Recommended Venus Label Recordings

Venus is a very good vinyl label, as far as production quality is concerned. All the stuff I have (really small collection) is very well recorded. That said, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "cocktail music"... but I recommend Eric Alexander "Lazy Afternoon" and "My Favorite Things", Pharoah Sanders  Quartet, Romantic Jazz Trio (you might call that cocktail music). I have three of their albums; one is a nice  tribute to Thelonius Monk. Matt Hazeltine does a decent cover of Burt Bacharach tunes - easy listening. I have a few others not worth mentioning. Production quality only take you so far. Hope this helps.

Happy Listening!

@dodgealum Oops! I said Matt Hazeltine (formerly of SF 49er's). I meant David Hazeltine

@BillStevenson, do I remember correctly that you used to live in the VT-NH Upper Valley, but maybe moved a bit east from there?  Bill Charlap's performing with Dee Dee Bridgewater at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth tonight.  There were still seats available when I bought mine yesterday.  After a performance of Italian Renaissance madrigals--Gesualdo, Monteverdi--in Woodstock this afternoon.  Busy live music day!

Op buy Venus sampler see what you think? I have 3 sampler before buying their 30th anniversary sacd box and vynil box set. They are superb. 

I totally agree those records sound great. I know the engineer who tracked a lot of them and she was dismayed after she heard how they were mastered. That said they remind of the same way CTI recordings sounded to me in the seventies. Not the same sound at all but a unique sound that is uniform among all of their releases as were the CTI pressings I loved as a teenager.