Bob Thompson, composer of ‘Space Age bachelor pad’ music, dies at 88

Bob Thompson, a composer and arranger who supplied swinging bachelors in the 1950s with sophisticated, jazz-inflected tunes that came to be known as “Space Age bachelor pad” music, died May 21 in Los Angeles at age 88.

Times obituary writer Steve Chawkins writes that Thompson, a California native, wrote and arranged music that “allowed hi-fi buffs to turn the lights down low, mix the perfect martini and show off their tweeters and woofers.... Thompson’s music set a mood, but was more than mood music.”

The type of lounge music that Thompson popularized faded in the 1960s but underwent a revival in the early 2000s, when his album “The Sound of Speed” was reissued.

“Thompson was a seminal figure, a major inventor of this kind of music,” said Koop Kooper, creator of “Cocktail Nation,” an Australia-based podcast and radio show that highlights lounge music.

Read the full obituary here.

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elaine.woo@latimes.com