Describe how you perceive difference between WAITIKI’s live and recorded output, particularly in comparison to that of Martin Denny.

 One incredible difference, I think, between WAITIKI’s live performances and recordings is the type of improvisation we do within the arrangements. Improvisation on our albums is predominantly jazz-influenced (by which I mean a solo melodic instrument playing a spontaneously-composed melody, usually related to the arrangement’s chord progression): Tim’s Eric Dolphy-like sax solo on “Fuzzy Mammoth Breath” or the dueling ‘Doc’ Kupka-like baritone saxes on “Rendezvous in Okonkuluku”. In contrast, we place a much heavier emphasis and priority on dropping extended dance grooves into the arrangements when playing to live audiences. Rhythmic improvisation and groove-oriented spontaneity take priority, though melodic improvisation is still an important component. The practical reasons for this are easy to identify: our fans love to get down and dance, especially after a few Mai Tais; many of our peers’ bands that play tiki festivals make great music, but don’t specifically focus on making their songs danceable; the rarity of hearing a live dance band nowadays is increasing; the use of popular dance beats help make our music more accessible; and our professional WAITIKI Wahine Dancers can be included at any point in the show—“special” tunes notwithstanding.

 As far as I can tell from the few surviving live recordings (and from talking with performers of that era), Martin Denny’s band did not employ this approach when improvising at live shows. When improvisation was allowed as part of the arrangement, Denny’s musicians were under the employ of bebop, a style of jazz improvisation that was extremely hip (but is now, unfortunately, a cliché of that idiom). Denny would supplement his selection of original exotica tunes with pop favorites (like “A-mer-i-ca” from West Side Story), exotica translations of standard ballads (like “Ruby” or “Flamingo”), what I call ‘soundscapes’ or ‘exotica miniatures’—“Burma Train”, “Congo Train”, “Harbor City Lights”, or “Jungle River Boat”, and the super en vogue bossa nova which was just then being popularized by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto.

 Aside from adding to his band’s repertoire, I believe that Denny used pop favorites and bossa nova in live performances for the same general reasons that WAITIKI uses improvised dance grooves: to increase the accessibility of exotica music to a wider-ranging audience; and that audiences love to hear familiar music in new settings (which I believe is a innate human condition to appreciate choices of arrangement, orchestration, and instrumentation; regardless of musical training, active listening or analysis). 

 The dance grooves that WAITIKI uses deserve their own separate response, but I will describe a few of them (and cite an example of relevant tunes) briefly here. Each groove is definitively linked to, or descended from, an authentic musical tradition that influences Exotica. (Which I think adds validity to the ‘why’ of dance music in Exotica, as opposed to the juxtaposition of completely-unrelated sections inside an Exotica arrangement).

• Alo-hop (also known as ‘hip-hop alo-hop’) is a unique and original creation of WAITIKI. It is based on the Hawaiian ‘ipu and pu’ili’ili rhythms used in hula kahiko (traditional hula). When played with a drum kit, the bass drum and rim shot (or temple block) play the ‘ipu rhythms. Multi-rod sticks (commonly known as “rutes”) play the pu’ili’ili rhythms. A double-time cha-cha-cha feel played by hi-hat or guiro is often added, and a hip-hop styled bass line is played by the bassist. As the groove progresses, the bass drum may become more syncopated, ala popular hip-hop beats. The alo-hop beat was developed by Abe Lagrimas and Randy Wong and is featured on the recording of “Cave of Uldo”, but is used throughout WAITIKI’s literature and was originally intended for Wong’s composition “Plamingo Flagoda.”
• Dew-fu is also an Abe Lagrimas Jr. creation, and is found in “Dew Drop Inn, If You Please, My Humming Flower”. Its purpose is to mimic the intense fighting scenes of kung-fu movies and the discord between the desynchronicity of said fighting scenes with audio tracks.  The Dew-fu beat is propelled by active rhythms on the floor tom, which acts as the drum kit’s equivalent of the Chinese war gu drum that was carried into battle on horseback by Chinese military. The Dew-fu has a distinct back beat played on the snare drum, and frequently inspires dancers to start ‘popping’. The thought of hordes of Chinese troops engaging in choreography by Electric Boogaloo while WAITIKI plays a Dew-fu on an elevated, center stage is almost too real.
• Reggae-tiki-ton made its world debut when WAITIKI played the Mai Kai Main Stage at the 2005 Hukilau festival. It is based on its namesake (reggaeton), a popular dance feel from Panama and Puerto Rico. A Reggae-tiki-ton beat differs from a standard reggaeton in that it has the addition of guiro, exotic bird calls, and ass’s jaw. There has not yet been a recording of Reggae-tiki-ton, though it is commonly featured when WAITIKI plays Les Baxter’s tune “Tiki”.  
• WAITIKI’s A Minor Tribal beat is based on the fast, driving drum grooves traditionally found behind the Tahitian ʻōteʻa dance. A Minor Tribal is named for the section of “Dew Drop Inn” that it first occurred in. On the drum kit, temple blocks, rim clicks, shell hits, and rim shots are used to mimic Tahitian to’ere’ere wooden log drums. The bassist can improvise a simple exotica bass line, though the bass line to Arthur Lyman’s arrangement of “Taboo” is typically used. Antiphonal chanting, monkey howls, and guttural sounds often accompany the A Minor Tribal beat.

I’ve been thinking a bunch about what made Denny, Lyman, and Colon bands from Hawaii particularly successful; what was it about those guys that captured the spirit and essence of exotica? Previous posts to this blog, as well as conversations at forums like TikiCentral.com and The Fraternal Order of Moai often point out obvious characteristics: “light” Latin rhythms, a collective view of paradise and the exotique, easily digestible improvisation, catchy compositions whose forms focus on melodic paraphrase for development, etc.

What I’ve learned from my own work with WAITIKI, and from listening to other so-called exotica bands of the era that didn’t originate from Hawaii, is that the addition of Latin percussion to a vibraphone quartet does not an exotica band make.

What no one has really touched on, myself included, is that the cultural/lifestyle background of the players in those bands—that is, growing up as kama’aina in Hawai’i— not only taught them the things mentioned above, but also engrained in them cultural music that Westerns perceived as exotic.

For example, stuff like tinikling or bon dance, which doesn’t appear on the Mainland anywhere mainstream unless you go to ethnic enclaves like Filipinotown or a Japanese cultural event, are actually pretty mainstream when you’re growing up in Hawaii.

So if you’re a musician in an exotica band, and the bandleader (say Martin Denny) says “alright boys, I need this one to have percussion that sounds like tinikling“, fuck, you’re all set! The fun of playing just became way more fun, because how funny is it to play tinikling in a jazz band? But probably, Denny didn’t have those ideas. He was a haole who moved to Hawai’i in 1954. Denny came with a lot of musical prowress, imagination, and a sense of Latin music, but not with all the ‘local’ influences that kama’aina grow up with. No: my guess is that he’d rehearse the band, with Lyman, Colon, Harold Chang, and others, and it was the local boys that came up with all the cool stuff!

If we accept the above, then the quest becomes understanding what was popular, what was hip, what was ‘normal,’ what was everyday music for people in Hawaii at that time, and for professional musicians in Hawaii at that time. The next posts in this series will look deeper into contextual music of wartime Hawaii, and will (tentatively) examine music using the following recordings or musicians:

Club Nisei Orchestra – Japanese Music of Old Hawaii

Gabby “Pops” Pahinui – Slack Key Guitar

(more to come)

Stay tuned…