All That Jazz
Legendary names like Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, and the Dave Brubeck Quartet, are instantaneous thumbs up from your guests for your refined taste in music. Who doesn’t respect a jazz aficionado? If straight instrumental jazz is your thing, because lyrics only distract your train of thought, Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans are best as is everyone’s favorite jazz album, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. But if lyrics don’t bother you, these jazz compilations will do the trick: The Best Jazz Album In The World Ever features Nat King Cole, Chet Baker and Nina Simone and Dinner Jazz: Late Night Music For The Perfect Dinner Party which features Etta Jones, Grupo Cubana, and Charlie Byrd. This is dinner music at its best.
Give me Ambience, Gimme Space
If the music you want is has nothing to do with your parents’ easy listening, but is one hundred percent hipster certified, the ambient and electronicacategory is for you. Thievery Corporation, Washington, D.C.’s masters of the mellow groove offer the perfect background music for a space-age dinner party. Their album DJ Kicks offers 18 tracks that are eclectic and laid-back. Then there’s the French duo Air, whose group’s name aptly defines the ethereal groove these guys can convey, and because of it, their music is played in every upscale shop and restaurant around the world. The best dinner party choices would be their jazzy and melodic Moon Safari and their almost numbing music from the Virgin Suicidessoundtrack.
And finally Buddha Bar’s Chillout in Paris in the ultimate tres jolie in ambient dinner music. According to AllMusic.com the French-born David Visan earned his fame while DJing at Buddha, an exotic bar located in downtown Paris under a musical concept created by the French ambient pioneer Claude Challe. With Visan as arranger and producer, the Buddha Bar series combines ancestral sounds with hints of electronic music.
