Percussion Exotique

Exotica records were popular in 1959 and Tops Records specialized in cashing in on popular records. The label had Robert Drasnin, a UCLA music student, on staff and told him to write a album of songs copying Martin Denny's style as closely as possible. He did and the album is terrific. Denny must have liked the imitation, he hired Drasnin to co-write songs on Denny’s LATIN VILLAGE album.

Salli Terry does the great wordless vocals, John Williams (yeah, the Star Wars guy) plays piano on some of the songs . The other players are all session pros. This song is esp. good. I enjoy this record as much as the Denny and Lyman records it was supposed to be cashing in on.

Tops released the record twice, once as VOODOO and again in 1964 as PERCUSSION EXOTIQUE. I’ve never seen the VOODOO album but I do see PERCUSSION EXOTIQUE fairly often. Dionysus Records released VOODOO on CD in 1996. I think it’s still available.

Before enrolling at UCLA, Drasnin had played saxophone & clarinet in Les Brown’s Band of Renown, Tommy Dorsey’s band and the Red Norvo Quintet.

This was Robert Drasnin’s only album under his name. He spent the next forty years doing music for TV shows. Mission Impossible, Lost In Space, The Twilight Zone are only a few of the places where you’ll hear his work. Drasnin was also the music director for CBS entertainment. If that wasn’t enough, he has also been teaching film music compsition at UCLA and recording with Skip Heller, among other things.