BANG, baa-rOOM and HARP - Dick Schory's New Percussion Ensemble

Stop coddling your Hi-Fi Set!

RCA Victor LPM - 1866, released 1958

This is one from my small but growing Exotica - Space Age - Lounge collection of LP's that I've got on the shelf. I saw this one and bought it purely for the cover and was not disappointed.

Recorded on June 2nd and 3rd, 1958, in Orchestra Hall, Chicago, BANG BaarOOM and HARP is cacophony of percussive instruments performing various tunes arranged by the likes of Skitch Henderson, Bobby Christian and Dick Schory. It sounds fantastic on the turntable, as the record bounces through tunes like "Baia", "September in the Rain" and "The Sheik of Araby" to name a few.

The extensive liner notes by Bob Bollard on the back of the cover give a detailed rundown of the recording process, and includes what he calls "an approximate instrument inventory", of which I'll name a couple here:

3 Vibraphones, 2 Xylophones, 4 Gongs, 8 Timpani, Boo Bam, Timbales, Bongo Drums, Banjo, Harp, Auto Brake Drums, 2 Slapsticks, 2 guitars, 1 Anvil, Coo-Coo Whistle, Siren Whistle, Slide Whistle, Piano, Chromatic Cowbells (take that, Blue Oyster Cult!) and 3 Snare Drums! That's not even half of the list provided.

Fans of Space Age will likely dig this platter. I don't know if it's available on CD, but I imagine with a little hunting one might snag a copy of the album somewhere.

Saturday Night Vinyl - Les Baxter Caribbean Moonlight

In this album arranger-conductor Les Baxter expresses the soft moods of the islands at night. The music suggests impressions rather than photographs. It evokes images of moonlit jungles and wave-washed beaches, of gardens sending the heady fragrance of orchids and bougainvillea into the night air.

Capital Records - 1956

Yeah, it is all that, what's said on the liner notes above, but I also see Robert Mitchum making out with Jane Greer on a moonlit beach in Mexico too. Okay, I'm a big fan of Out of the Past, so that's an easy one. Mostly, Les Baxter's Caribbean Moonlight is one of my top favorite records to put on during the early hours of a cocktail party or when I just feel like chilling alone. Arizona is a long way from any Caribbean moonlight but this record is a cool substitute. It's one of those records that glides through multiple listens without a hitch, that's the perfect backdrop for the tinkling of melting ice in a cold highball, or just cool listening to lush Exotica at its best.

I came by this album through a member of the family that was getting rid of their records. I really liked the cover and took it along with some other records that I don't play near as much as this one. It was also one of the first albums in the Exotica genre to join my mostly not so great 70s and 80s hard rock records - the ones I hide from public view. It was about time that something came along to class my collection up a bit! Since then I've gathered some nice additions, but Caribbean Moonlight still holds a top tier in my faves. Linked here is "Taboo" (Margarita Lecuona - Bob Russell) the first cut from the album.

"The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow"

One of my favorite things to do is dig through old vinyl records in various thrift stores around town. I don't go looking for that rare collector's item that I can resell for a small fortune. Instead I look for music that's going to get played on my stereo at home in my small living room, for an audience of no one but myself. A few weeks ago I was perusing through a stash of records in the back of a hidden thrift store, enjoying some of the vintage covers found therein when I found three records by Esquivel and his Orchestra.

I'd heard of Esquivel before from various "Space-Age Bachelor Pad" collections that I'd picked up in CDs back in the nineties. But this was my first time finding a couple of his albums on vinyl. My first thought is that they were probably trashed, warped and fried, but a quick look at each showed no obvious scratches or warps. My next pleasant surprise was that the woman behind the counter only charged me a buck each for them. Had I been in some hipster cave near a college campus I would have no doubt been asked to shell out an outrageously inflated amount by some pierced and tatted twit only half my age, all for the cost of being cool. Thankfully that wasn't the case. I've got a special trunk of gripes for shop-keepers who think that anything older than 1982 automatically relegates it to "vintage" status, and therefore want to charge folks far far more than the item would ever be worth in the best of conditions. (I'm thinking of one old bookstore owner who slapped a $35 sticker on a 1970's Harlan Ellison paperback with half its back cover torn away!) I see that shit and I let my friends know. But I'm going off the rails here. This is supposed to be about Esquivel and his stereo wizardry.

This is music for hi-fi geeks who probably had the best stereo systems of the day and the worst luck at getting willing women to come in for a listen.

Anyway, somewhere in the nineties there was a resurgent interest in these old records, with their zooming crescendos, exotic instruments, bird-calls, whistles, zu-zu's and feminine breathlessness nuzzling the eardrums. And there is no shortage of stuff out there; from the likes of Esquivel, Martin Denny, Les Baxter, Pete Rugolo, Alvino Rey, Dean Elliott and gang. A whole swath of lounge, exotica and space-age music found an audience all over again. Happy listening...

A Key to the Suite - Where the Boys All Go

My perspective on John D. MacDonald's novel A Key to the Suite comes from 6 years of working at a resort in Scottsdale Arizona back in the first half of the nineties. MacDonald's novel is set in a resort in the early sixties and follows the shenanigans of a handful of conventioneers as they maneuver, plot, climb and back-stab each other up and around that corporate ladder that we've all been sold a bill of goods on. This is the "organization man" at his ugliest, and by the end of the novel, no one comes up smelling pretty.

My association with conventions begin as a resort security officer, pulling night shifts guarding showroom displays and convincing drunks that the turn-down girls were not there to do anything more than turn down sheets and leave mints on the pillows. Later I had the (no-so-great) pleasure of preparing the resort billing for conventions, which mostly meant debating how much on average a person may consume at an open bar staffed by bartenders looking out for their 18% gratuities. That and insisting that no, I was not able to make the golf charges look like meeting room rental charges. And you haven't lived until you've been stampeded over in the restrooms by a convention meeting that has just let out; with all the windy cacophony of spitting, farting and horking rattling off the tiled stalls and porcelain urinals.

But enough of all that. Here's a look at MacDonald's cynical 1962 pot-boiler.

Fawcett Gold Medal, August 1980

The huge hotel, now being brushed and polished by the maintenance crews, was like some bawdy, obese, degenerate old queen who, having endured prolonged orgy, was now being temporarily restored to a suitable regal condition by all the knaves and wenches who serve her. 

Enter into this setting is one Floyd Hubbard, an earnest, seemingly decent enough guy in his early thirties, looking to do the right thing by his bosses as he makes his way up the executive ladder. He's tagged right away as an ax-man by the rest of the joes attending the convention, most notably by a charmer named Fred Frick. Frick is looking out for his boss in crime, Jesse Mulaney. Mulaney is one of those bullshit artist, hail-fellow-well-met kind of backslappers who's managed to coast his way into a slot beyond his talents, brains and capabilities. Mulaney probably isn't the worst guy you'd want to know, but his antics have become such that the lords on mahogany row have deemed his usefulness to the corporation lacking. Frick, on the other hand, is one of those slimy creatures that MacDonald creates so well, the sort of guy with a greasy grin and yellow teeth and a phone number in his little black book that could fix any situation, legal or illegal. Frick's big idea is to hire a flooze to show up and rock the high and mighty Floyd Hubbard off his pedestal and tarnishing his sterling reputation. Once the execs back home see that Floyd pilots a tin horse, they'll hardly take any advice from him about the worthiness of good old Jesse Mulaney. That's the plan anyway.

The girl is Cory Barlund. Cory is a high priced call girl of very selective standards. She has no problem turning down a client, no matter who he is or how much cash he wants to drop. Cory is sent to Frick by her "madame", a shadowy babe known as Alma. Alma has supplied many of the guys with ladies of free spirit from her stables, and knows that Cory, in spite of being a bit of a pain in the ass, is just the girl for the job Frick has in mind.

...The busy, important man, sweets, does better with a high-level pro. All the questions are answered before you start. If he wants to do the town, he'll know she'll look good enough and dress well enough to take anywhere. And she won't get plotzed or chew with her mouth open or leave him for somebody else in the middle of the evening. He knows just how the evening is going to end up, and he knows she'll be good at it, and he knows there won't be any letters or phone calls or visits a couple of weeks or months later. It's efficiency, sweets. Modern management methods. 

That's the philosophy here anyway. Too bad things just don't work out as planned.

This novel is as good as any of MacDonald's novels, which means it's a pretty damn good read. Some of the dialog and mores may be a bit dated, but that's the fun of reading old books like this. You get a glimpse into a world that existed at one point in time outside our own. Something to ponder next time you're on Spring Break.

Love Letters - Ketty Lester

Here's a very nice, sort of sexy and haunting song I've always liked. It was written way back in 1945 by Victor Young and Edward Heyman. Since then it's been recorded by a couple dozen artists, including its most recent incarnation by Dex Romweber and Cat Power. I really like the Dex Romweber version, but I'm linking to the version I love, which is also probably best known, by Ketty Lester. Ketty Lester had a hit with "Love Letters" in 1962, kind of an important year for me. I also think it's a great performance by Ketty Lester. It's one of those songs I think of as "midnight song" that's best heard in the dark, alone.

Eyeball in your Martini?

Here, for your listening pleasure is the Misfit's classic "Some Kinda Hate" as performed by the Nutley Brass, from their CD, Misfits Meet the Nutley Brass - Fiend Club Lounge. This is another disk that makes it to the rotation around this time every year. The song is short, so drop that cigarette, put the drink down and ask that kitten in furs to dance already...