Les Baxter Bangkok Cockfight and Ports of Pleasure

As most of you know, the mono LP of Ports of Pleasure has 12 tracks. The stereo version has only ten, resulting from groove-cramming anxiety common in the early days of stereo LPs. Of the 2 deleted tracks, "Spice Islands Sea Birds" shows up in stereo on the "Exotic Moods" comp (missing some key overdubs, unfortunately, that are on the mono). I just found out that the stereo "Bangkok Cockfight" was on a Capitol stereo LP sampler "The Stars in Stereo" which can be had for relatively short dough. The tune is also available as an 89-cent download from Amazon, but it's sourced from vinyl (not bad, though).

Just thought I'd pass this on for anyone interested.

By the way, Ports of Pleasure in mono is recorded with a completely different microphone setup than the stereo, with lots of close-miking and stellar mixing on the mono, as opposed to the stereo, which is 2 or three overhead mics. The mono also has lots of overdubs not on the stereo. If you like this album (I love it), you really need to have both. I love them both for different reasons. I think the sequence on the stereo album flows better, but I miss those two tracks.

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2011-07-22 04:29 ]

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2011-07-22 04:30 ]

thanks for the information...no, not all of us knew that about the mono vs. stereo. i also like this one from what i've heard of the samples and tracks placed on other cds...wish it was on cd. do you know what the original sequencing of the 12 songs is? same as amazon has it on the downloads? i see that it was also released on 3 eps, with 4 songs per ep.

The mono track lineup is this:

Tahiti
Hong Kong Cable Car
Gates Of Annam
Shanghai Rickshaw
Tramp Steamer To Singapore
Spice Island Sea Birds

City Of Veils
Monkey Dance Of Bali
Harem Silks From Bombay
Sidewalk Cafes Of Saigon
Pearls Of Ceylon
Bangkok Cockfight

Really weird that "Gates" is the third track on side 1. That is clearly the album closer.

Thanks...I've just put together an iTunes playlist for the track order from the mono release (after purchasing Bangkok Cockfight at Amazon) and am pressing play!

kevin

I really don't like the mono track lineup. I think more thought went into the stereo. I use the stereo order and I insert the two missing tracks at points where I think they work.

Any particular suggestions for placement? I ran through my playlist twice and throught Gates of Annam was a better closer than Bangkok Cockfight.

Kevin

This is the only record of which I have the mono and the stereo copy. Mainly because of the missing tracks. But I think I like the mono version better overall. Its less symphonic sounding I guess. It sounds "smaller." I must confess I think Ports of Pleasure doesn't work as well as a concept album as some of Baxter's others. So I think I'm going to mess around a bit with the track order too.