Notes

The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:

Listen, pal.  They say, “The best revenge is a life well-lived,” and — sitting here in 1959, in Don the Beachcomber’s Dagger Bar, one of Hawaii’s best-known Tiki lounges, sipping Mai Tais from ceramic moai mugs — who are we to question such wisdom?

Revenge.  It drives a lot of people into lives well-lived and otherwise, even here in Waikiki.  That’s right, even here, in as close to an island paradise as you or I will ever see, bad blood can flow like the Mai Tai you almost spilled ogling that hula dancer a few minutes ago.  You don’t believe me?  If you’ll unwrap your lips from your umbrella straw long enough to look up at the man behind the piano over there, you’ll see the poor schmo who was backstabbed by a billionaire.

That’s Martin Denny, the pianist who coined the musical genre of “exotica” — and here on the brink of the 1960s, he’s busy living his life very well indeed… to retaliate against Henry J. Kaiser, the filthy rich industrialist who tried to take Denny down a couple years ago.

Y’see, back then, Denny was a prime attraction at Kaiser’s Shell Bar in his Hawaiian Village Resort near here.  Denny had put together a crackerjack jazz ensemble that included percussionist Augie Colon (whose bird calls and frog croaks, you’ll undoubtedly recall, helped propel Denny’s cover of Les Baxter’s “Quiet Village” to the top of the pop charts this year), and a prodigious, young vibist named Arthur Lyman, who Denny had discovered working as a desk clerk at the Halekulani Hotel.  Backed by talents like these, Denny was the toast of Oahu.  By 1957, he was courting invitations to play the Mainland and had landed a recording contract from Liberty Records.

But Kaiser (who had himself poached Denny’s band from Don the Beachcomber in ‘56) didn’t take kindly to the notion of his star crossing the ocean.  When blustery browbeating failed to intimidate the pianist, Kaiser got dirty.  Before Denny had even booked his passage to the States, Kaiser engaged Arthur Lyman in negotiations sub rosa, offering Denny’s young vibist his departing bandleader’s spot at the Shell Bar. When Lyman left Denny’s group in 1957, he took bass player John Kramer and drummer Harold Chang with him, leaving Denny to scramble for replacements.

Luckily enough, he drew a pair of aces in jazz drummer Roy “the Kidd” Harte and, especially, Julius Wechter, who replaced Lyman on the mallets.  Wechter would contribute much to Denny’s subsequent recordings, before moving on to a career that included stints in Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass (for whom he wrote “The Spanish Flea”) and the Baja Marimba Band.

We’ll discuss the Denny-Lyman imbroglio — as well as other blood feuds of exotica — in this space in future weeks.  Join us then as we learn more about America’s passion for all things Polynesian at the midpoint of the 20th century.  Now, please pass the pupu platter, pal.  Because unlike revenge, pupus are not best served cold.