Martin Denny

He lived in paradise playing lush music to a fresh group of eager tourists each night. He is considered the chief exponent of "exotica," his ardent pop fans remain plentiful, and at least Hypnotique is a masterpiece. But with a few missteps in his long career, Martin Denny's primacy in exotica is debatable. Much is owed to Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman, among many others.

The Martin Denny group's initial recipe for success was ideal. Take Les Baxter's best compositions, replace the strings with hipper, "native" instrumentation (which conveniently fit into tiny Hawaiian nightclubs), and wrap albums in the most enticing jackets the Liberty art department could produce. This worked for a dozen or so marvelous LPs cranked out at maximum pace. Apart from its subsidiaries, Liberty owed much of its solvency --and probably a vacation-- to Martin Denny. (Liberty's ability to hire talent never did live up to the production standards, however.)

Hypnotique and some moments from other albums show the Denny magic could extend beyond arranging to the more demanding task of composing. The humor revealed in Quiet Village comes as a relief (for a career attributed to drunken bird calls), but Afro-Desia's great possibilities are undercut by uninspired performance and camp. The group seems to have peaked by 1960. Subsequent experiments mostly disappoint: gratuitous California piano jazz (covers of at least three Fantasy artists' hits), covers of Hawaiian standards, exotica-with-strings, and solo piano. Neither the group's various solo and extramural projects nor new talent signed by Denny for Liberty were enough to rekindle the earlier fire.

What did work, at least musically if not commercially, was returning to exotica. Revamping some of the hits on Moog and sitar brought exotica into the oddly compatible psychedelic age. Several later albums have at least one token tune in the old, bird-call exotica style; many of these rank among his best. One such album is 1982's The Enchanted Isle (four originals, one with whistling). "An Occasional Man" turns up on this LP and again on 1997's The Forbidden Sounds of Don Tiki CD. Don Tiki features Martin Denny on some tracks but really is a hip, progressive exotica act of its own.

Buying: Avoid the Sunset compilations, "Taste of" series, and later LPs of strictly Hawaiian standards. Solo efforts by ex-Group members (Augie Colon, Buddy Fo, Paul Conrad) and Denny-produced LPs (Ethel Azama, Sondi Sodsai) generally are very worthwhile. Completists may want to seek out several tunes available only as 45rpm singles (non-LP cuts).