Sambamba by Les Baxter

An early Pete Rugolo Columbia LP, "Adventures in Rhythm," includes a track called "Sambamba" credited to Baxter. It sounds like one of Les Baxter's uptempo samba numbers.

Pete Rugolo also recorded "Quiet Village" around this time, and apparently worked as an orchestrator on "The Passions."

Is "Sambamba" a Les Baxter tune, and did he ever record it?

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2009-08-20 16:07 ]

Having researched this a little further, it does seem to be a Les Baxter tune, and it sure sounds like him. Anyone know of a recording of it by Les? If not, I would recommend that you Les Baxter completists track down that Pete Rugolo album!

Drew,

I have both Baxter songs on two different Pete Rugolo's albums. I believe the "Quiet Village" track is done in Cha Cha Cha!!!

I will research them both this weekend and report back.

Les also wrote a few tracks for "The Music of Les Baxter" album by Don Tiare that don't appear on his records either.

As far as Pete Rugolo's involvement with The Passions that is debatable. The original orchestrations in Les' handwriting are at the University of Arizona.

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

[ Edited by: Jeff Central 2009-08-21 09:52 ]

"Quiet Village" was on a 45 or EP originally, and then it was on a Rugolo comp called "New Sounds" which came out on their Harmony subsidiary. I have this, and yes, it's done cha cha style, but it's really good.

I'd been listening to "Sambamba" for almost two decades - "Adventures" was one of my first PR albums - but I never bothered to look at the label for the writing credits (Columbia had a strange policy of listing track timings and publishers on their covers but not composers). So, I now have a "new" Les Baxter tune!

Martin Denny did a number of tunes also that AFAIK Les never recorded (or released, at any rate). "Sim Sim" is one of these.

The Pete Rugolo/Passions story has circulated for a long time. What's the story with that?