Exotica Timeline

1950 - Yma Sumac "Voice of the Xtabay"

1951 - Korla Pandit:
THE GRAND MOGHUL SUITE, KORLA PANDIT'S MUSICAL GEMS, REMEMB'RING (all 1951)

1952 - Les Baxter "Ritual of the Savage"

Can any of you scholars think of any other early ones, pre-Denny? "Exotica" didn't come out til '57.
This album is what got me thinking about this subject:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/08/the-percussive-phil-kraus.html
It's not dated, but looks pretty early. Good stuff too - "Buffoon" is nicely creepy.

Not (m)any whole albums, but a number of individual tracks by the likes of Stan Kenton, Sauter-Finegan, Ellington, Cugat, Tito Puente, Pete Rugolo, Calvin Jackson, George Russell, George Shearing, Chico O'Farrill, Machito, Shorty Rogers, Artie Shaw, and others. I'll be happy to share specific titles if you're interested.

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2009-08-24 16:30 ]

I should add that there is always a certain amount of hair splitting when it comes to genres. I would consider, for example, an African drumming album with exoticized packaging to be exotica (i.e. Thurstson Knudson).

There is also "Africa Speaks - America Answers" by Guy Warren on Decca.

And there is the Andre Kostelanetz 78 album "Exotic Music" which must be from the late 40s or very early 50s.

Also, don't forget exotic film scores released on 78s. Miklos Rozsa's score for "The Jungle Book" is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, soundtrack album ever released.

I assume you mean stuff like "Caravan," but, sure, I'd still like to see the titles. Probably lots of Ernesto and Margarita Lecuona? They wrote so many songs that would become exotica standards.

Andre Kostelanetz? I'd always thought of him as the most boring sort of elevator music. Did he start off cool, like Ferrante & Teicher did before they went to off to snooze-ville?

Dang, wish I had a turntable that played 78s...

I understand what you're asking; but I'm talking about very specific tunes and arrangements with a very exotic sound and feel, not just jazz or big band guys running through standards like "Brazil."

I have been listening to exotica for two decades, and I've had an ongoing project that I call "Buried Treasures." It consists of exotica one-offs that are easily overlooked because they are not on exotica albums. It's been a long work in progress, and I've burned some discs for Jeff Central. I don't claim to have everything or to have heard everything, but I'm sure I've found stuff that wasn't on many people's radar. I'll post the specific titles later.

Your question is very timely, because I've been thinking about the very question you raised for the past year or so.

The Kostelanetz album (only four extended tunes) is very good. I haven't spun the actual 78 set (nothing to play it on) but the same recordings or same arrangements showed up later on "Lure of the Tropics." There is some theremin on at least one of these, IIRC.

Keep in mind that, with 50+ years of hindsight, it's very easy for us to decide retroactively what does or doesn't define this genre. It probably wasn't as apparent back then. I'm not even sure how prevalent the term "exotica" was prior to Martin Denny. Jeff Central may know the answer to this.

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2009-08-24 17:18 ]

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2009-08-24 17:19 ]

OK, here's a short list of some exotica tracks that pre-date the first Martin Denny album. Some of these pre-date even "Ritual of the Savage." I have included these tracks because both the tunes and the arrangements have a decidedly exotica feel, whether or not that term was in use at the time. I don't have recording or release dates handy, but I know I'm in the right date range. If you need specifics, I can probably get them to you on short notice:

Lotus Land - Calvin Jackson (blows away Martin Denny's version)
Siboney - Chico O'Farrill (sounds like an outtake from Les Baxter's "Tamboo")
Bakiff - Duke Ellington (50s version on Capitol)
Caravan - Duke Ellington (50s version on Capitol - best version he did of this, IMHO)
Fellow Delegates - George Russell
Cubano Chant - George Shearing (with chorus)
In A Chinese Garden - George Shearing (stunningly beautiful far-east exotica)
Desert Dance - Machito
Oboe Mambo- Machito (this and the previous tune are Latin/middle east exotica; MItch Miller of all people plays oboe; maybe the only cool thing he ever did other than produce Johnny Mathis's first Columbia LP with arrangements by Gil Evans and Teo Macero)
Poinciana - Pete Rugolo
Quiet Village Cha Cha Cha - Pete Rugolo
Sambamba - Pete Rugolo (Les Baxter composition)
Sabre Dance (AKA Bongo Dance) - Pete Rugolo
Eddie and the Witch Doctor - Sauter/Finegan (WILD!!!)
Moonlight on the Ganges - Sauter/Finegan
Tale of an African Lobster - Shorty Rogers
Equador - Stan Kenton
Evening in Pakistan - Stan Kenton
June Christy - Stan Kenton (opening sounds like "Portrait of Leda")
Mambo Buda - Tito Puente
Jungle Flute - Xavier Cugat (animal screams by humans; pre-dates Martin Denny by several years).

Happy hunting!

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2009-08-24 20:12 ]

Bolero, Maurice Ravel, 1928.

Caravan, Juan Tizol, 1937.

You might get a kick out of this "100 years of Exotica" page I did in 1998

http://www.inhi-fi.com/exotica/home.html

And thanks for the list Drew!

Jack

Great thread, thanks for all this research guys!

Niiiiice, thanks for the shopping list! (Of course if you ever decide to throw a zip file of 'em all onto a file-hosting site I would not stand in your way!)

Remembered another one, one of my faves actually: Esy Morales "Jungle Fantasy," performed in the 1949 film "Criss Cross". I have the 45 but a nice person recorded the 78 version HERE.

The Shearing "In A Chinese Garden" came out originally in two parts on two sides of an MGM 78. When they later issued it on an MGM LP, they transferred at the wrong speed. It is WAY slow on the LP, about 3/4 the speed, meaning it's half an octave down, at a glacial tempo, and with flabby sounding instruments. For my CD, I corrected the speed and pitch. I believe the currently available versions of the tune on CD are also at the correct pitch. But watch out for that LP version.

I'm finishing up a third volume of Buried Treasures. Nearly everything on here is from LP; only a few CD sources were used. There is some great hidden exotica out there, like Yusef Lateef's 45 of "Jungle Fantasy" b/w/ "Titora."

"India" by Sun Ra

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Sonic-Jazz-Sun-Ra/dp/B0000014J3/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1273418129&sr=8-14