From violin serenades at fancy restaurants to bad nachos at rock concerts, music and food just seem to go together. Cooking can be either a rewarding or frustrating experience, but either way, a great album is sure to enhance it. Whether you’re preparing a chocolate soufflé or reheating some Chef Boyardee, these records will make you drop it like it’s hot.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’
Blue Note Records

Jazz is a form that demands exceptional command over your instrument, which is probably why so much of it is irrevocably self-indulgent, like a chef that makes intricate, swan-like sculptures out of macaroni and cheese. Moanin’ is one of those timeless jazz records that doesn’t need to show off to send ripples up your spine. The title track is the perfect encapsulation of The Messengers’ mystique, and the ideal soundtrack for cooking a meal with no flashy ingredients – a dish that doesn’t need any bells and whistles to wow the palette. All Blakey and his incredible ensemble needed on this session was the hiss of the tape, a basic blues vamp and the fire in their souls. This isn’t just one of the best jazz records ever made; it’s a lesson in restraint that certainly applies to the kitchen. Put Moanin’ on the next time you’re cookin’ – you just might make a meal that is more than the sum of its parts.

Dimitri From Paris – Sacrebleu
Atlantic Records

It’s no secret that the French know what they’re doing in the kitchen, and this electro-lounge masterpiece from 1998 could very well be the sonic equivalent to a great Parisian entrée – rich, energizing and sinfully saucy. Dimitri From Paris (indeed a man named Dimitri, who resides in Paris) makes electronic music that sounds like The Chemical Brothers by way of Burt Bacharach, combining highly danceable drum loops with French lounge samples and snippets from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The result is one of the most eccentric albums of its genre, one that makes you want to grab your crème brulee torch and wave it around like a hopped-up raver. I’d suggest playing this record loud, donning a smoking jacket with matching cigarette holder and losing yourself in some glorious kitsch. Just be careful with those escargot forks – they’ll take your eye out.

Jill Scott – Who Is Jill Scott? (Words And Sounds Vol. 1)
Hidden Beach Recordings

One of the strongest and most resonant themes of Jill Scott’s 2000 debut album is the relationship between love and food. On the song “It’s Love,” which is just one of several neo-soul classics on Who Is Jill Scott?, the dazzlingly talented songstress belts out these lines over some intense, horn-fueled funk: “Do you want it on your collard greens? Do you want it on your candy sweets? Do you want it on your pickled beets? Give it to me.” In the spoken word vignette “Exclusively,” Scott goes to the grocery store after getting some “good extra lovin’.” She goes through the list of items in her cart before discovering that her man isn’t as deserving of breakfast in bed as she thought. The magic of Scott’s music is in its honesty – all the songs are excellent, supremely executed R&B jams, but it’s the reality of her words and sounds that rings true. We can almost taste the strawberries in her lyrics, which is why it’s tough to find a better record to cook to. These songs are heartfelt invocations; they’re so full of warmth, you’ll barely even have to turn on the stove.

Igor Stravinsky – The Rite Of Spring

Violence in nature was a common topic for classical composers, but nobody covered this ground more viciously than Stravinsky, whose “Rite of Spring” is both his most famous work and most accurate depiction of Satan’s laughter. Full of trembling darkness and shattering cymbal crashes, the piece is a portal into your grandmother’s mind on Thanksgiving – she seems happy to be cooking a huge meal for 20 people over the course of several days, until your snot-nosed little cousin knocks a plate of mashed potatoes on the kitchen floor and the flames of hell spout from grandma’s nostrils. This is epic music for an epic meal, one that requires all the burners on the stove, the toaster, the microwave, the broiler and the George Foreman grill all at once. When pots are banging, curses are flying, and your fingers are burnt and largely useless, Stravinsky’s intense and fascinating masterwork will make even more sense.

Appeared in the November 2005 issue of Buffalo Spree.

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