Burt Bacharach: 20 essential songs

Music poured out of Burt Bacharach like martinis out of an ice-cold shaker.

For more than half a century, the composer, producer, conductor and sometime performer provided the soundtrack for a persuasive and accessible idea of American sophistication — on the radio, in movies, on television and on Broadway. Bacharach, who died Wednesday at age 94, used his songs to toy with harmony and rhythm and to sneak elements of jazz and classical music into hit-parade pop.

Yet to listen to one of his dozens and dozens of classic tunes — which he wrote with