Les Baxter Tribute

Les Baxter Tribute.

2019-05-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's my collected information, shares and snippets on the father of exotica Les Baxter.

Facts about Les Baxter:

He wrote the "Whistle" theme from the TV show Lassie.

In the 1960s, he formed the Balladeers, a besuited and conservative folk group that at one time featured a young David Crosby.

In his 1996 appreciation for Wired magazine, writer David Toop remembered Baxter thus: "Baxter offered package tours in sound, selling tickets to sedentary tourists who wanted to stroll around some taboo emotions before lunch, view a pagan ceremony, go wild in the sun or conjure a demon, all without leaving home hi-fi comforts in the white suburbs."

Les Baxter has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6314 Hollywood Blvd.

Baxter did not restrict his activities to recording. As he once told Soundtrack! magazine, "I never turn anything down".

Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as "What Is This Thing Called Love?".

STOP PRESS:

Jungle Jazz and Teen Drums added in sidebar thanks to Distant Earth blog.

New link to Festival of the Gnomes. I'd never even heard of this before I did the album list and now I've found it!

Voices in Rythym now posted thanks to Kelly's Lounge Sounds.

Links now re-organised slightly. Soundtracks and Compilations now have their own section. On that basis the Capitol and Reprise sections are now complete.

Les Baxter on Amazon

2010-06-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Mr Lopez has advised me that Amazon are releasing a lot of classic Baxter albums in mp3 format today (15 June 2010). They will be in 256kps quality which isn't great but should suffice. I've listened to the 128kps samples and they don't seem to be in better quality than my CDrips. The quality may be more noticeable if you compare to a LP rip.

The mini album above looks interesting as I haven't seen that before. It seems to have previously released tracks however.

Anyway a cheap way to legally stock up on any Baxter you don't have. Link

PS: see the sidebar for a 1982 Baxter soundtrack that's been added "The Beast Within".

Colors of Brazil/African Blue

2009-09-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Scott here's two of Les' later albums in a twofer.

Link

The Pop Side and even more!

2009-07-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

The Pop Side was a request and comprises 25 tracks of Les' more pop (easy listening) sides.

The other two albums have been provided previously by yours truly but Scott has carried out some restoration work and would well be worth a download as alternate versions.

We should thank Scott not only for these albums but also because he carries out restoration of LP sources and also gives us some informative facts which I shall share with you:

Concerning Exotica Suite, this is from a stereo lp that I have done some slight sound restoration on.
Concerning Wild in the Streets, Les wrote 3 of the selections from the 1968 soundtrack which I have marked in their titles. This is from a stereo lp with some slight sound restoration applied.

The Pop Side is a cd rip. It contains many Capitol singles from 1951 – 1956, some were on albums and some were only released as singles.

Links are you know where.

Even more titles - soundtracks

2009-07-21T16:39:00.001-07:00

Here's even more stuff courtesy of Scott. Soundtracks this time and these are the most complete versions around. For the All the Loving Couples album Casanova is Les under a pseudonym.

As advised by Scott the following info for the Master of the World album is provided:

"Tracks 1 - 7 Suite from the Original Soundtrack (film version conducted by Les Baxter)

Tracks 8 - 19 Original 1961 Re-recorded album (Cal Carter conducting The "100" Men)

Tracks 1 - 19 Stereo version." There is a new link for this share as well as the original link.

The Goliath album has an interesting cover making it look like an exotica album. Its more light classical than exotica but there are some middle eastern influences and the music is quite exotic at times. There's even a track sub titled Noisy Village. Probably vies with Bora Bora as Les' best soundtrack album.

The film itself is an Italian sword and sandal epic starring Steve Reeves. It rates 5.1 stars on IMDB and it actually doesn't sound too bad.

When the feisty Cuban actress Chelo Alonso was slapped as part of the action she couldn't help slapping the male actor back until the Director tied her hands behind her back. After being untied she then went to where the other actor was and slapped him and told him "here's the change". What a gal! Personally I think she should have slapped the Director.

Its said that Reeves was offered the lead in Dr No and Fistful of Dollars and knocked them back. Probably because it meant he would have had to learn whole sentences.

Links in sidebar of course.

Les Baxter new batch

2009-07-20T16:03:00.001-07:00

Kindly provided by Scott here's three more from the LB archives. Lost Episode and By Popular Request are from the TV special Les Baxter's Sounds of the 60s, fragments of which are on Youtube. They're live recordings so not studio standard but very interesting and I'd love to see a good copy of the special not the blurry low res samples on Youtube.

Probably the most interesting of the three is the Balladeers album which is basically a 60s folk hootenanny outing but well done and no, David Crosby is not included in the mix.

Les Baxter - Academy Award Winners - Soul of the Drums

2009-07-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

Freshly ripped at 320kps by yours truly here's a truly odd coupling of one of Les' best exotica albums and one of his very good 'straight' recordings.

Les' didn't make many albums for Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records so maybe that's why these two ended up on the same CD.

Link

Les Baxter some more files

2009-07-15T22:46:00.001-07:00

Some new files added to the list courtesy of Scott. Broadway '61 (a nice one), Million Seller Hits and Arthur Murray Waltzes (no cover).

A couple of links have died both soundtracks, Barbarian and House of Usher but I'll keep looking.

Les Baxter - The Singles

2009-07-09T20:15:00.001-07:00

A correspondent has advised me that an interesting selection of Les' Capitol 45s has been compiled by this blog.

You can choose to download there or grab this edited version here.

I haven't changed the actual coding of 320kps MP3 but I have tidied up the tags and renamed the files to show the Capitol disc number for each track. I've also normalised the sound using Replay Gain but you of course need to use that to see any benefit.

The sound is very good in the brief listen I had and the music is more from ahem Les ' Romantic style (somebody didn't like me using the word schmaltz).

Track list

Capitol-1760 - Because Of You
Capitol-1966 - Blue Tango
Capitol-2106 - Lonely Wine
Capitol-2143 - Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart
Capitol-2374 - April In Portugal
Capitol-2457 - Ruby
Capitol-2479 - Gigi
Capitol 2479 - I Love Paris
Capitol-2845 - The High And The Mighty
Capitol-3055 - Medic
Capitol-3055 - Unchained Melody
Capitol-3120 - Wake The Town And Tell The People
Capitol-3291 - The Trouble With Harry
Capitol-3336 - The Poor People Of Paris
Capitol-3404 - Tango Of The Drums
Capitol-3404 - Sinner Man
Capitol-3526 - Giant
Capitol-3573 - The Left Arm Of Buddha

Young Pops

2009-06-27T15:37:00.001-07:00

This album now supplied by detour on his blog. Great share, nice blog go here.

Les Baxter - Confetti

2009-06-21T18:18:00.001-07:00

Nearly all of the Capitol albums are now posted. I don't know if the Arthur Murray albums for instance should be counted. Anyway here's one of Les' more schmaltzy offerings I've uploaded but a fine effort nonetheless.

If Les' albums could perhaps be roughly categorized as Exotica, Schmaltz and Soundtracks, the majority of exotica stuff has now been posted except for some late 60s & early 70s stuff. A lot of the schmaltzy stuff is here also but I don't feel its as important. The soundtrack stuff is mostly generic but still worthwhile for completists like me.

Link

Les Baxter - Sweet Harmonies

2009-06-15T16:54:00.001-07:00

Found a few Baxter albums on the Sweet Harmonies site. I have put a few of them into the links in the sidebar but you can visit the site and have a look including the above fan album which I've downloaded myself to see what its like. Link

Les Baxter - Harry Revel - Dr Samuel Hoffman

2009-06-13T16:10:00.001-07:00

Here's the first efforts of Les as conductor and producer. I'm going to upload all the albums I have in chronological order and hope that some kind collector can fill in the gaps. Typical late 40s orchestral sounds augmented with Dr Hoffman's fine theremin playing.

All three albums in one file. 96kps mono (equiv 192kps stereo).

Les Baxter - Space Escapade

2009-06-01T23:53:00.001-07:00

If you aint got this already here 'tis. Just about my favourite cover the music's not quite as space age as the cover but being LB its pretty darn good.

Link

Les Baxter - 'Round the World With

2009-06-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ah the bachelor's dream in the mid '50s. Trips to exotic locations with an exotica soundtrack playing complete with bongos and vibes and when at home lounging in your den with a globe of the world and a beautiful Grace Kelly lookalike listening to your travel stories.

Ooops drifting off there back to reality (sigh).

link

Les Baxter - Autumn Leaves

2009-05-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

Les Baxter in a rare clip showing him with chorus and orchestra performing Autumn Leaves. He's pretty dandy on the piano too.

And here's something called Les Baxter Music of the Sixties - dig those bongos!

Les Baxter - Jewels of the Sea 1961

2009-05-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Great cover and one of my favourite exotica albums. Les manages to evoke the undersea world of exotic islands.

link

Les Baxter - Bora Bora

2009-05-31T22:03:00.000-07:00

Soundtrack territory for Les in this exotica flavoured offering.

Link

Les Baxter - Ritual of the Savage 1951

2009-05-31T18:46:00.001-07:00

Arguably the first exotica album and the first appearance of Quiet Village, that icon of Exotica music.

Link

Les Baxter - Que Mango

2009-05-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

Here's one of Les' later albums with help from the 101 Strings and its up to his usual high standards.

link

Sacred Idol and Wild in the Streets

2009-05-31T16:15:00.001-07:00

Les Baxter Sacred_Idol

Les Baxter wild_in_streets

Les Baxter - Wild Guitars

2009-05-31T16:11:00.001-07:00

Guitars + Les Baxter = great music.

link

Don Tiare - Music of Les Baxter

2009-05-31T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a very fine tribute of Les Baxter's music. In fact this is right up there with the best albums produced by Les himself and highly recommended

link

Les Baxter and Bas Sheva - The Passions

2009-05-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

Well produced by Les Baxter this album is 50s America's impression of the passions. Apparently the wild female was a jungle beast just brimming with a full gamut of earthly sounds signifying her state of arousal.

Lets hope the lucky bachelor was a big game hunter able to corral this lustful beast.

Les Baxter - South Pacific

2009-05-31T15:53:00.000-07:00

Les Baxter does South pacific. Easy meets exotica, just fine in my book.

link.

Les Baxter - Thinking of You

2009-05-31T15:46:00.000-07:00

Shared on Xtabays World this is Les in his easy listening mode. Still superior to any one else's easy mode.

Link