It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Sounds Orchestral
May 5, 1965
“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Sounds Orchestral
#1 on the Billboard Pop-Standard Singles chart, May 1-21, 1965
“Easy listening” is a nebulous genre, encompassing anything ranging from classical- and jazz-influenced light instrumentals, to ballads and gentle folky numbers by rock and pop groups (as represented by our previous check-in with the adult contemporary charts.) The genre is united more by a feeling and intended audience than any specific elements — except, perhaps, what it lacks, such as harsh instrumentation, dissonance, or aggressiveness. This is music to set your mind at ease, not push boundaries or express intense emotions.
While a few stars emerged whose music fell under the easy listening rubric — vocalists Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis, bandleaders Percy Faith and Lawrence Welk — many of the genre’s artists preferred to pursue smooth music over superstardom. Sounds Orchestral was one such anonymous act, comprising a trio of British session musicians plus producer John Schroeder. Per usual for the genre, the group’s pictures didn’t even appear on the LP sleeves; the label figured (probably correctly) that record buyers would prefer to admire a blond model or a watercolor sunset instead.
Like many other easy listening acts, Sounds Orchestral specialized in remaking pop hits into mellifluous instrumentals. The group’s first single was a cover of jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The original had been a surprise crossover hit three years earlier, peaking at #22 on the pop charts in 1962 and winning the Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition the following year. (Incidentally, TV producer Lee Mendelson heard the song while riding in a San Francisco taxi, and quickly enlisted the composer to write the music for a documentary on cartoonist Charles Schulz. Guaraldi eventually scored over a dozen Peanuts specials before his sudden death in 1976, penning such indelible melodies as “Linus and Lucy” and “Christmas Time is Here.”)
The Vince Guaraldi Trio’s original version of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” appeared on the 1962 album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, which largely consisted of reworkings of Brazilian songs from Marcel Camus’ 1959 film adaptation of the Orpheus myth. “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” one of the set’s few originals, retains a hint of bossa nova flair, but its real connection to the movie is in its syncopated, carefree approach, reflecting the attitude of the film’s Carnival-in-Rio setting and the daring adventure of Orpheus’ descent into the Underworld.
Sounds Orchestral’s version initially hews quite closely to Guaraldi’s, albeit a tad slower and more emphatically soaring. After the familiar melody establishes itself in the song’s first section, however, the two diverge sharply. Guaraldi’s middle section was all venturesome, bold improvisation, a clattering of notes symbolizing the ecstatic freedom of letting go. Sounds Orchestral irons out the original’s idiosyncrasies in favor of a melodic, blissful gliding. Whereas Guaraldi’s idea of casting your fate to the wind is absolute and existential, Sound Orchestral’s doesn’t get much more reckless than ordering a third martini.
Even if the remake lacks the thrills of the original, however, it works on its own merits. Easy listening may get a bad rap from those who find it anything but, yet “Cast Your Fate” manages both to retreat into the background to create an easygoing ambiance and to reward a close listen where just enough of Guaraldi’s prickly bits remain to prevent the record from devolving into audio Ambien. Sounds Orchestral’s interpretation may not be challenging art, but there’s something to be said for creating music that’s pleasant — which, as easy listening’s bad reputation proves, can be harder than it looks.
Sounds Orchestral, with pianist Johnny Pearson as the sole constant, held on until 1977, roughly coinciding with the end of the easy listening movement. This isn’t to say that the niche for gentle, listenable music vanished — as anyone who’s ever had a call put on hold knows — but the original amalgam of jazz, traditional pop, and lite-classical was largely replaced by softer strains of rock, R&B, and country-pop hits. (The exception: smooth jazz, as personified by Kenny G.)
For a while, smoothed-out, non-obtrusive instrumental covers of popular records, the sort that rounded out Sounds Orchestral’s discography, lived on as the dreaded “elevator music,” piped into grocery stores and waiting rooms to relax patrons and fill the silence. Even that has largely faded, however. Today’s background music tends to be vocal recordings by the original artists, selected from precisely tailored stations and playlists produced by SiriusXM, Pandora, or Mood Media (the successor to Muzak). The well-constructed easy listening record, such as “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” may not be missed by the general public, but in its own way has become a vanished art.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
