"Quiet Village"

Martin Denny with the album that gave a name to a musical culture and genre
From biggest part of my life is me, via PCL LinkDump, comes the "discovery" of a YouTube video of "Quite Village," perhaps Martin Denny's best known tune. Martin Denny gained fame as a successful producer of the musical genre exotica (named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same title), a type of big band music with Latin rhythms and a Pacific Ocean culture ambiance.

Clearly it was music by which to imbibe (heavily, no doubt) fruity alcoholic concoctions. And while it shatters the mental illusion created by the music, it is interesting to actually see Denny and his band in action, and just as bizarre as you might imagine. This was a performance done for a radio program called Hawaii Calls:



1957
From the Wikipedia entry:

Denny described the music his combo plays as "window dressing, a background". It is the perfect complement to the exotic setting of Hawaii. "A lot of what I'm doing is just window dressing familiar tunes. I can take a tune like "Flamingo" and give it a tropical feel, in my style. In my arrangement of a Japanese farewell song, "Sayonara", I include a Japanese three stringed instrument, the shamisen. We distinguished each song by a different ethnic instrument, usually on top of a semi-jazz or Latin beat. Even though it remained familiar, each song would take on a strange, exotic character."

1959

Anyone interested in more about Denny would be wise to check out the very nicely put together (The) Temple of Martin Denny.