The Komodo Lounge presents The Origins of Exotica

In 1945, America was ascendant, and her sons returned from exotic ports of call around the world. Overnight, the culture turned from a pre-war, parochial and insular stance to one which came had come of age, saw the world, and conquered. Still, most of the GI's who had invaded Africa, or stormed the honeycombed hills of Guadalcanal had no desire for the exotic. They simply wanted to return to Montana farms, small towns in Tennessee and lumber mills in Oregon.

For a few, though, the excitement of foreign sounds and tastes never left their memories, and they shared what they had discovered - with high school chums, younger siblings and hunting pals. The lure of the wider, wonderful world lurked underground, growing like a virus in the very bosom of the triumphant Eisenhower Fifties.

By the early 50s, the virus had grown, nurtured in late-night clubs in places like New York, Chicago and L.A. and by 1952, it had ripened enough to become nationally visible. In that year, Les Baxter released Ritual of the Savage, and everything changed.



'Ritual' featured 13 tracks, with names like 'Jungle River Boat' and 'Stone God' and the immensely influential 'Quiet Village'. Baxter was a composer and arranger with a special affinity for the saxophone, and early in his career worked as a composer and arranger for Mel Torme's Mel-Tones. As the official Baxter website notes:

The Mel-Tones recorded with Artie Shaw, the first notable American musician to show an interest in the sort of Dark Continent program music that would later grow up to be exotica. Shaw's records like "Dr Livingstone, I Presume", "The Chant", and "Serenade To A Savage" show him striving towards something Les would later perfect.

Aside from what he learned from Artie Shaw', Les experienced early exposure to exotic influences when he worked in '47 with Broadway composer Harry Revel. Revel requested that Baxter arrange songs written for the theremin, and conduct their performance by virtuoso Hollywood thereminist Dr Samuel Hoffman, who had already performed on the soundtracks for movies such as Hitchock's surrealistic 'Spellbound'.



The creation that resulted from the Baxter/Revel/Hoffman collaboration was the album 'Music Out of the Moon', which featured this track, "Mist o' the Moon":





"Music Out of the Moon" featured a number of characteristics which were to become common to many Exotica albums, including an overarching concept around which the songs are arranged, and the use of unusual instrumentation. It was also the first record cover featuring a full-colour photograph, and Exotica collectors who see the cover photography and typography will recognize it immediately as belonging to the genre.

The next milestone in Exotica's evolution took place when Les was assigned by Capitol to work with Yma Sumac. The fascinating Peruvian vocalist - ostensibly a princess descended from the last Emperor of the Inca - was then named Imma Sumack, but when she and her incredible five-octave vocal range was discovered by a Capitol talent scout in a small club in New York, she was immediately signed and her name changed to Yma Sumac.

In addition to her jaw-dropping range, Sumac brought with her another critical piece of the Exotica puzzle. Barred from singing publicly as a young child, she was driven to performing in the Incan highlands, lonely concerts to the only audience she could find. As her official biography puts it:

Around the age of 9 she could often be seen high atop a mountain in the High Andes singing ancient Peruvian folkloric songs, to a group of rocks, which she pretended was her audience. Entranced by the beautiful birds that sang nearby, she began to imitate them, by incorporating their high pitched sounds into her"repertoire.

Baxter's experience with the theremin and other exotic instruments and arrangements, the notion of the concept album and Sumac's jaw-droppingly unique voice combined in the release of 1950's 'Voice of the Xtabay'.



According to Incan legend, the Xtabay is "the most elusive of all women":

You seek her in your flight of desire and think of her as beautiful as the morning sun touching the highest mountain peak. Her voice calls to you in every whisper of the wind. The lure of her unknown love becomes ever stronger, and a virgin who might have consumed your nights with tender caresses now seems less than the dry leaves of winter. For you follow the call of the Xtabay...though you walk alone through all your days.

The record had a similarly hypnotic effect on both critics and the buying public, and the release shot to No. 1. At the time, critic Glenn Dillard Gunn raved "there is no voice like it in the world of music today...Her voice has a greater range than any female voice of concert or opera. It soars into the acoustic stratosphere, or it plumbs the sub-contralto depth of pitch with equal ease. Such voices happen only once in a generation." Another critic said "her voice is that of birds and of the earthquake."

The truth of that assessment is revealed in this recording from that first album, a track called 'Tumpa', or 'earthquake'.



Another critic said that of Sumac "she has a panther and a nightingale in her throat." And, it's true that while her unusual upper registry has been occasionally achieved by various performers, none have been able to simultaneously achieve her guttural basso profundo, never mind the shocking versimilitude of her birdcalls and monkey chattering.

In an interview with Goblin Magazine, Sumac offered a further explanation of the animal noises - especially birds - that became such a signature of Exotica.

Goblin Magazine: Did you actually imitate the bird songs you heard in your village?

Yma Sumac: The birds were my inspiration since I was a little child. Each bird sings completely different. When I was six or seven years old I had a tremendous impression in my heart that the way they were singing was an inspiration for me. Some day, I said, when I grow up I'm going to imitate the songs. I never forgot the sound when I became a singer and a recorder.

GM: Did you learn to do your trills from the birds? They have beautiful trills and you do also.

YS: On the song Chuncho (Voice Of the Xtabay) I do a triple trill. Sometimes it doesn't come. The human throat is a mystery. When I was doing that the engineer I was recording with was so surprised -- he said 'what is that?' She has a double jointed throat.' On the stage it happened again in Poland. It was a big concert, I started singing and by the end, whoop, it come and ring. It was a surprise for me. It happened once again when I was singing with my ex-husband -- during the high note the strings for his guitar broke! It happened in Russia, Germany, Israel and many countries over the world and here too. The voice is so powerful when I was in Spain I broke a glass of apple juice that was on the piano. I was screaming 'cause I was scared the glass would get in my eyes. It was funny.

The stage was set for the meteoric rise of Exotica on the American consciousness, soon to be aided by such seminal figures as Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman.

Stay tuned for a future Midcentury Modernist blog entry exploring the continuing development of Exotica, when The Komodo Lounge presents: Exotiki! Sensual Sounds from the South Seas and Other Ports of Call