Apr 20
Close your eyes while an exotica record is playing and almost anything can happen. A vibraphone drifts through the room. Bongos and strange percussion begin somewhere in the distance. A bird calls from an imaginary jungle. Frogs answer from a lagoon. Strings swell dramatically, a gong appears unexpectedly, and suddenly an ordinary living room feels …
Jun 20
Before Martin Denny filled a Waikīkī lounge with vibraphone and bird calls, before exotica became a recognized genre, and before tropical mood music became almost inseparable from midcentury tiki culture, Les Baxter was already constructing imaginary worlds with an orchestra. Baxter was a composer, arranger, conductor, and recording artist whose career stretched across popular music, …
Jun 19
A vibraphone shimmers over a quiet piano. Hand percussion begins to pulse underneath. Then, just when the music seems settled into a sophisticated late-night groove, a bird calls from somewhere beyond the bandstand. Another answers. Frogs croak in the darkness, a gong sounds in the distance, and an ordinary lounge suddenly seems surrounded by an …
Nov 25
Few styles of rock music are as instantly recognizable as surf rock. A guitar rings out with heavy spring reverb. Notes arrive in fast, sharp bursts. Drums push relentlessly forward. The melody seems to rise and fall like something moving across water, and suddenly the listener can picture Southern California in the early 1960s: surfboards …
Nov 25
A good tiki soundtrack should make the room change before anyone notices why. The lights seem warmer. Bamboo, carved wood, tropical plants, ceramic mugs, and glowing glass floats suddenly belong together. A vibraphone drifts through the speakers, percussion starts moving underneath it, a bird calls from an imaginary jungle, and an ordinary patio or living …
Sep 04
Tiki art did not emerge from one studio, one artist, or one clearly defined school. It grew inside restaurants, hotels, theme parks, roadside attractions, home bars, ceramics workshops, sign shops, advertising departments, and backyard carving sheds. Some artists worked with chainsaws and massive logs. Others painted cocktail parties populated by sharply dressed midcentury figures. Some …
Aug 19
Few songs can summon a place as quickly as “The Girl from Ipanema.” A softly syncopated guitar begins, the singing feels almost conversational, and a tenor saxophone enters without disturbing the calm. Within moments, the listener is transported to Rio de Janeiro in the early 1960s—to the beachfront neighborhood of Ipanema, where a young woman …
Jun 25
Few theme-park songs announce themselves as efficiently as “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room.” Within moments, the Sherman Brothers’ relentlessly catchy tune tells Disneyland visitors where they are, introduces a room in which birds speak and flowers sing, establishes the playful tropical atmosphere, and prepares the audience for a kind of entertainment that was almost impossible …
