'S Wonderful, by Ray Conniff (December 1956)

Dad's Take:

Ray Conniff had an excellent resume by the time the fifties rolled around, having worked for people like Mitch Miller and Artie Shaw. He had a very successful career as a big band and popular music arranger before he struck on the formula that would make him the king of easy listening for at least a decade and a half. He took his big band experience and added a touch he'd discovered with Mitch Miller, adding a small choir to a big band arrangement and having them sing wordless arrangements, doubling the women's voices with trumpets and the men with trombones. Using this formula, he had 28 albums in the American Top 40 between 1957 and 1968, an amazing number. Obviously, people liked his work a lot, mostly people who liked to swing but didn't like all these rock and roll kinds of songs and singers, people who were once cool and then, as they aged, found themselves to be suddenly square. 'S Wonderful takes a selection of classic songs and removes all the soul from them, watering them down into the kind of elevator music people played if they wanted people to think their elevators were almost hip once upon a time.

My biggest problem with Ray Conniff is that he reminds me of my dentist growing up, who played this kind of music in his practice. So now it makes my teeth hurt. And this was in the days before nitrous oxide. I imagine a good dose of gas might make all these doo doo doo ba bops funny, at least.

I recognize Conniff's talents as an arranger and his musical pedigree, and applaud his effort to keep the swinging big band sound alive, even if he toned it down for his aging audience who by now had to worry about breaking their hip if they tried to dance like they did when they were young. I enjoy the big band sound as much as the next guy, but I cannot get into Conniff's easy listening version of it. I made it all the way through the album, but this one is clearly not for me.

Brad's Take:


First off, the lyrics on this album are incredible! ...Oops, I already made that joke. 


The music is definitely well-arranged, and it's easy to listen to, but the vocals made me laugh a little bit. It was hard to take the non-lyrical vocals seriously because the whole time I was just reminded of this video. And like my dad said above, it's very much like the music you'd hear in an elevator, but besides that, I kind of liked this album.


I imagine this is what young adults were listening to when they wanted to feel cool for listening to older styled music, but their parents shook their heads and said, "This isn't real big band music..."


I definitely prefer the older big band sound that came before this 50's style that Ray Conniff did, but this album is just a lot of fun. I would love to have been in their choir and only sing doo doo's and ba da da's. But seriously, this is good for what it is, and I would like to listen to some of his later albums to see how he progresses from this. This album 'S Kinda Wonderful.