Ethel Azama & Tak Shindo — Exotic Dreamers
The reissues booklet features photographs of the original front covers of both lp’s, one on the front("Exotic Dreams”) and one back ("Mganga")- the front ones fine, but sadly on the back one they’ve also put the track listing for both releases over the top which rather ruins the second cover. Inside the booklet there’s a brief single page write-up about both artists careers and each featured album, sadly there’s no reproduction of either the albums back sleeve or orignal inner liner notes which is a great pity for collectors.
Moving onto the albums themselves, and first-up is Ethel Azama's "Exotic Dreams”. This was the first of two records Azama would release on Liberty Records, the second was from 1959 and entitled “Cool heat”. Ethel Azama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and was a second generation Japanese American. She started her professional career in 1955, singing at clubs in Hawaii and pretty soon gained a name for her self working in Us military clubs. She sang with exotica legend Martin Denny’s band, and Denny was the one who managed to get her a record deal with Liberty Records . "Exotic Dreams” features twelve tracks which are a mixture of slightly exotica tinged easy listening/ lite jazz standards like “Autumn Leafs”, “Speak Low” and “Happy Talk”(which of course a lot later in the early 1980’s was a huge hit for Captain sensible). And a selection of Japanese folk songs and Hapa haole tracks (both given that exotica touch!). All told it’s a pleasant enough album, and Azama had a powerful/ emotional club singers voice on the standards, but the most rewarding tracks to my ears are the ones she sings in native both Hawaii or Japanese; it’s a pity the whole album could'nt have been filled with these, but I guess it wouldn’t have appealed to the market at the time. Sadly by her second record “Cool Heat” she had gone total over to doing standards.
The other album of the disc is Tak Shindo "Mganga" which also comes from 1958, and appeared on Edison International Records . Tak Shindo, was a Japanese-American soundtrack composer & musicologist who was one of the more popular and authentic figures connected to the exotica genre, as he collected and used traditional Japanese and world music instruments in his compositions. "Mganga" was his first solo album and it found him brewing-up a brand of exotica that was heavy with African rhythms, afro-Cuban jazz touches and of course lots of animal calls and tribal type chants. The albums an enjoyable, at times dramatic and often cheesy mixture of late 1950’s film scoring dramatics, mock ethnic and tribal textures, vibe and rhythmic heavy exotica, and subtle jazz rock touches with a few of the later tracks having an almost Miles Davis electric feel to them. I guess "Mganga" is the more consistent and rounded of the two albums here, but "Exotic Dreams” does have it’s moments.
So all in all this reissues shines a light on two worthy and rewarding late 1950’s slices of exotica. It’s just a pity a bit more effort and love couldn’t have been put into the artwork and liner note, but I guess the music it self is the most important thing here- so if you’re a fan of the exotica genre this really is a no brainer.