A Timeless Wavelength

Martin Denny – Shoshu Night Serenade

When you think of musical innovation in the 1950s, you probably think of rock ‘n’ roll, the rebellious voice of a younger generation that stood in sharp contrast to the stodgy, boring lounge acts and big bands which had previously dominated popular music.  Ours is a culture that worships youth, and so we tend to think of young people as the primary force of change.  It’s easy to forget that while Elvis and Jerry Lee were causing fits for the Southern Baptist Convention with their new “devil music,” major changes were also happening in the worlds of jazz, country, and even classical music.  And you certainly don’t expect anything revolutionary from a forty-something World War II veteran and big band performer.

Nevertheless, Martin Denny’s 1957 lounge album Exotica, and the new genre to which it lent its name, was at least as revolutionary as anything happening in the world of rock ‘n’ roll.  While Les Baxter had invented the new genre back in 1952 with his Le Sacre du Sauvage, Denny gave it a name and a signature sound.  He combined the Latin rhythms he learned touring South America with the Hawaiian music he picked up as a lounge performer in Honolulu, using his connections in the airline business to acquire exotic instruments from around the world.  The result was some of the first “world music,” a fascinating blend of non-Western rhythms and strange sound effects that formed a background over which even old standards sounded fresh and new.

It’s easy to dismiss Denny’s work as corny or even a gimmick, especially cosidering his influence on “bachelor pad” music and his use of now-clich͑é ’50s film sound effects.  But it’s hard to listen to a track like “Shoshu Night Serenade” and not hear Denny’s influence on artists like Tom Waits, whose album Swordfishtrombones borrows more than a little from the classic Exotica sound.