Shaken Not Stirred
SHAKEN NOT STIRRED features 12 tracks by some of the most notable finger-snappin’, hip-swayin’ musicians of the genre.  Like a dream night in some fantastic lounge, the album brings together greats including Arthur Lyman, Bob Florence, James Bond, and Jack (Bongo) Burger.  Lyman, one-time vibraphonist extraordinaire for Martin Denny, sold millions of albums during his solo career with HIFI and charted with the singles “Taboo” and “Yellowbird” (#6 and #4, respectively); “Taboo” is included in this compilation.  Still performing at many of Hawaii’s swankiest hotel resort lounges, Lyman is definitely the man with the Golden Vibes.  Bob Florence’s sound is pure Hollywood --  the big, cool and seductive sound of “Green Eyes” is like cinemascope for stereo.   James Bond & His Sextet offer jazz renditions of those famous big screen spy themes (“Goldfinger,” for example), though this Bond actually came first.  Bongo-ing up a storm on the track  “Mambo Burger” is Jack (Bongo) Burger, mixing a wide range of afro-cuban beats with his band of hip-hepniks.  Leon Russell (on harpsichord) and Glen Campbell (no less) team with Bond to form The In Group, whose zany rendition of “If I Had a Hammer” is bound to get toes tapping and glasses clinking.In remastering SHAKEN NOT STIREED from the original masters, This Way Productions engineer Danny Caccavo paid careful attention to the sonic quality, repairing many splices and even fixing a crumple in Lyman’s “Taboo” that went unnoticed in previous reissues of that song.  The booklet for SHAKEN NOT STIRRED is art-directed to suit any bachelor pad and uses many pieces of original art from the HIFI archives.  And if that’s not enough, the trend-setting Manhattan restaurant Global 33 has given up the recipe for their ultra-suave cocktail, “The Taboo,” and displayed it for all to see (and enjoy) within the CD package.