Les Baxter
Artist: Les Baxter
Genre(s):
Easy Listening
Other
Vocal
Soundtrack
Pop
Discography:
Brazil Now
Year: 2006
Tracks: 12
The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter CD2
Year: 1996
Tracks: 20
The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter CD1
Year: 1996
Tracks: 20
Que Mango!
Year: 1996
Tracks: 12
Bugaloo In Brazil
Year: 1970
Tracks: 12
Hell's Belles
Year: 1968
Tracks: 12
Alakazam The Great
Year: 1961
Tracks: 11
Space Escapade
Year: 1958
Tracks: 12
Moog Rock
Year:
Tracks: 10
Jewels of the Sea
Year:
Tracks: 12
Les Baxter is a pianist world Health Organization composed and arranged for the top swing bands of the '40s and '50s, only he is wagerer known as the founder of exotica, a variation of easy listening that canonised the sounds and styles of Polynesia, Africa, and South America, even as it retained the traditional string-and-horn arrangements of instrumental pop. Exotica became a massively democratic movement in the '50s, with thousands of record buyers hearing to Baxter, Martin Denny, and their imitators. Baxter as well pioneered the use of the electronic legal document the theremin, which has a haunting, howl levelheaded.
Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory and Pepperdine College in Los Angeles. After he completed school, he deserted the piano and became a vocaliser. When he was 23, he coupled Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones. The group american ginseng on Artie Shaw records, including the hit "What Is This Thing Called Love."
In 1950, he became an arranger and conductor for Capitol Records, working on hits by Nat King Cole, including "Mona Lisa." Around the same time, Baxter began recording his own albums. In 1948, he released a triple-78 album called Music out of the Moon, which ushered in space age pop with its use of goods and services of the theremin. Four long time subsequently, he began recording exotica albums with Le Sacre du Sauvage.
On his early-'50s singles Baxter was relatively aboveboard, playacting versions of standards like the number one hits "Unshackled Melody" and "The Poor People of Paris," but on his albums he experimented with all sorts of world musics, adapting them for his orchestra. As he was recording his exotica albums, Baxter was as well the musical film director for the radiocommunication show Halls of Ivy, summation Abbott & Costello radio receiver shows; he also composed over one C pic lots, concentrating on horror movies and adolescent musicals and comedies, though he as well did dramas wish Heavyweight.
Baxter's flower was in the '50s and '60s. Although he continued to compose and record in the '70s, his output signal was sporadic. Nevertheless, a cult following formed about his exotica recordings that persisted into the '90s.
Pete Johnson
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