Each decade brings its unique cultural atmosphere, and the 1960s and 1970s left an indelible mark on holiday music. Renowned artists such as Nat King Cole and Dean Martin graced the 1960s with seasonal classics, while the 1970s witnessed a resurgence of legacy musicians. However, it’s the 1950s that may be credited with initiating the era of classic holiday music. In the vast landscape of...

A mecca for all things mid-century modern, Palm Springs once again showcases its world-famous modern design, architecture, and culture with the 11-day festival know as Modernism Week. Modernism was a popular design aesthetic originating in the 1950s and ’60s, which typified clean, simple lines with elegant informality. It came to define desert modernism as a sought-after architectural genre. Modernism Week has become one of the...

Frank Sinatra’s former desert hideaway “Twin Palms” in Palm Springs, California is up for sale. In the late 1940s old blue eyes had just made his first million and he wanted to celebrate in style, so he commissioned architect E. Stewart Williams to design a lush weekend getaway house for throwing parties and lounging by the pool to be ready before New Years eve 1948....

Time for another album share here at Ultra Swank, this time featuring the groovy beats and melodies of Hugo Montenegro. This is the original soundtrack to the movie Lady in Cement starring Frank Sinatra as a private eye working in the swank (and not so swank) settings of Miami, Florida in the late 1960s. The movie is pretty nice, not a very original story –...