Latitude 20 / Aphrodisia

A very good redo of an older album. I have several Arthur Lyman (and Martin Denny) albums, and I was glad to get it, as my first copy was pretty worn out.

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.Latitude 20 is the first of four albums Lyman released in 1968, and Lyman's first to be recorded on the mainland - in the Torrance, California branch of Hop Louie's Latitude 20 lounge. Though the title and liner notes speak to the big island of Hawaii, the song list leans away from traditional melodies. Popular soundtracks provide the Oscar-nominated Bacharach & David theme to "Alfie" and the seminal Brazilian bossa nova "Manha de Carnaval" (from "Black Orpheus"), both played quiet and cool on the vibes and piano. Less well known film titles include the theme to Harry Belefonte's 1957 "Island in the Sun" (with a rare, wistful appearance of harmonica) and the even more obscure title tune from Mihalis Kakogiannis' 1967 social black comedy, "The Day the Fish Came Out." The stage musical "Kiss Me Kate" provides Cole Porter's "Wunderbar," arranged as a swinging waltz that's more Vince Guaraldi cool than Broadway hot, and from the pop charts the group draws out a blue-cool 6-minute rendition of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe," with Lyman providing fantastic hammer sounds on his vibes. Island-themed tunes include the full-exotica attack of guiro, bird call and monkey yells on "Latitude 20," the percussion-heavy "Hawaii" and Kuiokalani Lee's sentimental "The Days of My Youth." The latter features the first vocal, from Lyman himself, to be heard on the eighteen albums anthologized in this series. Filling out the album is the tropical take-off on The Baja Marimba Band, "Maori Flea," and a sedate arrangement of the 19th century American standard, "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen."While all of Lyman's albums have a seductive island sound at their core, none were as laid-back as his second LP of 1968, Aphrodisia. Here Lyman arranged the requisite folk, pop, South American and island melodies in hushed tones that weave a quiet tropical spell. The album opens with the sleepy title tune, featuring relaxed bird calls punctuating Lyman's languorous vibraphone. Hawaiian melodies, "One Paddle, Two Paddle" and "Kuu Ipo Ika Hee" are even more sedate, with the former featuring a quiet group vocal. Bobby Hebb's mid-60s pop hit, "Sunny," is played cooler and more melancholy than vibraphonist Dave Pike's 1965 interpretation; similarly for the Brazilian classic "Mas Que Nada," which simmers at a lower temperature than Sergio Mendez earlier hit single. The album's folk tunes include a deeply thoughtful rendition of "All My Trials," and a bouncy jazz take on the 19th century English melody "Billy Boy." The album closes with an upbeat arrangement of "Goin' Out of My Head" that features Brubek-like time changes.Though he'd released over twenty albums of original performances before this pair, Lyman showed no signs of artistic fatigue. He continued to find interesting material, and his arrangements often found new ground. Aphrodisia, in particular, brings a unique nighttime vibe to a broad range of songs, and is a real sleeper amongst the dozens of albums Lyman released on Hi-Fi. Audio note: Latitude 20 evidences tape hiss in the right channel of several tracks. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

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 errorexists at 1:33 where some portion of the recording is missing. Thiscould have been corrected resp. compensated easily. I have tried itsuccessfully.2. "Colorful Percussions": Dropout on left channel between 2:41,900 and2:42,700. That dropout appears on the original vinyl too. Even that (Ihave also tried to correct successfully) could have been done duringmastering.3. There are a few tracks in mono, but why the complete 12 tracksof "Bwana á" are in mono cannot be understood.

Some of my favorite instrumentalists.