Sunken City/Stars In The Sand/Sea Nymph/Singing Sea Shells/Dolphin/Dawn Under The Sea/The Enchanted Sea/The Girl From Nassau/The Ancient Galleon/Coral Castle/Dancing Diamonds/Jewels Of The Sea
Conductor and arranger Les Baxter released several impressionistic albums of exotica, a musical style popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Jewels Of The Sea is one of the most highly regarded.
“Contains Sunken City, which is pretty much the ultimate exotica track, the link between Debussy and Tangerine Dream.”
“To a composer the sea offers wondrous motion, a shimmering surface of flowing mystery. Les Baxter gratefully accepted these things, and distilled them into exotic miniatures of dream-like beauty - sparkling, opalescent gems. Dreamy, sensual, iridescent, abstracted, this is quintessential Les Baxter. Baxter invented exotica, and imposed his passion for Stravinsky and Debussy on escapist travelogue themes, to create a unique form of popular music that was far from 'easy listening' in the conventional sense.”
“Around the time Capitol released this LP exotica was either peaking or starting its decline into obscurity, and Les Baxter was still kicking out at least one release a year. Here he delivered the goods again by proving with this album he could still create a cohesively themed record without resorting to bird calls or cheap whistles.”
"Jewels Of The Sea has a dream-like essence mainly carried by a floating body of strings accompanied by winds that dart back and forth like shoals of fish. Quiet rhythms turn up on some of the numbers as well, as do shimmering keyboards, but all these elements blend nicely together as none of them overpower each other. There are a few dull tracks for me, such as the title track at the end which feels like a ballroom serenade. However, the good outweighs the bad, so its fine.”
“Jewels Of The Sea, oozes about as many distinctively classical qualities as popular music in the mid-20th century would have allowed. I've set aside enough time to play this entire LP on several different occasions and it still effectively quenches my hunger for Baxter, exotica, and space age bachelor pad music alike. The fact that it’s a little more challenging just makes it all the more entertaining.”
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