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| Hobby Forum Index » Music - Reviews » CD Review: Arthur Lyman “Latitude 20 / Aphrodisia ”... |
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 Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 12:20 pm |
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Arthur Lyman "Latitude 20 / Aphrodisia" (Collectors' Choice)
Hawaii-born Arthur Lyman joined with Martin Denny to invent "exotica"
on the latter's 1957 debut album. Exotica combined the melodic sounds
of the islands with unusual percussion (notably the scratching sound
of the guiro), pop changes, and human-voiced bird calls to create a
soundtrack to the late '50s fascination with all things tiki. As a
vibraphonist, Lyman's jazz background added an element of cool to
Denny's classical training. Splitting after their debut release, Lyman
created a new quartet and recorded dozens of exotica-inflected albums
for the Hi-Fi, Life and Crescendo labels. Collectors' Choice latest
series of reissues gathers eighteen of Lyman's releases from Hi-Fi and
Life, fits them two per CD, includes full-panel reproductions of both
album covers, adds a full-panel back cover and new liner notes from
Scram's Kim Cooper and David Smay.
Latitude 20 is the first of four albums Lyman released in 1968, and
Lyman's first to be recorded on the mainland - in the Torrance,
California branch of Hop Louie's Latitude 20 lounge. Though the title
and liner notes speak to the big island of Hawaii, the song list leans
away from traditional melodies. Popular soundtracks provide the Oscar-
nominated Bacharach & David theme to "Alfie" and the seminal Brazilian
bossa nova "Manha de Carnaval" (from "Black Orpheus"), both played
quiet and cool on the vibes and piano. Less well known film titles
include the theme to Harry Belefonte's 1957 "Island in the Sun" (with
a rare, wistful appearance of harmonica) and the even more obscure
title tune from Mihalis Kakogiannis' 1967 social black comedy, "The
Day the Fish Came Out." The stage musical "Kiss Me Kate" provides Cole
Porter's "Wunderbar," arranged as a swinging waltz that's more Vince
Guaraldi cool than Broadway hot, and from the pop charts the group
draws out a blue-cool 6-minute rendition of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to
Billie Joe," with Lyman providing fantastic hammer sounds on his
vibes. Island-themed tunes include the full-exotica attack of guiro,
bird call and monkey yells on "Latitude 20," the percussion-heavy
"Hawaii" and Kuiokalani Lee's sentimental "The Days of My Youth." The
latter features the first vocal, from Lyman himself, to be heard on
the eighteen albums anthologized in this series. Filling out the album
is the tropical take-off on The Baja Marimba Band, "Maori Flea," and a
sedate arrangement of the 19th century American standard, "I'll Take
You Home Again Kathleen."
While all of Lyman's albums have a seductive island sound at their
core, none were as laid-back as his second LP of 1968, Aphrodisia.
Here Lyman arranged the requisite folk, pop, South American and island
melodies in hushed tones that weave a quiet tropical spell. The album
opens with the sleepy title tune, featuring relaxed bird calls
punctuating Lyman's languorous vibraphone. Hawaiian melodies, "One
Paddle, Two Paddle" and "Kuu Ipo Ika Hee" are even more sedate, with
the former featuring a quiet group vocal. Bobby Hebb's mid-60s pop
hit, "Sunny," is played cooler and more melancholy than vibraphonist
Dave Pike's 1965 interpretation; similarly for the Brazilian classic
"Mas Que Nada," which simmers at a lower temperature than Sergio
Mendez earlier hit single. The album's folk tunes include a deeply
thoughtful rendition of "All My Trials," and a bouncy jazz take on the
19th century English melody "Billy Boy." The album closes with an
upbeat arrangement of "Goin' Out of My Head" that features Brubek-like
time changes.
Though he'd released over twenty albums of original performances
before this pair, Lyman showed no signs of artistic fatigue. He
continued to find interesting material, and his arrangements often
found new ground. Aphrodisia, in particular, brings a unique nighttime
vibe to a broad range of songs, and is a real sleeper amongst the
dozens of albums Lyman released on Hi-Fi. Audio note: Latitude 20
evidences tape hiss in the right channel of several tracks. [(c)2008
redtunictroll at hotmail dot com] |
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