Les Baxter — Jewels Of The Sea
mysteries of topical & exotic seas in musical form. And if that wasn’t enough, this release also features a selection from various tracks from Baxter's more purely exotica based releases after the main album has played out.
“Jewels Of The Sea” originally appeared in 1961 on Capitol Records, and the albums is a great, fun & effortless composed & executed example of Baxter flair for exotica & easy listening composition. The original release consisted of twelve tracks in all, and these tracks brewed up a vibrate & sonically picturesque mixture of lush & darting orchestration, shimmering banks of vibes, elegant piano rolls, subtle Theremin & early electronic traces, and darts of wordless 'n' rising female vocalising. This is exotica with a small e, as there are really no traces of the genres exotic animal calls. Or really your typical exotic instrumentation such as tropical gongs, Japanese Kato or bamboo percussion. All 12 tracks paint a bright, sometimes mysterious , but always wishful & fun sonic picture of the sea.
In all there are 15 extra tracks on top of the original 12 album tracks, and these take in: seven tracks from 1960 album "The Scared Idol", five tracks from 1957’s "Ports Of Pleasure", and three tracks from 1956 "Tamboo!". And these are more typical & pure in their exotica intentions mixing together jaunting ‘n’ heady bamboo & gong percussion trails, vibraphone runs, exotic instrumentation textures, banks of mysterious & haunting male/ female vocalising, which are all added to by flits & darts of orchestration.
The package is topped off with a 12 page booklet, and this takes in a three pages of short essays about Baxter, reprinted original liner notes that describe each tracks sonic story telling intention, and the albums original front and back cover.
All told this is a rather wonderful reissue of this classic Baxter album, that nicely sits somewhere between exotica & easy listening. And the extra tracks work as a rewarding snapshot of Baxters more purely exotica work. If you’re an easy listening or exotica fan this really is a no brainer.