The Song Planner

Piano Lounge

tagStarted c. 1948Peak 1953–1965Last big hit c. 1970

Located in 1 route

Easy Listening / Standards / Lounge → Lounge / Cocktail Music

Piano Lounge puts the keyboard or piano duo at the center of the cocktail room, using standards, light classics, and film themes as vehicles for decorous virtuosity and mood setting. The style can be plush or restrained, but it nearly always values touch, voicing, and conversational elegance over percussive flash.

History

The tradition grew from hotel lobby pianists, supper-club accompanists, and crossover keyboard stars whose records translated cocktail-room repertoire to LP; Bobby Short supplied the urbane vocal-piano side, George Shearing and Roger Williams the stylish instrumental middle, Ferrante & Teicher the twin-piano spectacular, and performers such as Peter Nero or Liberace showed how piano lounge could move from room music to showpiece without losing its easy-listening address.

Defining artists

Essential listening

← Explore Easy Listening / Standards / Lounge

Sources

  • Wikipedia, “Lounge music”
  • Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Easy Listening/Beautiful Music Format”
  • The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, “Other mainstreams: light music and easy listening, 1920–70.”