AMG Review of Leopard Lounge: Swinging Lounge Tunes from the Warner and Atlantic Vaults

Jason Ankeny
All Music Guide

Every time the whole lounge revival seems to have completely run its course, along comes a compilation that's packed with so much great music that it can't help but rekindle interest. The two-disc Leopard Lounge definitely fits the bill, scouring the vast Warner and Atlantic catalogs to dig up classics and rare cuts from the 1960s and 1970s. There's a tongue-in-cheek posturing to all lounge collections -- Leopard Lounge even features vintage pin-up queen Bettie Page on its cover, fer Chrissakes -- but here the material goes far past the most obvious and overtly cheesy selections to assemble a killer batch of jazz, soul, and bossa nova cuts that's as appropriate for the coffeehouse as it is the space-age bachelor pad. Highlights include Bobby Darin's perennial "Beyond the Sea," April Stevens' kitten-kitsch classic "Teach Me Tiger," Dave Pike's radiant "Sunny," and Ella Fitzgerald's swinging "Black Coffee."