Ilikai/At the Port of Los Angeles

Arthur Lyman | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 8, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collector's Choice
• ASIN: B00133FOD6
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #339,835 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Ain't No Big Thing

2. Born Free

3. Shells

4. Lahaina Luna

5. Clair De Lune

6. Ilikai

7. The Work Song

8. Tiny Bubbles

9. Lara's Theme

10. I Left My Heart In San Francisco

11. Upon a Lonely Beach

12. La Bomba

13. Busy Port

14. Red Sails In the Sunset

15. Sea Breeze

16. Ebb Tide

17. Theme From Mutiny On the Bounty

18. One Night In Nagoya

19. Harbor Lights

20. Ports Of Paradise

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars I like it, August 16, 2008

By 

Ing Robert Kaiplinger (Wien) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ilikai/At the Port of Los Angeles (Audio CD)

As someone who likes the music of Arthur Lyman especially his warm, romantic and tender melodies I am highly delighted about the release of this set of 9 CDs as a reissue of part of his recordings. The reissue appears in good quality close to the original issues of vinyls in the late 50's and 60's.

Unforunately there are a few remarks:

Examples:

1. at least on Lyman '66 "The Boy From Laupahoehoe": a rhythm error

exists at 1:33 where some portion of the recording is missing. This

could have been corrected resp. compensated easily. I have tried it

successfully.

2. "Colorful Percussions": Dropout on left channel between 2:41,900 and

2:42,700. That dropout appears on the original vinyl too. Even that (I

have also tried to correct successfully) could have been done during

mastering.

3. There are a few tracks in mono, but why the complete 12 tracks

of "Bwana á" are in mono cannot be understood.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars +1/2 -- Sweet tribute to Kui Lee plus rehash of earlier works, May 17, 2008

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ilikai/At the Port of Los Angeles (Audio CD)

Hawaii-born Arthur Lyman joined with Martin Denny to invent "exotica" on the latter's 1957 debut album. Exotica combined the melodic sounds of the islands with unusual percussion (notably the scratching sound of the guiro), pop changes, and human-voiced bird calls to create a soundtrack to the late `50s fascination with all things tiki. As a vibraphonist, Lyman's jazz background added an element of cool to Denny's classical training. Splitting after their debut release, Lyman created a new quartet and recorded dozens of exotica-inflected albums for the Hi-Fi, Life and Crescendo labels. Collectors' Choice latest series of reissues gathers eighteen of Lyman's releases from Hi-Fi and Life, fits them two per CD, includes full-panel reproductions of both album covers, adds a full-panel back cover and new liner notes from Scram's Kim Cooper and David Smay.

Ilikai, Lyman's only album of new productions in 1967, features a generous helping of island-bred tunes alongside the requisite film and pop selections. Unlike earlier albums, all recorded in the Kaiser aluminum dome on Waikiki, these sessions were taped in the ballroom of the Ilikai hotel, where Lyman had moved his live show. Lyman's quartet also saw some changes throughout `65 and `66, settling in with Clem Low on piano (replacing Alan Soares) and Archie Grant on bass (replacing John Kramer) for a run through the mid-70s. Even still, with the group's style so firmly established by this point, the sound of the quartet wasn't greatly altered by the changes.

The album provides a two-song tribute to popular Hawaiian songwriter Kui Lee (who'd passed away the previous December), opening with "Ain't No Big Thing" (sounding a bit like a `60s discotheque version of the Sesame Street theme) and also featuring the gentle "Lahaina Luna." Other island tunes, such as "Ilikai," "Upon a Lonely Beach" and Don Ho's signature "Tiny Bubbles" mostly forgo exotica, but there are gentle there are gentle touches of world percussion and quiet bird calls accompanying Lani Kai's "Shells." From the silver screen, Lyman adapted the pop hit "Born Free" and "Lara's Theme." The former, led by Archie Grant's flute, is quiet and heartbroken, while the latter opens with dramatic piano flourishes before settling in as a light `n' jazzy bossa nova. From the pop charts, Lyman plucked "La Bomba," the Mexican folk tune turned Richie Valens rock `n' roll hit turned Trini Lopez Latinized pop; with an incessant cowbell guiding the way, Lyman's shy vibraphone gives way to a rock `n' roll middle. Also drawn from the popular canon is a romantic take on "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and a sweetly swinging arrangement of Nat Adderly and Oscar Brown Jr.'s "The Work Song." The latter showcases Lyman's talent as a jazz player.

Lyman's second release for 1967, At the Port of Los Angeles, was neither recorded at the man-made port, nor is it an album of newly recorded sides. Instead, it cherry-picks eleven shipping-, port- and sea-related tunes from Lyman's previous decade of releases. Several are taken from other titles in this series of reissues (Bahia yields "Busy Port" and "Quiet Village"; Love For Sale yields "Theme from Mutiny on the Bounty"; Lyman `66 yields "Ports of Paradise"; The Shadow of Your Smile yields "Theme from the Sandpiper"; and On Broadway yields "Medley from South Pacific"). Drawn from other Lyman releases are "Red Sails in the Sunset" and "Sea Breeze" from Hawaiian Sunset, Vol. II, "Ebb Tide" from Taboo 2 and "Harbor Lights" from Hawaiian Sunset. It's a very listenable sampling of Lyman's works, though not necessarily representative of the breadth of material and sounds found throughout his catalog. Most of the arrangements here are quiet and dreamy, a few sport a mid-tempo bossa nova beat, and only a couple feature the traditional exotica touches of bird calls and guiro (most notably, Lyman's take on the exotica national anthem, "Quiet Village").

"Ilikai" has a few fine moments (though the tape splice at 0:38 and click at 0:42 of "Sea Breeze" are disappointing), particularly the group's rendition of "Born Free," and the pair of songs from Kui Lee. "At the Port of Los Angeles" selects some fine pieces from Lyman's earlier albums, but is thus unconnected to 1967. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]