Exotica: The Sounds of Martin Denny

Martin Denny (1911-2005) is best known as a composer and arranger of light music, lounge and exotica. Before that, he toured with big bands in the 1930s. In the mid-50’s found himself in Hawaii with an engagement at the Hawaiian Village Hotel at Waikiki. His group, a quartet that also featured Arthur Lyman on the vibraphone, played around a pool at the hotel in a natural setting, performing soft arrangements of popular songs with an odd instrument or two from Hawaii or places in Asia and the South Pacific such as conch shells, Indonesian and Burmese gongs, Japanese kotos, boobams and even the local forest animals. These ingredients mixed to become  Denny’s signature sound. His first album – Exotica – featured a cover with a sultry model of indeterminate ethnicity peeking through a bamboo screen. It hit the No. 1 spot, stayed there for five weeks in 1959 and set the fashion for bamboo, tiki cups, Hawaiian shirts and the bikini in the early Cold-War era. Pass me the cocktail shaker.
First released in 1957, this reissue is on red vinyl.