Jackie Gleason (Guest rec from Chris Dalla Riva)

Today we have a guest recommendation from Chris Dalla Riva, a musician from New Jersey who works on analytics and personalization at Audiomack, a music streaming service. He writes Can't Get Much Higher, a weekly newsletter about the intersection of music and data.

In 2019, I moved back home with my parents. I figured it would be for a few months. Then the COVID-19 pandemic started and a few months became a year-and-a-half. While the downsides to that time were endless, the one upside was that I got to spend a lot of time with my family. Every Friday, my grandmother would tune the television to channel eleven to watch old episodes of the 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners. From the first episode we watched, I couldn’t believe how well the comedy stood up, three generations of my family all laughing together.

One night while lying in bed, I pulled up the Wikipedia page for Jackie Gleason, the show’s star. As I scrolled through the page, I noticed that there was a "Music" section. "That's odd," I thought to myself. "Why would a legendary comedian have multiple paragraphs dedicated to music in a short biography?" The reason, I came to learn, is that Gleason had a secondary career releasing instrumental albums. While there is some dispute about how involved he was in the production, those albums sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Today, I want to recommend two of my favorites: 1952's Music for Lovers Only and 1954's Music, Martinis and Memories.

Music for Lovers Only - Jackie Gleason (50m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal

Music, Martinis and Memories - Jackie Gleason (50m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Tidal

Have a memorable Thursday.