LES BAXTER — Tamboo! (review)

LES BAXTER — Tamboo! album cover Album · 1955 · Exotica Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
js
Those who think exotica records are just tiki silliness and kitsch should definitely give Les Baxter’s Tamboo a serious listen. Despite the cheezy and ignorantly semi-racist cover art work, there is some serious music going on here. Baxter was an extremely prolific composer and record producer who worked in the fields of easy listening and soundtracks, as well as different varieties of what has come to be called ‘exotica’. Over the years, as the exotica style became a gimmick, Les let his artistry slip, but this is one of Baxter’s early exotica attempts and on this one he is earnest and sincere about mixing different musical genres into a fascinating new style of his own.

The whole idea of melding musical styles to create a sort of fantasy world of sound begins with Les Baxter. Before there was Sun Ra, King Crimson, Herbie’s Sextet, Brian Eno or Bill Laswell there was Les Baxter mixing Afro-Cuban rhythms, Debussy’s orchestrations and modern studio trickery to create musical lands that didn’t really exist. Sun Ra himself stated his admiration for Baxter, an admiration I had always assumed after hearing Sun Ra’s very exotica flavored ‘Angels and Demons at Play’ LP.

Saying that there is something other-worldly or futuristic about this music may seem cliché since it is obvious that is what Baxter is going for, but when those wordless vocals quietly cascade over a syncopated Afro-Latin groove accompanied by first dew in the morning twinkly Debussy type orchestrations, you know you have arrived somewhere very different then the places you have known before, a place that is very moving and beautiful too.
Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Thrive Post-Fusion Contemporary
FABIENNE AMBÜHL (AMBUEHL)
Buy this album from MMA partners
Beneath the Skin Vocal Jazz
NNENNA FREELON
Buy this album from MMA partners
Ozark Concerto Third Stream
JAKE HERTZOG
Buy this album from MMA partners
Joe Morris, Caleb Duval, Michael Larocca : Refreshment Jazz Related Improv/Composition
JOE MORRIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

After the Last Sky
ANOUAR BRAHEM
js· 1 day ago
Positive Energy
GREG ABATE
snobb· 3 days ago
The 23
NELS CLINE
snobb· 4 days ago
Simple Pleasure
CHARLES CHEN
js· 4 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us