Earliest exposure to Exotica. That I can remember. - Tiki Music

S Son-of-Kelbo Member NOHO, CA Joined: Aug 03, 2004 Posts: 590	S Son-of-Kelbo Posted posted on Thu, Jan 31, 2008 10:57 AM What a fun thread, BB! For me, it was Kelbo's wonderfully whimsical environment in the early '60 that first sowed the "exotica" seed when I was a kid, with hapa-haole Hawaiian music playing among the illuminated blowfish and glowing net floats overhead... My first conscious exposure to Les Baxter was in the late 60's, through his grand film score for "Master of the World", which, like Victor Young's "Around the World in 80 Days", has its exotica-esque moments, not to mention Baxter's distinctive orchestrations. Without a doubt, Alexander Courage's "Orion Slave Girl Dance" and Fred Steiner's "Space Radio" themes for the original Star Trek series were exotica in spirit if not in genre, as with Gerald Fried's moody, savage, and exotic "Amok Time" (which offers a peek into his other purely-exotica recordings). At my age then, other planets were pretty much akin to mysterious islands... Elmer Bernstein's colorful, transporting music for "Hawaii" (a much better score than film), liberated from the bargain bins at the local White Front store around 1970, sent those irresistible Polynesian percussion rhythms through my veins, and Bernard Herrmanns' magnificent music for "Anna and the King of Siam" was (and is) a beguiling "Westernized" window into the transporting (and addictive) Gamelan tone-scale. Hugo Friedhoffer's lush "The Rains of Ranchipur" was also a marvelous exotia-esque score, the last two works pre-dating the '50's. These and certain others were an early part of my soundtrack collection, not specifically classified as exotica, but I believe seminal influences (orchestrally speaking) in the genre. My "serious" interest in Les Baxter revived big time, along with a more studious who-did-what exploration of Arthur Lyman's and Martin Denny's works, in the early '90's, when I had the opportunity as best man to stage a major bachelor-party-luau, transforming my backyard into an ersatz salute to The Tikis, with the first raising of the Cosmic Tiki Hut, whole pig & related sides, Weber "volcano", multiple flaming tiki-torches, furtive washes of red, blue and green lighting amid the greenery -- and a custom-edited exotica soundtrack, with music by those luminaries above (plus, of course, the "Orion Slave Girl Dance" -- I'll let you guess how it was used). I couldn't be more delighted to see the genre alive and well -- and growing -- here in the 21st Century, with (alphabetically) Clouseaux, Don Tiki, The Martini Kings, The Tikiyaki Orchestra, Waitiki, and those yet to come, carrying the (tiki)torch with great style, and blazing new trails through the mysterious and alluring realms of Contemporary Exotica. Looking forward to their future contributions. Oooo. SOK "Don't let it be forgot, That once there was a Spot, Where Blowfish all wore sunglasses, and Tiki-times were hot..." [ Edited by: Son-of-Kelbo 2008-01-31 11:03 ]

What a fun thread, BB!

For me, it was Kelbo's wonderfully whimsical environment in the early '60 that first sowed the "exotica" seed when I was a kid, with hapa-haole Hawaiian music playing among the illuminated blowfish and glowing net floats overhead...

My first conscious exposure to Les Baxter was in the late 60's, through his grand film score for "Master of the World", which, like Victor Young's "Around the World in 80 Days", has its exotica-esque moments, not to mention Baxter's distinctive orchestrations. Without a doubt, Alexander Courage's "Orion Slave Girl Dance" and Fred Steiner's "Space Radio" themes for the original Star Trek series were exotica in spirit if not in genre, as with Gerald Fried's moody, savage, and exotic "Amok Time" (which offers a peek into his other purely-exotica recordings). At my age then, other planets were pretty much akin to mysterious islands...

Elmer Bernstein's colorful, transporting music for "Hawaii" (a much better score than film), liberated from the bargain bins at the local White Front store around 1970, sent those irresistible Polynesian percussion rhythms through my veins, and Bernard Herrmanns' magnificent music for "Anna and the King of Siam" was (and is) a beguiling "Westernized" window into the transporting (and addictive) Gamelan tone-scale. Hugo Friedhoffer's lush "The Rains of Ranchipur" was also a marvelous exotia-esque score, the last two works pre-dating the '50's. These and certain others were an early part of my soundtrack collection, not specifically classified as exotica, but I believe seminal influences (orchestrally speaking) in the genre.

My "serious" interest in Les Baxter revived big time, along with a more studious who-did-what exploration of Arthur Lyman's and Martin Denny's works, in the early '90's, when I had the opportunity as best man to stage a major bachelor-party-luau, transforming my backyard into an ersatz salute to The Tikis, with the first raising of the Cosmic Tiki Hut, whole pig & related sides, Weber "volcano", multiple flaming tiki-torches, furtive washes of red, blue and green lighting amid the greenery -- and a custom-edited exotica soundtrack, with music by those luminaries above (plus, of course, the "Orion Slave Girl Dance" -- I'll let you guess how it was used).

I couldn't be more delighted to see the genre alive and well -- and growing -- here in the 21st Century, with (alphabetically) Clouseaux, Don Tiki, The Martini Kings, The Tikiyaki Orchestra, Waitiki, and those yet to come, carrying the (tiki)torch with great style, and blazing new trails through the mysterious and alluring realms of Contemporary Exotica. Looking forward to their future contributions. Oooo.

SOK

"Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a Spot,
Where Blowfish all wore sunglasses,
and Tiki-times were hot..."

[ Edited by: Son-of-Kelbo 2008-01-31 11:03 ]

Post #358319 by Son-of-Kelbo on Thu, Jan 31, 2008 10:57 AM