Listen To:


Selected MP3s of guitar instrumentals, jazz, big band, and classic easy listening from the original vinyl.

Welcome to Guitars & All That Jazz

Welcome to Guitars & All That Jazz

Guitars & All That Jazz was a radio station that webcast via Live365 for 11 years, ending in June 2011. The playlist consisted of guitar instrumentals, jazz, big band, early rock 'n' roll, lounge music and classic easy listening.

I hope to share some of this music with you via this blog. Most of it will be taken from the original vinyl (LPs and 45s) , cassettes and the occasional commercially unavailable CD.

Here's hoping you'll find something to enjoy. Please note files are available only for a limited time.

I urge you to purchase the digital version of the albums featured, either on CD or via download, wherever possible.

Listen to the Music
There are now two music streams. Click the appropriate player to the right.
1. Guitars & All That Jazz: Five hours of the best in jazz, guitars and other instrumental gems. New songs are added weekly.
2. Tiki Shores: Music to sweep you away to a tropical isle, a South American dance floor or a bossa nova on the beach at Rio. About 4.5 hours of classic exotica music, Latin rhythms and bossa nova.
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Thursday, August 08, 2013

Uncredited (Longines Symphonette Society) - The American Composers Musical Hall of Fame


The Longines Symphonette Society was a division of the "Century Old Longines-Wittnauer Watch Co., makers of 'The World's Most Honored Watch'," according to an advertising blurb of the period. In any case the society issued some very fine quality LP box sets during the 1960s and '70s. There were a number of single LP releases as well.

The Longines Symphonette recordings were sold via a mail-order subscription service and featured both well-known artists (eg., Mills Brothers, Benny Goodman) and an uncredited orchestral group that played lush instrumental versions of standards and pop hits. In other words, the company was mining the same territory as Reader's Digest and Time-Life Records.

This anonymous aggregation, which at least one source says was led by Robert Farnon at recording sessions in Britain, is aboard for the box set The American Composers Musical Hall of Fame, a tribute to Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael and Jerome Kern. Below you can listen to Porter's True Love, from the film High Society.

True Love



Longines Symphonette also issued a single LP with selections from this set. It's difficult to say whether any of this material has been released on CD or is being sold as downloads (legal ones, that is). That's because Longines sold its record business to the Warner Music Group and the Longines recordings since the 1990s have been credited to merely the Symphonette Society (and other equally bland names) without any reference to the watch company. But Longines Symphonette vinyl recordings still turn up with surprising regularity in thrift stores and online, usually at reasonable prices.

Here's a selection from a 1974 Longines Dixieland-themed set entitled The Roaring '20s.

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