The lounge pianist has a long history, almost as long as the jazz musician and ragtime player—perhaps longer. I haven't made a deep study of the genre, but my guess is that the job dates back to the late 1800s and was born in a plush hotel lobby adjacent to a major train station. Popular songs of the day or light classical pieces were played in a relaxing, uplifting style, either to ease the stress of a pending rail trip or to unwind guests checking in or gathering in the lobby prior to dinner.
Hotels in Europe likely started the trend even earlier. Wealthy Americans traveling abroad likely picked up on the hospitality trend and suggested that favorite hotels in the U.S. do the same. Unlike jazz players decades later, who came out of the speakeasy experience of the 1920s, lounge players initially served one basic purpose, to make hotel guests fall in love with where they were staying.
The piano charmed guests into thinking they were home or at least someplace homey while the flare of the player was unconsciously engaging. In other words, you listened to the music without paying much attention while talking with others and enjoyed the experience of being there.
Hotel lounges that employed pop pianists in the 1940s used the music as something of a lure to seduce guests into dining in the hotel's restaurant or as a mood-setter before seeing a headline artist at the in-hotel club or rooftop ballroom—a musical appetizer, if you will. Ultimately, lounge music was meant to coax those who stopped by for a drink to linger longer and order more drinks.
The heyday of the lounge pianist came in the 1950s, when resorts began to dot the country, particularly in vacation destinations like Atlantic City, Miami, Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. There, lounge pianists had become a little jazzier in the post-war years, giving the hotel a contemporary, lively feel.
In gambling locations, the lounge pianist provided background music for bettors on a break. Unlike at clubs, the pianist wasn't the focus but simply there to create a sophisticated and romantic atmosphere and background for table talk.
In the 1950s, as the popularity of Las Vegas grew, clubs in major cities began to book top lounge pianists as an alternative to jazz players, whose music wasn't fully understood or even appreciated by mainstream audiences.
If a lounge pianist could sing and banter smartly with the audience between songs, this was considered added value, especially if the songs were catchy and original. Unlike cabaret piano, which was raucous and often tied to Broadway material, lounge floated between jazz and cabaret—not too wild but not too cloying. The key word with lounge was intimate.
Let's have a listen to eight clips of pianists who started out as lounge players or simply liked to play in the relaxed, chord-centric lounge style:
Here's Matt Dennis on the Rosemary Clooney Show in1957...
Here's Joe Bushkin in 1950 playing his song, Oh, Look at Me Now...
Here's Ellis Larkins playing Perfume and Rain in 1954...
Here's Barbara Carroll in 1956 playing What a Wonderful World...
Here's Bobby Troup in 1956 singing and playing his song It Happened Once Before backed by Nelson Riddle on the Rosemary Clooney Show...
Here's Troup singing and playing Midnight Sun in 1955...
Here's Carmen Cavallaro playing Manhattan in 1956...
And here's Eddy Duchin, the father of 1950s lounge, in the 1940s playing The Way You Look Tonight...
