Recent Records: Popular

LERNER & LOEWE & CHEVALIER (M-G-M). "Co-o-od we take a journey to the moon?" and ageless (74) Boulevardier Maurice Chevalier is off on as appealing a vocal flight as his admirers could hope to hear. The album's title notwithstanding, Chevalier's stylish approximations of How to Handle a Woman, On the Street Where You Live, I Still See Elisa have nothing to do with Lerner and Loewe.

DUET (Doris Day with the Andre Previn Trio; Columbia). A honey of a partnership. Doris has just the right baby-blue style to complement Previn's elegantly simple arrangements, and the material is right for both of them: Close Your Eyes, Nobody's Heart, My One and Only Love.

RICHARD RODGERS: VICTORY AT SEA, VOL. 3 (RCA Victor). Out of Rodgers' apparently indestructible score, Orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett has dug enough material to add a third phenomenally selling album to this phenomenally selling series. The music is not Rodgers' vigorous best, but with the inclusion of authentic battle sounds and the addition of a "Symphonic Scenario" incorporating Guadalcanal March and Hymn of Victory, the album makes stirring listening.

SING ALONG WITH JONATHAN AND DARLENE EDWARDS (RCA Victor). Another offering by the husband-and-wife team that a few years back jolted music lovers with their riotously off-key assaults on perfectly innocent tunes. By now, even their detractors must know that the credit belongs to Orchestra Leader Paul Weston on piano and his wife, Singer Jo Stafford. Their fans will find them as cunningly awful as ever.

HEARTY AND HELLISH! (the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem; Columbia). The Irish revolutionaries who now campaign on the nightclub circuit launch with characteristic gusto into the folk favorites of the pubs. In the quartet's repertory are love songs, drinking songs (Whiskey, You're the Devil) and a few broad digs at Mother England.

BRAZEN BRASS ZINGS THE STRINGS (Henry Jerome and His Orchestra; Decca). Mood music played by an orchestra so artfully fragmented in the studio and reassembled that a listener with a mind to can believe he is sitting among the first violins. Mostly for audio addicts.

FOCUS (Stan Getz; Verve). For reasons obscure, jazz musicians these days have a yen to go classical. This latest attempted fusion of longhair and brushcut involves seven pieces for string ensemble by Composer-Arranger Eddie Sauter against which Saxophonist Getz pins his softly twining improvisations. The string pieces are in fact little more than an assortment of film-style cliches, but Getz's solos--soaring, tumbling and melting--are worth the price of the album.

LIVE IT UP! (Johnny Mathis; Columbia). Crooner Mathis, who seems to have laundered much of the teary quaver out of his voice, gives expert and exuberant treatment to some smart and fairly fresh patter--Ace in the Hole, On a Cold and Rainy Day, Why Not.

THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT (the Tokens; RCA Victor). A first album by the newest teen-age quartet to bleat their way to fortune. Here they kick rock 'n' roll to concentrate on folk-style tunes--Michael, Shenandoah, Jamaica Farewell. Underneath their Brooklyn twang, there are even hints of talent.

SOPHISTICATED LADY (Julie London; Liberty). No singer in the business conveys quite the same impression of breathing down a listener's neck, an effect tolerable in strictly limited quantities. Songstress London is at her best fogging out Bewitched and You're Blase.

THE YOUNG RUDY VALLEE (RCA Victor). This salute to the Vallee of the '30s and early '40s, taken from recordings of the period, suggests that he came to his true calling late: the man was always a comedian. With that marshmallow voice and paralyzed delivery, he embalms the likes of The Whiffenpoof Song and Heigh Ho, Everybody, Heigh Ho.

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