Song of the Day: Les Baxter, “Quiet Village”

American exotica musician, orchestra leader and composer Les Baxter was born on this day in 1922. I wrote the following on exotica back in 2021:

[Orchestra leader Martin] Denny describes exotica as "a combination of the South Pacific and the Orient…what a lot of people imagined the islands to be like…it’s pure fantasy though." It’s intended for the listener to feel like they’ve been taken someplace exotic, usually someplace in the South Pacific, but really anywhere, from the top of Mount Everest to the jungles of Brazil and everywhere in between. In modern parlance, it’s lounge music, made for sitting around sipping Mai Tais as it plays on your hi-fi.

This is Baxter’s original recording of "Quiet Village" from 1952.