Martin Denny, R.I.P.

[maren]

Martin Denny, 93, Dies; Maestro of Tiki Sound

By Ben Sisario, Published March 5, 2005 - New York Times

Martin Denny, the bandleader who mingled easygoing jazz with Polynesian instrumentation and jungle noises to exemplify the "exotica" sound that swept suburban America in the 1950's and 60's, died on Wednesday at his home in Hawaii Kai, near Honolulu. He was 93.

His death was announced by his daughter, Christina Denny.

Born in New York, Mr. Denny toured widely with big bands in the 1930's, served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and 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. But serendipity added the ingredient that would become Mr. Denny's musical signature.

"One night we were playing this tune and suddenly I became aware that these bullfrogs started to croak: ribbet, ribbet, ribbet," Mr. Denny recalled in an interview. "As a gag, the guys start doing these birdcalls, like a 'meanwhile, back in the jungle' type thing. And everybody cracked up about it. It was just a spoof."

But the gimmick stuck, and soon Mr. Denny and his band began to pepper performances with animal calls and ever-stranger musical instruments, including conch shells, Indonesian and Burmese gongs, Japanese kotos and boobams.

Mr. Denny's recording of Les Baxter's "Quiet Village," a stately piano theme surrounded by crunchy island percussion - an instrumental but for the parade of jungle cries supplied by his band - was released as a single in 1958 and reached the Top 5 of the Billboard pop charts. His first album, "Exotica," with its image of a sultry model of indeterminate ethnicity peeking through a bamboo screen, stayed at No. 1 for five weeks in 1959.

"Exotica" and successive albums with titles like "Forbidden Island," "Afro-Desia" and "Primitiva" provided the soundtrack to the trend for stylized Polynesiana - tiki cups, Hawaiian shirts and the bikini - in the early cold-war era. Like Esquivel, the zany Mexican composer, and Mr. Lyman, who went on to a very successful solo career, Mr. Denny made enterprising use of the new stereo feature of recording technology, which allowed the bongos and birdcalls of the recordings to fill listeners' rooms, and thus more vividly establish the sonic illusion of a restful stop on an innocuously exotic island paradise.

His music, along with that of Esquivel and others, faded in popularity with the spread of rock 'n' roll in the 60's, but found an underground audience in record collectors and fringe musicians, then enjoyed a full-fledged renaissance decades later as kitsch. The pioneering British industrial-music group Throbbing Gristle dedicated its "Greatest Hits" album to Mr. Denny, and through the 90's arty bands like Stereolab, Air, Combustible Edison and Stereo Total mined the exotica era.

Besides his daughter, Mr. Denny's survivors include a sister, Judith Kane, of Sherman Oaks, Calif.

A longtime resident of Hawaii, Mr. Denny continued to perform until shortly before his death, and never stopped promoting the island life and the freedom Hawaii afforded him in making a new kind of music at a safe distance from the capitals of the music business.

"If I had attempted to do this same thing on the mainland and asked a bunch of guys if they'd do birdcalls," he once said in an interview, "they'd have laughed me out of the studio. We did it here and it worked."

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1968

Edited March 5, 2005 by maren

[AfricaBrass]

I didn't realize he was still playing in recent years. I wish I could have gotten over to Hawaii to see him.

It's nice that the mid-90's lounge craze brought him back to the limelight. I have most of his old Liberty lps, but the cd reissues put out by the Scamp label are well done.

R.I.P.

[robviti]

i said it earlier, and i'll say it again: his biggest hit, and a good place to rest after the journey.

[Jazz Kat]

I got that one. I also have the the lp, A Taste Of Honey. It's more jazz influenced than his usual exoctica albums. It was a nice album.

[cannonball-addict]

He was a true pioneer. A lot of his albums took a fresh approach on Ellington and other big band era fare.

R.I.P.

[Randy Twizzle]

From the Honolulu Advertiser.

A service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Waikiki Elks Club for Martin Denny, the 93-year-old composer, recording artist and Waikiki musician who died Wednesday night at his Hawai'i Kai apartment.

Scattering of ashes will follow. Aloha attire is preferred.

Denny was born in New York and moved to Honolulu in 1954. He was perhaps best known for developing and defining his own sound, which became the pop-music genre called "exotica," combining bird calls, jungle chimes and croaking frogs with Asian, Latin and Pacific rhythms, jazz and pop music.

Denny is survived by a daughter, Christina Denny, and sister, Judith Kane.

Contributions may be made to the Live Music Awareness Martin Denny Fund for Aspiring Musicians, 949 Kapi'olani Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96814.

[couw]

lengthy interview from 1997 here

[Guest DizzySpells]

[...] combining bird calls, jungle chimes and croaking frogs with Asian, Latin and Pacific rhythms, jazz and pop music.

Never heard of Martin Denny, but that sounds like an eclectic mix. I wonder if I've ever heard any of his stuff? When I was in the tropics, the night usually sounded like that ... for free.

I think I just have to check some of this guy's releases out.

[Jazz Kat]

You gotta check him out. He blended just a tiny bit of jazz into his music, but it all worked out good. He should of invented a new style of music, but he was practically the only doing what he was doing.

[Bright Moments]

i dig him!!!

[mikeweil]

R.I.P.

... but the first sound I think of when his name is mentioned is that of birds chirping, like those that start "Quiet Village".

[MoGrubb]

I got that one. I also have the the lp, A Taste Of Honey. It's more jazz influenced than his usual exoctica albums. It was a nice album.

I remember when "Quiet Village" was popular. Did he do "A Taste of Honey" also? I know Herb Alpert had a hit with it back in the 60s.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

yes, absoutly

[Teasing the Korean]

By the time of "A Taste of Honey," MD's records were studio projects with his name slapped on the covers. MD and his group play on the dozen or so albums that predate ATOH. These are the ones that defined the sound of exotica, along with (of course) the exotica albums by The Great Les Baxter.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

By the time of "A Taste of Honey," MD's records were studio projects with his name slapped on the covers. MD and his group play on the dozen or so albums that predate ATOH. These are the ones that defined the sound of exotica, along with (of course) the exotica albums by The Great Les Baxter.

Back in the early sixties, the name Arthur Lyman carried weight in that style, too.

The tune "Quiet village" seems to have lasted quite well. I have versions by Pucho & the Latin Soul Brothers, El Chicano, and one I've bought quite recently but can't immediately find

MG

Oh, and there was a sixties version by Odell Brown & the Organisers.

[Teasing the Korean]

Lalo Schifrin did it on "Black Widow" also.

Arthur Lyman started out in Martin Denny's band. His albums are alright, but generally lacking the punch and interesting arrangements that Denny employed.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Arthur Lyman started out in Martin Denny's band. His albums are alright, but generally lacking the punch and interesting arrangements that Denny employed.

I didn't know that. The BBC played Lyman's "Taboo" a lot more than they played anything by Martin Denny. In fact, I don't ever remember hearing Denny, except on my own record player

MG

[Teasing the Korean]

The first couple of Arthur Lyman Albums, Taboo and Bwana A are probably the best. "Yellow Bird" was his big hit stateside. Lyman plays on the first two MD albums, Exotica (the mono version) and Exotica 2. The stereo version of Exotica was a re-record done after Lyman's departure.

[sheldonm]

yes, absoutly

?

[BERIGAN]

yes, absoutly

?

???

[Bright Moments]