Music to make you misty

In the WSJ, a paen to the pleasures of a bygone derided genre: Beautiful Music.

The article discusses the origins of the genre, which might send you to YouTube looking for Paul Weston. I did. It's almost indistinguishable from Mantovani. Or Mantovani is indistinguishable from him. This isn't meant to damn the whole genre for Miltown-induced uniformity - I'm a big fan of the stuff. (Yes, I know. There's a big surprise.) But there were some that did it better. The article name-checks Bert Kaempfert, whose "Wonderland by Night" fat trumpet warble drifted through the background of my grade-school years - distinctive, and not as somnambulant as others. The article mentions Ray Conniff, who must have been driven some people nuts with the wordless daba-daba vocals. Only a passing mention of the Jackie Gleason Orchestra, which let Bobby Hackett wander through a luscious bower of reverb strings. Gleason had nothing to do with it, but his name lent a certain boozy late-night mood.

This comment is notable:

Agree with the first point, not so much the second. While it may be associated with dentists and stores, I also associate it with grocery stores, which were fun. In any case, I never connected the music with modern jazz. It was just that treacly stuff that tricked out of tinny speakers. Discovering the good stuff was a revelation.

Played it at a party a few days ago; the guest who was most impressed was 24. So there's hope.

SPACE A pyramid has been found on Mars. This changes everything.

Or, it's just a rock.

A perfect example of that: the sinking of the Titanic. If you listen to the soundtrack, you hear this terrifying wordless chorus, rising like the voices of everyone ever drowned in the sea. It ascends as the ship knifes down - would have been comical the other way around, of course, but it's harrowing.