Pink Martini - Tiki Music

K Kono Member Orlando Joined: Oct 08, 2003 Posts: 1266	K Kono Posted posted on Fri, Feb 25, 2005 7:56 PM On 2005-02-25 18:44, bigbrotiki wrote: It is precisely their caliber of musicianship that is sadly lacking today to create a Lounge music scene. Like many other crafts, it was normal and plentiful in the mid-century, but the Rock'n'Roll/Free Jazz revolution cut the umbilical chord of that tradition, aborting a whole generation. Sven, do you think that lounge/exotica was a "scene" back in the 50s/60s or just the status quo (for a segment of society)? Personally, I think that exotica was commercially strong and that's why you had professionals with strong musicianship playing on these albums. It was probably very competitive. Even after years of exposure to the "hip" crowd, exotica albums are easy to find in thrift stores. They had to have been fairly successful. The problem with the alt/indie crowd has always been that their ideas outstrip their abilities for the most part. I've always felt this to be especially true with the vocalists. You get a bunch of folks together who want to make a scene or recreate an earlier sound and that is laudible but they rarely have the skills to completely pull it off because they're trying to recreate a sound that was created by professionals. Scenesters are in it to be cool and maybe get rich, the pros were in it to make a living and maybe be a little cool. I've collected music for 25+ years. I've collected exotica for maybe seven years but I was only collecting it for the cool album covers! I read those "Incredibly Strange" books and that's how I got into exotica albums. The music always left me kind of bored. The past year or so I've been making CDs of exotica to listen to while I drive and at some point I had a little epiphany! At some point I began to hear and realize the high caliber of musicianship these guys had and the subtle sophistication of the composers. Exotica can, on the surface, appear to be gimmicky with the sound effects but closer scrutiny reveals that these albums were made by very skilled musicians. The only reason I started this post was because you used the phrase rock'n'roll/free jazz. As a fan of both I hate them being paired together and you're obviously not the first to do that. Just because The MC5 did a Sun Ra cover and both genres like long extended dissonant noise jams does not make them related. Plus I don't think that anyone who would've played with Arthur Lyman in 1959 would've ten years later played with Ornette Coleman or...errr...Ten Years After. They were commercial musicians with strong chops and probably most comparable with the musicians on the Dave Letterman show or SNL. Rock musicians were/are for the most part less skilled than jazz musicians with some exeptions. Pick up any free jazz album and as shitty and weird as you think it sounds...those musicians were highly trained and highly disciplined and the more you listen the more previously undiscerned patterns you can pick up. They know what they are doing even if it is way outside the box.

On 2005-02-25 18:44, bigbrotiki wrote:
It is precisely their caliber of musicianship that is sadly lacking today to create a Lounge music scene. Like many other crafts, it was normal and plentiful in the mid-century, but the Rock'n'Roll/Free Jazz revolution cut the umbilical chord of that tradition, aborting a whole generation.

Sven, do you think that lounge/exotica was a "scene" back in the 50s/60s or just the status quo (for a segment of society)? Personally, I think that exotica was commercially strong and that's why you had professionals with strong musicianship playing on these albums. It was probably very competitive. Even after years of exposure to the "hip" crowd, exotica albums are easy to find in thrift stores. They had to have been fairly successful. The problem with the alt/indie crowd has always been that their ideas outstrip their abilities for the most part. I've always felt this to be especially true with the vocalists. You get a bunch of folks together who want to make a scene or recreate an earlier sound and that is laudible but they rarely have the skills to completely pull it off because they're trying to recreate a sound that was created by professionals. Scenesters are in it to be cool and maybe get rich, the pros were in it to make a living and maybe be a little cool.

I've collected music for 25+ years. I've collected exotica for maybe seven years but I was only collecting it for the cool album covers! I read those "Incredibly Strange" books and that's how I got into exotica albums. The music always left me kind of bored. The past year or so I've been making CDs of exotica to listen to while I drive and at some point I had a little epiphany! At some point I began to hear and realize the high caliber of musicianship these guys had and the subtle sophistication of the composers. Exotica can, on the surface, appear to be gimmicky with the sound effects but closer scrutiny reveals that these albums were made by very skilled musicians.

The only reason I started this post was because you used the phrase rock'n'roll/free jazz. As a fan of both I hate them being paired together and you're obviously not the first to do that. Just because The MC5 did a Sun Ra cover and both genres like long extended dissonant noise jams does not make them related. Plus I don't think that anyone who would've played with Arthur Lyman in 1959 would've ten years later played with Ornette Coleman or...errr...Ten Years After. They were commercial musicians with strong chops and probably most comparable with the musicians on the Dave Letterman show or SNL. Rock musicians were/are for the most part less skilled than jazz musicians with some exeptions. Pick up any free jazz album and as shitty and weird as you think it sounds...those musicians were highly trained and highly disciplined and the more you listen the more previously undiscerned patterns you can pick up. They know what they are doing even if it is way outside the box.

Post #143380 by Kono on Fri, Feb 25, 2005 7:56 PM