The question at the heart of the debate of Exotica vs. The Other is finally voiced. Thankfully it comes from someone who knows jazz, Hawaii, and exotica. Nate Chinen, an esteemed jazz critic, known for his writings for the New York Times, JazzTimes, and Village Voice asks, “was Exotica a species of Hawaiian music” and follows it with a thoughtful commentary at his blog, The Gig. Chinen, who was born and raised in Honolulu, is no stranger to exotica or its musicians—he studied drums with Harold Chang, gigged with many of the Islands’ finest jazzers, and wrote remembrances of Arthur Lyman when Lyman passed away.
Exotica was by definition a mongrel genre, hovering not only between “modern” and “native” but also between the West and the Orient, between honor and exploitation, between shrewdness and kitsch. Because it was an instrumental pop music during the era when jazz was pop, there’s quite a bit of overlap in terms of style and repertoire. Musicians like Denny came from a similar school of thought as George Shearing, though their arranging strategies actually fell more in line, at the end of the day, with Sun Ra.
Check out the whole article online here. Nate wasn’t able to catch any of the shows during our East Coast tour, so if you saw and liked us, please comment below his post to let him know!
Download Nate Chinen’s “Exotica: It Takes A Village” as a PDF
Just got word from Fluid Floyd of Don Tiki fame that my composition “Rendezvous in Okonkuluku” will be one of 20 tracks featured on Hawaiian Airlines’ Exotica Sky Lounge in-flight radio show. A clip of the tune, which is the title track on WAITIKI’s second album, can be found here or at the iTunes Music Store.
Track personnel are:
- Tim Mayer, flute & baritone sax
- Brian O’Neill, vibraphone, udu, & reco-reco
- Helen Liu, violin & sleigh bells
- Mikey Connors, drums
- Me on bass
Bonus points if you can name the composer, work, and movements that the tune quotes. Hint: the composer in question lived from 1860-1911.
If you like the idea of an Exotica radio show on a commercial airliner, drop Fluid Floyd a line via the coconut wireless: taboorecords [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Thanks Floyd!
About two years ago, I was approached by the editors of the Journal for Music-In-Education (Larry Scripp & Patrick Keppel) to write a short response to a story they were publishing by & about jazz pianist Michael Cain (perhaps best known for his work with Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition band). Cain’s article addresses some of the social and cultural stereotypes he has encountered as a jazz musician, as well as the journey into the mindset of the high-visibility performing musician; a process he terms ‘Initiation.’
Scripp and Keppel were interested in my response to Michael Cain’s writing, primarily because I studied privately with him while at NEC, and because Scripp (a WAITIKI supporter) deemed my work with that group as a sort of ‘Initiation’ of my own. To make a long story short, when I began to write my response (which was originally intended to be just a few paragraphs), I discovered how complex and nuanced the story behind WAITIKI truly is &emdash; and thus found my way into writing a full-length article. (Consequently, I further ended up becoming Associate Editor of the JMIE, and contributed several more writings to it before publication in July).
The JMIE has since been published and circulated throughout the world. It is now in the hands of hundreds (soon to be thousands … and more) of music educators, professional teaching artists, arts education policy makers, action researchers, performers, and artist-teacher-scholars. Additionally, this particular edition will be used as a textbook at the university level in several states. I am excited to know that many people, who had not formerly had an affiliation with exotica, will be introduced to some of the lesser-discussed cultural nuances of the genre, and the artistic choices that musicians are faced with when working with an artform whose whole is the sum of many different cultural parts.
JMIE website:
journal.music-in-education.org
MICHAEL CAIN ARTICLE
http://journal.music-in-education.org/pdfs/JMIE2007_Cain_article.pdf PDF – 10 pages [268 KB]
RANDY WONG’S ARTICLE:
http://journal.music-in-education.org/pdfs/JMIE2007_WongExotica_article.pdf PDF – 8 pages [532 KB]
