Arthur Lyman

Arthur Lyman was a Hawaiian musician who played the vibraphone and marimba leading a band that helped to popularise the so-called exotica style of music in the 1950s. It was an easy listening mix of big band jazz and moody Polynesian themes with a Latin influence and ethnic instruments, bird calls and jungle noises. Lyman grew up in Honolulu and learned to play music on a toy marimba as a child by copying vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. By the time he was a teenager, he had turned professional in a local jazz club and joined the band headed by Martin Denny in the Shell Bar of the Hawaiian Village Hotel. The term exotica was used first as the title of a 1957 album by Denny and his combo with Lyman on vibraphone. Lyman left the group soon after to form his own group with Alan Soares on piano, John Kramer on bass and flute and Harold Chang on drums. Their debut album, 'Leis of Jazz' came out the same year. With the release in 1958 of the album 'Taboo: The Exotic Sounds of Arthur Lyman' with the same sidemen, Lyman claimed a place alongside Denny in the realm of exotic jazz. With a fast pace using Brazilian guiro shakers and percussion from a conch shell, bamboo rods and bongos, the title track, written by Margarita Lecuona and recorded previously by Les Baxter, reached number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. The 1961 single 'Yellow Bird', which became Lyman's biggest hit, climbed to number two on the Adult Contemporary Chart and number four on the Hot 100. He continued to release albums but the exotica craze died down although interest was revived for a while in the era of space music, a sub-genre of new age music, in the 1970s. Lyman remained popular with tourists in Hawaii until he became ill with throat cancer and died in 2002 aged 70. His most popular tunes are featured on the 2002 compilation album, 'The Very Best of Arthur Lyman' on the Varese Sarabande label.

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