by Charlie Barnett | Jan 9, 2021 | News, Press, Reviews
We are on the FAI Folk Charts for December 2020.
Our New Album, Out Under The Sky is the # 9 album
Trimmin’ the Tree is the #14 song
and Chaise Lounge is # 16 on the Top Artists Chart.
Thanks so much to all the DJs who played our album. This is way cool. And a special shout out to Christine Lavin for making the video for Trimmin’ the Tree. .
Out Under the Sky
by Charlie Barnett | Nov 27, 2018 | News, Press, Reviews
Chaise Lounge – A Very Chaise Lounge Christmas
As with its other eight albums, the band on this 2013 Christmas album is the embodiment of playful and seductive jazz, with gorgeous vocals by Marilyn Older. Full of wit and charm, with a martini always within reach, this is the one I have played most often over the past few years. Cool, yet festive, this mix of originals and holiday faves enables you to both enjoy the season while letting your mind wander. Whether you’re trimming the tree or wrapping presents, you find yourself humming and swinging along.
In lesser hands, this would sound annoyingly cute or, worse, self-indulgently retro. Not these fine six folks, with Older effortlessly evoking the classic vocalists of the 1950s and Charlie Barnett leading another four of the most accomplished jazz musicians in the Washington, DC, area. Together, they are sublime. The highlight without a doubt is “Snow Day,” which brings back memories of all those days off from school. But this time around it’s a day for adults in love to spend a day playing outside in the snow without a care in the world. Chaise Lounge has a show, holiday-themed, I think, coming up at Washington’s Blues Alley next week. If you are anywhere near, catch them. I did a couple years back and I still tingle from that performance.
by Charlie Barnett | Jan 13, 2018 | Press, Reviews
We love this kind review from a stop on our New England summer tour.
by Charlie Barnett | Mar 9, 2016 | News, Press, Reviews
Thanks to Amos Perrine for his very kind words in No Depression—our first review in this authoritative journal of American roots music:
I first saw Chaise Lounge by accident a couple years back, and what I thought might be a tragically hip retro band turned out to be completely the opposite. Much like Chris Siebert, who leads Lavay Smith’s band, and Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini, Charlie Barnett keeps the band’s eye firmly focused on the musical prize, but with a dry martini on the side.
Their latest, Gin Fizz Fandango, is at once playful and seductive jazz, sometimes with gorgeous vocals by Marilyn Older, and other times it’s Joe Jackson’s trombone that makes you feel you are in the middle of a Fellini movie, as he evokes ghosts of Nino Rota.
This, their seventh album since 1999, is full of wit, charm, and elegance that could only come from a jazz band harkening back to the golden age, but without a fatal sense of nostalgic irony. The disc is full of originals, save for one Cole Porter tune. Like a gin fizz, Chaise Lounge tickles not only your senses, but your fancy as well. The album is out now, so tango on over.
by Charlie Barnett | Feb 27, 2016 | News, Press, Reviews
The first review for Gin Fizz Fandango just rolled in, and it’s a corker. Thanks to Carol Banks Weber of the AXS entertainment site for this rave:
In Chaise Lounge’s seventh album, there’s swoonworthy original music, a timely reference to downloadable lyrics and chords, and a recipe for Gin Fizz Fandango (provided by the band’s bassist, Pete Ostle). Gin Fizz Fandango also happens to be the title track of a new album, released on Sept. 10, 2015 (Modern Songbook Records).
This is no ordinary jazz album. This is what they call a “cheeky” character album full of flirty flights of fancy perpetrated by musicians who take on the air of guys and dolls in a ballroom brawl — all in good fun.
The D.C. sextet features Charlie Barnett on guitar and piano, vocalist Marilyn Older, bassist Pete Ostle, percussionist Tommy Barrick, trombonist Joe Jackson, and reed man Gary Gregg. Barnett, a film composer, wrote 11 of the 12 songs, save for Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right With Me.” Older plays piano on two tracks.
Chaise Lounge has been around since 1999, when the musicians jammed together at one of Barnett’s recording sessions. Ever since, they’ve jammed all over the country on the strength of a tight rhythm section, limber horn players, and the sweet, Betty Boop vocal style of Older.
The music is as retro-hip — think the Depression and the Prohibition, circa 1920-‘30s — as it gets, gently swinging, a little tongue-in-cheek in the hopscotch lyrics, tickling traces of a forgotten soundtrack from another era, even daring in places (a horn vocalese from the actual “Hopscotch”).
The overall vibe does feel like sipping on a fizzy cocktail, the bubbles tickling your nose, whether trombonist Jackson slides in on a slinky tango throughout the “Gin Fizz Fandango” instrumental or Older swinging on a pop song like “You,” where the lyrics go down as easy as the spring in the step of the horn players.
“You’s” particularly fetching for its cute, clever use of tempo to swing fast and slow, to a tantalizing crawl on the bridge home (“here’s where we end once we circle again, let’s drive real slow breathing in as we go”). Older also does quite a nice rap over the swizzle stick of horns at the 3/4th mark without faltering or needing a breather: “You accidentally brush my leg, and I go falling hard again, all you have to do is breathe your perfect love inside of me.”
Chaise Lounge isn’t a sit-and-listen band. The musicians play serious retro-dance grooves, the kind that would give the “Dancing With The Stars” cast a serious workout. Listen and bust out the moves on “Mambo Noir.” Be silly with the children tip-toeing around in a game of Hide-and-Seek on “Pigs In Blankets.” Slow-waltz in a timeless haze on “If I Never Get To Paris,” mostly on trombonist Joe Jackson and pianist Charlie Barnett’s melodic lines. Do the tap-dance shuffle with grandpa on “Celestial Navigation.” Older scat-hums (la-da-da-da-da-dum) through this gem of a closer.
Lest you assume it’s all fun and games over at Chaise Lounge’s Gin Fizz Fandango, the band turns down the lights for the grim emotional reaper, “I See You.” Older turns up the lonely, still sweet but sweetly aching for the fulfillment of real recognition “when the world looks the other way, I look in your eyes and say, ‘I see you.’” This one’s pure vocals, pure bliss, with the musicians mostly keeping time and exacerbating the loneliness and fear — pianist Barnett pressing urgency in only a handful of chords over and over, bassist Ostle illuminating the darkness, Gregg sampling a taste of that exquisite agony on his sax.
The true test of a remarkable band is its schedule. Chaise Lounge’s is jam-packed. The next performance is 8 p.m. March 4 at the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel, Md., then 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. April 6 at Blues Alley in D.C.
by Charlie Barnett | Oct 23, 2013 | News, Reviews
Thanks to Ann Alex of northeast England’s Bebop Spoken Here jazz blog for this astute review of Dot Dot Dot:
I enjoyed this CD so much that I played it twice, and no reviewer can give higher praise than that. And the inserts were a reviewer’s dream – all the song words were supplied, with a short and accurate description of each track, photos of all the musicians, not just the vocalist, and musicians listed as above in an egalitarian way, the drummer not left till last, nor the vocalist mentioned first. The impression given is one of genuine teamwork.
And the CD is full of jaunty fun, only one sad song, a CD suitable for parties and also for quiet listening. Indeed many tracks are very danceable too, so I’d recommend this disc to our local Newcastle Swing Dancers. It includes “Let’s Face The Music And Dance,” played with a distinct two-beat. There are 3 other standards; “Cool” (from West Side Story), “Via Con Me,” and “Old Man River.” Nine tracks are originals with lively, witty lyrics, and there is a short joke track which you can use to check out your stereo! Many of the original songs have a jazzy 1930s feel. To quote from one of the track descriptions for “It’s Always You,” “…Tommy Barrick’s groove with Pete Ostle is insistent and funky, the horn lines are as hip as can be, and the melody is an ear-worm….” For an example of amusing lyrics I quote from “I Just Want All My Stuff” (a song about divorce): “He hopes that we’ll stay friends/and that we’ll stay in touch/Me? I’m kind of hoping/He gets run down by a bus.” The title track, “Dot Dot Dot,” is about a love affair seen as sailing through choppy waters, so Morse Code is part of the song. Other song themes include a fantasy about little blue men, loving a man because of his trendy car and complaining about a date who keeps you waiting. The instrumental of “Old Man River” is fast with a stunning drum solo.
Chaise Lounge have been together for 12 years, are well known in the USA, and have 6 albums to their credit. The CD was issued in September on Modern Songbook Records.