Consider the lounge an extinct possibility

GLASSES clink, smoke fills the air, a slot machine makes noise in the background. “Stormy Monday,” “Satin Doll” and “Fly Me to the Moon.” On a recent Saturday night at the Casbar Lounge at the Sahara, all the tables are full as Freddie Eckstine leads a band through a tribute to his dad, vocal great Billy Eckstine. He works the room, shaking every hand, making dedications and taking requests.

“We’ve enjoyed some success here,” Eckstine says, between sets. The setting is a throwback in the new era of Vegas nightlife, he admits. “Lounges back in the day were a thing of elegance and class. I take a lot of pride in keeping it going.”

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the lounge was as much a symbol of Sin City as the showgirl. It was at the Sahara where Louis Prima and Keely Smith established the role of lounge as a hip late-night zone where elites, celebrities and gamblers could mingle and enjoy free live music. It stayed that way for decades. “Louis Prima opened the original Casbar Theatre Lounge back in the ‘50s,” notes Ron Garrett, the current entertainment and marketing director at the Sahara. And appearing Feb. 7 to 12, Lena Prima is booked in the Casbar Lounge doing her show, “Louis Prima: That’s My Dad.”

But in recent years the trend has been away from lounges altogether in favor of mini-nightclubs dubbed ultra lounges. Mike Weatherford, who in his book “Cult Vegas” wrote about the history of lounges, notes: “The ultra lounges are competing with traditional lounges for more than floor space. It is a generational thing. Casinos think young people don’t want to sit and be entertained but want to be able to dance and mingle and be more interactive than in the traditional lounge.” The Hard Rock Hotel does not have a lounge at all, and at Wynn the offering is only a single piano bar at Tableau.

The lounges that remain take a more contemporary approach to music than that offered, say, by the Checkmates, legends from the original lounge era in Vegas and another of the regular attractions at the Casbar. Weatherford says that the Casbar Lounge right now is among the last old-school lounge experiences on the Strip. “People are probably not really aware of this. But you can’t come to town and find this anymore. And the Sahara’s the only one coming close.”

In 2004, Garrett began this approach to booking the Casbar Lounge. “I don’t like the word ‘retro,’ ” he says. “I would say ‘more traditional,’ what people expect to see in a lounge in Las Vegas. I began to look for acts with a vintage Vegas feel to them. I began to bring in live musicians who performed, were more acts and not just groups that made noise. The goal has been to bring in shows that you would expect to pay for but don’t have to because the lounge tradition is free.” Except, of course, for the one-drink minimum.

Before he began making over the entertainment at the Casbar, Garrett points out, “It was getting like all the other lounges, just a bunch of bands playing other people’s music.” Or, as Freddie Eckstine puts it: “The Sahara is trying to recapture the Vegas of old. The other lounges are all hip-hop and current music.”

Dian Diaz gives her audience current music, even as she works the room with the same fervor as Eckstine. She has built a following too. On that same Saturday night, there is a line of carefully and expensively coifed people awaiting a table in the Bellagio’s lounge, the Fontana Bar. Diaz has been headlining here for seven years and her repertoire runs to more than 300 songs for her three-sets-a-night, five-nights-a-week gig: classic rock, today’s hits, classic R&B; and any request that might come along.

Diaz has received tremendous exposure working at the Bellagio. Bono and R. Kelly came on stage to sing with her, and Whitney Houston came to see her three nights in a row. Diaz discovered that Beyonce was in the bar watching her perform when a cover of “Crazy in Love” got the backup dancers in the singer’s entourage to break into the choreography.

Diaz credits such exposure for being able to complete her self-titled disc, which comes out next month. Yet, she notes that even the very contemporary approach to lounges taken by the Fontana Bar is also beginning to fade away as surely as old-school lounge. “Right now lounge is dying,” she says. “A lot of things that open are now the ultra lounges that are popping up all over.”

Ultra lounges aren’t really lounges at all, by Vegas tradition. They use a DJ and charge a cover, which makes them more like a nightclub. Nonetheless, they present a challenge to the future of all lounges, including the Sahara and the Bellagio, as Weatherford notes: “If the casinos can get the expensive drink charges and the cover charge without paying the band, why not do it? If there is not a value attached to sit and watching someone entertain, why do it?”

Freddie Eckstine sees it this way: “It is like with so many other occupations. We are getting replaced by technology.”

A Hooters happenin’

USUALLY casinos open with lots of fanfare, including headliners and fireworks. There will be some fireworks; still, by comparison, Hooters Casino plans to celebrate its arrival on the Strip in low-key fashion. The “orange carpet” opening (across from the MGM at Tropicana) last week was to feature only a handful of celebrities, including Brooke Burke.

Maybe Hooters is taking this mellow approach because it is not located in a new building but occupies the rebranded San Remo property; the Hooters redesign is sort of the casino equivalent of a second marriage for the property. Although the party may be underwhelming, the timing is impeccable -- this is Super Bowl weekend and all Hooters really needs to do is throw open the door in time to guarantee a packed opening.

For more on what’s happening on and off the Strip, see the blog latimes.com/movablebuffet on latimes.com.