations shouting "NOOOO!"

Neither do I like the term "Easy Listening" It implies that an orang-utan could knock a tune up in a few minutes. Yet I'd argue that Burt Bacharach is one of the most important American composers ever.

What Easy Listening (for want of a better term) does at its best is to gently touch at your emotions whether in happiness or sadness at what life throws at you. Whether it's Dean Martin singing Volare or Dionne Warwick recalling lost love in "Walk On By".

It's also all inclusive. I'm as a rule not a Country and Western Fan. But it was his collaboration with Jimmy Webb that led me to the music of the late Glen Campbell. Neither am I into jazz, but I cannot praise Louis Armstrong highly enough.

Musicians that I remember disliking in the seventies, The Carpenters, The Osmonds, Neil Diamond I now get. That's what age does to you I suppose.

My mother is visiting the apartment for the next few days as it's my daughter's birthday tomorrow. As I'm not working today and the wife is the instructions were clear. Essentially "Wipe this,clean that,vacuum here".

For my companion along the way I selected Herb Alpert with that brass of Tijuana. Mainly instrumentals the tunes invoke a summer that we in Britain have hardly experienced this year. It also seems to give out a quiet love of life that doesn't involve drums and electric guitars at high volume.

Under Mr Alpert's direction my ears were not mugged.....they were relaxed.

And I don't think I've cleaned the apartment so quickly without noticing the time either.

Until the next time.