Cal Tjader - "The Fakir" from the Album Several Shades of Jade and Papa M - "Drunken Spree" from the CD Live From A Shark Cage

Once he had been exposed to Afro-Cuban jazz while playing with George Shearing in the early '50's, vibraphonist and percussionist Cal Tjader made only two departures from that path the rest of his long career, and they both came in 1963.

With a style that might equally well be described in spots as either post-exotica or proto-ambient, and with inflection that abandoned Havana in favor of Borneo and Kyoto, neither Several Shades of Jade, nor its sequel and perhaps less-accomplished conceptual twin Breeze from the East garnered positive reviews for Tjader. Jazz critics of the time simply saw the two records as relics of an Exotica fad that had come and gone five or six years earlier.

	And rightfully so, I guess; certainly, current fans of the exotica groove count both recordings--but especially Shades--as among the holy grails of the style and the fashion.
Cal Tjader		David Pajo

But why fault Tjader for what amounts to nothing more than poor timing?

"The Fakir"--written by Tjader's collaborator throughout the SSOJ sessions, Lalo Schifrin--is about as potent a brew as any musicologist unafraid of mixing styles could possibly want. It certainly plies in the legacies of Exotica linchpins Les Baxter and Martin Denny. And keeping with Schifrin's destiny in Hollywood, it plays as hypnotic adventure-film music, too, soundtrack to a film that fades in on old Delhi, but soon heads out for more exotic environs, The Vibraphonist Who Would be King perhaps.

But 45 years later, it sounds equally entrancing to ears familiar with styles unknown and perhaps unimaginable to Tjader and Schifrin, reminding these ears also of the ambience of Eno and Fripp, and of the postrock of The Mercury Program.

Aside from a somewhat clumsy entrance when Tjader begins his vibe solo at about 1:12, "The Fakir" is a swirling, busy and ultimately intoxicating piece of music, dripping with antecedents and with portents.

If the lesson of Several Shades of Jade is that Exotica is (when and) where you find it, then you'd have no choice but to believe that David Pajo has learned that lesson well.

Some few years after Tjader's death, Pajo cut his teeth in Slint, who, though hugely influential in postrock circles, didn't really have much to say on the Exotica front.

Ah, well, that's what solo albums are for, I suppose.

Recording under the name Papa M six years after Slint dissolved, Pajo has whipped up an impressionistic brew in "Drunken Spree" every bit as intoxicating as the one Tjader had mixed, despite Pajo's much more minimal approach. You might even say that "Drunken Spree" is a bit of a misnomer. With the Papa M tune, it is not just the locale suggested that is exotic; it is the drugs, as well. Postrock Exotica, then, don't you think? Different in that the lush arrangements and the novelty instrumentation* are missing, but true to the original model with its openness to nonstandard tunings and with the heavy atmospherics.

On reflection, there's a touch of opium to "The Fakir," as well, but the dungeon vibe, this Black Hole of Calcutta-type ambience, apparent in "Drunken Spree" just isn't evident in Tjader's piece.

Chalk it up to our nowaday more extreme lifestyles, I suppose: where listeners to Martin Denny and Cal Tjader back in the day were content to be taken along as tourists, modern day samplers of the Exotica sound insist that the experience be a little more authentic. . . .

Cal Tjader - Several Shades of Jade - 01 The Fakir.mp3

This file was removed March 31, 2009. If you're still way interested in coming up with a copy of this--and really can't figure out where you might get one--drop me an email and I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out for you.

File Under: Exotica

Papa M - Live From A Shark Cage - 05 Drunken Spree.mp3

This file was removed March 31, 2009. If you're still way interested in coming up with a copy of this--and really can't figure out where you might get one--drop me an email and I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out for you.

File under: The Downbeat Exotica


*Essay for another day, but speaking of novelty instrumentation, how about a consideration of Tom Waits' '80's output including swordfishtrombones as a species of postrock exoticism? For sure, Waits was the original postrocker, using rock 'n' roll instruments in a non-rock context long before Tortoise or 90 Day Men got the idea. And if "Shore Leave" ain't Exotica, what is? (back)