About This:
Adventures in Paradise, the debut album by The WAITIKI 7, is a contemporary re-imagining of the classic exotica sound introduced in 1959, the year of Hawaiʻi's statehood. Martin Denny, a transplanted mainland pianist tapped into the tropical zeitgeist, stirred together several disparate elements, and created a whole new sound in the process. “Exotica floats in the zone between soundscapes and an early world music hybrid,” Randy Wong, the bassist, music director and co-founder of The WAITIKI 7, explains. Which is where The WAITIKI 7 comes in. Although they bow at the altar of Martin Denny, Les Baxter, Juan Garcia Esquivel and other Exotica pioneers, The WAITIKI 7 is a band making music of the moment. The septet retains the essence of Denny-era exotica and reconstitutes it for contemporary audiences raised on the multitude of musical genres and pop culture images being created today. The WAITIKI 7 emerged from a quartet formed several years ago by Wong and drummer Abe Lagrimas Jr. under the auspices of WAITIKI INTERNATIONAL LLC, an organization dedicated to the revitalization of exotica and the “tiki” pop culture associated with it. That quartet's success precipitated the formation of The WAITIKI 7, whose other members are pianist Zaccai Curtis (Sean Jones, Donald Harrison, Cindy Blackman), woodwinds player Tim Mayer (Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Danilo Perez), violinist Helen Liu, vibist Jim Benoit and Lopaka Colon, who doubles as percussionist and bird caller (Lopaka’s father, Augie Colon, did the same in Denny’s group). In addition, trombonist and arranger Mike Dease (Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars, Charles Tolliver and Roy Hargrove big bands) appears as a special guest on three tracks. The music on Adventures In Paradise was either penned or arranged by WAITIKI 7 members specifically for the recording. In particular, the CD features the group's versions of Exotica standards popularized by Denny, Baxter and Arthur Lyman. ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award winners Curtis and Dease contributed "Craving" (an original) and a fantastic arrangement of "Mood Indigo" (Duke Ellington) respectively. All of the album's performers share a love of the exotica sound and “tiki” pop culture, which encompasses everything from art and design to painstakingly crafted tropical cocktails to cuisine: The Adventures In Paradise CD booklet includes drink recipes from renowned mixologists Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, Brother Cleve, and John Gertsen, as well as an appetizer recipe from former Cook’s Illustrated editor Sandra Wu. Wong and Lagrimas didn’t set out to revive the long-dormant exotica genre, but the more they discovered about its unique musical properties and cultural significance, the more they were drawn to the idea of giving it new life. “There’s no exotica scene in Hawai‘i anymore, but growing up I used to go and hear Arthur Lyman, the original vibraphonist for the Martin Denny group,” says Wong. “He was a good friend of my grandfather’s and my father’s. So we were going to support him as a friend, but I think I got that sound in my ear.” While attending college in Boston, Wong and his longtime friend Lagrimas—who had already played with Colon in an exotica-inspired theatrical group called Don Tiki—began to investigate exotica more seriously, and to generate ideas on how it might be made relevant and exciting again. One by one the band that would become The WAITIKI 7 fell into place.