Les Baxter

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Wikimp3 information about the music of Les Baxter. On our website we have 70 albums and 70 collections of artist Les Baxter. You can find useful information and download songs of this artist. We also know that Les Baxter represents Jazz genres.

Biography

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Les Baxter is a pianist who composed and arranged for the top swing bands of the '40s and '50s, but he is better known as the founder of exotica, a variation of easy listening that glorified the sounds and styles of Polynesia, Africa, and South America, even as it retained the traditional string-and-horn arrangements of instrumental pop. Exotica became a massively popular trend in the '50s, with thousands of record buyers listening to Baxter, Martin Denny, and their imitators. Baxter also pioneered the use of the electronic instrument the theremin, which has a haunting, howling sound.

Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory and Pepperdine College in Los Angeles. After he completed school, he abandoned the piano and became a vocalist. When he was 23, he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones. The group sang on Artie Shaw records, including the hit "What Is This Thing Called Love."

In 1950, he became an arranger and conductor for Capitol Records, working on hits by Nat King Cole, including "Mona Lisa." Around the same time, Baxter began recording his own albums. In 1948, he released a triple-78 album called Music out of the Moon, which ushered in space-age pop with its use of the theremin. Four years later, he began recording exotica albums with Le Sacre du Sauvage.

On his early-'50s singles Baxter was relatively straightforward, performing versions of standards like the number one hits "Unchained Melody" and "The Poor People of Paris," but on his albums he experimented with all sorts of world musics, adapting them for his orchestra. As he was recording his exotica albums, Baxter was also the musical director for the radio show Halls of Ivy, plus Abbott & Costello radio shows; he also composed over 100 film scores, concentrating on horror movies and teenage musicals and comedies, though he also did dramas like Giant.

Baxter's heyday was in the '50s and '60s. Although he continued to compose and record in the '70s, his output was sporadic. Nevertheless, a cult following formed around his exotica recordings that persisted into the '90s.

Title: The Golden Age of Light Music: 100 Greatest American Light Orchestras - Vol. 1

Artist: David Rose, Billy Vaughn, Les Baxter And His Orchestra, Nelson Riddle, Morton Gould, Victor Young, Axel Stordahl, Bernie Wayne, Gordon Jenkins, Axel Stordahl Orchestra, Frank Perkins, Billy Vaughn And His Orchestra, Nelson Riddle And His Orchestra, John Scott Trotter, Paul Weston And His Orchestra, The Clebanoff Strings, Mahlon Merrick, Paul Weston, Jack Pleis, Les Baxter, Percussion, Warren Barker, The Orchestra, Monty Kelly, Harry Geller, Victor Young Orchestra, Alfredo Antonini, George Liberace, Jack Pleis Orchestra, David Rose's Orchestra, Gordon Jenkins Orchestra, Alfred Goodman Orchestra, Albert Sack Concert Orchestra, Alfonso D’Artega Orchestra / Alfonso D'Artega Orchestra, Alfredo Antonini Orchestra, Bernie Wayne Orchestra, Charles Dorian Orchestra, Frank Perkins Pops Orchestra, George Liberace Orchestra, Harry Geller Orchestra, John Scott Trotter Orchestra, Mahlon Merrick Orchestra, Rochester Pops Orchestra, The Spencer-Hagen Orchestra, Warren Barker Orchestra, Alfred Goodman, Albert Sack, Alfonso D'Artega, Charles Dorian

Les Baxter

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