Ever since I got into studying Exotica, Les Baxter has always been a huge inspiration. I’ve written about this man’s music, approach to orchestration, and influence on Exotica in previous posts, so check them out (if you haven’t already) to get a feel for what I’m talking about.

Just a moment ago, as I was working on a new flute duo that will be premiered in 2 weeks at Tiki Oasis 2008, I decided to take a pause and listen to a favorite recording of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, known in English as The Rite of Spring. I recently saw a high school orchestra perform this work at the Esplanade (ok, not just “any” old high school orchestra… they were the Boston Univ. Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Orchestra, that Helen and I are proud alumnae of!), so the piece has been fresh on my mind.

Anyways, whenever I hear or perform that piece, I always remember the times we had to solfege it in college, at NEC. And more specifically, where the RE flat-SI flat-MI flat-SI flat motif begins, 2 bars and a beat before Reh. #13, in the violins. When people talk about the section that follows, “The Augurs of Spring — Dances of the Young Girls” the focus of conversation is usually the sporadic accents or the juxtaposition of F-flat and E-flat chords. We forget that, in all the jumble of sound, that that RE flat-SI flat-MI flat-SI flat motif continues throughout; that it ties together the entire package. From the Violins, it gets passed to the English Horn, and later to the Trombones. And then, back to the Violins, just in time for a beautifully legato melody played by French Horn. Even when we get swept off our feet by a 4-voice Trombone choir, the harmony and rhythmic accompaniment is led by our RE flat-SI flat-MI flat-SI flat theme.

Baxter’s “Jungle River Boat” operates on a similar motif, except the non-pedal tones go higher then lower (and of course, tranposed to a different key); it is: SI-FA#-LA-FA#. In terms of orchestration, the motif gets passed around, though is mostly played by harp and clarinet, and the listener is treated to a sweeping legato melody played by various combinations of wind instruments. However, you should keep in mind that the four-note motif basically continues throughout the whole piece.

I can understand what you may be thinking: “So what, it’s just a four note ostinato, Stravinsky didn’t invent the wheel, and Baxter wasn’t riding in a used Stravinskymobile.” I probably would think that too, and in fact I did, before realizing WHAT ALBUM “Jungle River Boat” was released on. That’s right: Baxter’s Le Sacre du Sauvage (in English: The Rites [or Ritual] of the Savage). I did a bit of poking around on the Internet to see if anyone else noticed the specific similarity between JRB and that section of the Stravinsky. I didn’t quite find what I was looking for, but did stumble across this quote at LesBaxter.com:

The title of Les’ debut points right to Stravinsky—whose Le Sacre Du Printemps (English title: “The Rite Of Spring”) is a work Les claimed “changed the world”. Le Sacre Du Sauvage is more often referred to by its English translation, Ritual Of The Savage.

It does not tax credibility one iota to say Ritual is the record wherein exotica is crystallized once and for all as a genre with stylistic standards and practices. Certainly it marked a stylistic jumping point for Les Baxter, who would turn again and again to music that certainly makes its initial statement on this record.

Well, at least somebody else thinks so! In lieu of being able to build myself a time machine to see Baxter and Denny work, I think we’ll just have to use our best judgement and decide for ourselves if there truly is a connection between “Jungle River Boat” and that section in RIte of Spring. Ah, how I’d love to sit down with either of Les or Marty and talk about orchestration and their musical influences. Guess I’ll just have to wait until the Pearly Gates, someday …

In the meantime, I need to find a way to get out to the University of Arizona, to check out their Les Baxter Collection.

Thanks again for stopping by to read my blog!

Watching this Youtube video brought back several childhood memories from watching Mr. Lyman at Waialae Country Club. One of my favorite aspects of live musicians is the opportunity to hear them perform solo. (Of course, the solo medium works for some musicians but not others, and favors some instruments better than others. For example, vibraphone is arguably better as a solo instrument than double bass — but of course it depends on the abilities and sensibilities of the musician playing). I’ve only seen Mr. Lyman solo. He would do weekends at Waialae where he would play an entire evening by himself. His voicings… so lush. Like others have said: “the man’s ability to emote through the vibes”. Bird calls and animal yells, crystal clear, but never in the way of the music. By watching him, you can see exactly how exotica became so popular. Not through gimmicky pop covers, or the exoticization of jazz standards (though he certainly did a bunch of that, particularly after becoming famous; probably at the bequest of record companies). Neither solely through exotic percussion and hip Latin lounge beats, swanky cover art and tiki establishments, mugs and cocktaillogy. But through the personal care and individual expertise of highly trained musicians. I think what we have to consider are,

What are specific aspects of Lyman’s musicality that make us love his work? How can modern exotica bands emulate his approach and sound by using him as a model?     

Here are some brief thoughts that I’ll expand upon later.

• Some of Lyman’s signature sound comes from his choices in mode mixture, which is in common with classical and jazz musics, but also is prominently done in Hawaiian slack-key guitar.
• The interplay of musical idioms from ‘other’ musics (i.e. Latin, Hawaiian) in support of melody
• My favorite piece that Lyman does is “Seabreeze.” That seemed to be one of his favorites too, because you could count on it almost every time he came to play. Another is “Imi Au Ia Oe.”
• What tunes Lyman’s gang chooses to arrange: More ‘local’ stuff with closer-to-tradition cultural connections than Denny’s “Baxterization” of forms and melodies. 

One thing that’s always been at the forefront of my thoughts, when listening to Les Baxter’s Le Sacre du Sauvage album or some of the early Denny albums, is how concise yet seemingly mystic the writing and orchestration are. Let’s start with the big picture first: It is rare to find a track as “long” as 4 minutes — in fact, most hover between 2-3 minutes, barely going over 3 minutes. Even Baxter’s movement “Ecstasy,” part of the multi-movement work “The Passions” is just a 6 or so minutes. Yet each tune acts as a microcosm of a larger sonic world. How is it that, within just a few minutes, we can glimpse so much landscape but not be confused by how each aural event relates— not just in accordance to each other, but also in terms of the larger landscape … and title of the piece?

By the time Baxter was on the scene, the notion of orchestral programmatic music was nothing new. Symphonists as early as Haydn were already experimenting with writing music that would evoke imagery and metaphor. Famous non-vocal program music includes Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (the Pastorale), Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, practically all of Richard Strauss’s tone poems, Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps and Firebird suite.

Each of the pieces I just named are multi-movement works, where each movement is at least 6-7 minutes long, if not an average of 10-15 minutes each. Yes, symphonic forms (i.e. sonata-allegro, sonata-rondo, scherzo-trio, theme & variations, etc.) are intended to provide much room for composers to develop their ideas, and hence end up being relationally longer in duration … but even taking that into account, the sheer amount of multi-movement programmatic works, where each movement is a “miniature” is fairly rare.

In comparison, by and large we are privileged to see inside Baxter’s head for just a few minutes, yet are treated to fully developed musical ideas that envelop our imaginations, but conclude almost just as soon as they’ve started. In these cases, Baxter’s compositional and (presumed) notational style follows the same lineage of late Romantic and Impressionist ethnomusicologist-composers (i.e. Béla Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly), in that all parts (even those that seem improvised or aleatoric) are fully notated: devoid of note improvisation, unlike that of smaller bands/combos led by jazz contemporaries. (Fellow exoticologist/tiki historian/friend Jeff Chenault’s comment on my “Postmodernism” post notes that Plas Johnson was allowed to do some improvising on Baxter’s “African Jazz” album).

My favorite of Baxter’s pieces that I feel are representational of these qualities are “Jungle River Boat”, “The Feathered Serpent of the Aztecs” (which coincidentally starts with a theme similar to Berlioz’s dies irae subject from “Symphonie Fantastique”), “Coronation”, and “Jungle Flower.”