Haruomi Hosono and Exotica (Part 1)
A Japanese-English translation of the Natalie column exploring the roots of exotica in Haruomi Hosono's tropical trilogy
The original Japanese column was published in Natalie. The original Japanese interview was conducted by Kazuharu Kato, and the intro was written by Satoshi Mochizuki. This was translated into English by Ryo Miyauchi for the This Side of Japan newsletter as supplementary reading material. Please properly credit when sharing.
After 50 years in the industry, Haruomi Hosono continues to gain massive attention both in Japan and overseas. Here at Natalie, we launched the feature Hosono Seminar to explore his works and career through discussions on different genres.
The students of this seminar are Yuuma Abe (of Never Young Beach) and Hama Okamoto (of OKAMOTO’S), two artists of the same generation who both look up to Hosono. For the second edition, they discussed the exotica music that influenced Hosono’s tropical trilogy of the late ‘70s.
Exotica is in the title
Today, we’re going to discuss the topic of exotica. Hosono-san, can you give us a brief summary?
Harumoi Hosono: To give a rough explanation, it’s American music started by people like Les Baxter. It’s made from string music, with a sound that’s kind of like mood music. Les Baxter made the definitive exotica track, “Quiet Village.” After Martin Denny covered it in the style of jungle music, it suddenly became a hit in the 1950s.
Yuuma Abe: Martin Denny’s wasn’t the original.
Hosono. Right. There was actually Brazilian music that was like the reference point. This popular song “Na Baixa do Sapateiro” by this well-known composer named Ary Barroso. That’s the original source music.
Hama Okamoto: Ohhh, I see.
Hosono: I heard it much later, and I was surprised. Barroso also wrote songs for Carmen Miranda.
When did you first get interested in exotica, Hosono-san?
Hosono: In elementary school. There was no TV back then, so I listened to the radio a lot. There was this period when Martin Denny’s “Quiet Village” was playing often. It was a global hit. When I first heard it, the bird noises made an impression on me more than the music. I learned about this later, but this percussionist Augie Colon was the one making those bird noises.
Abe: It wasn’t a sound effect but someone actually doing it.
Hosono: It’s amazing. Maybe it became that kind of sound because there was someone like that as a member.
Hama: I wonder if that was a party trick he had. [laughs]
Hosono: Like a vocal impression? That stuck with me.
What impression do you two have about exotica?
Hama: I definitely knew about it through Hosono-san’s work. I knew about Martin Denny’s name through him too.
Abe: I’m exactly the same. When I first heard Hosono-san’s Bon Voyage co. in my late teens, I was like, “what is this!?” and from there, I learned about people like Martin Denny. I can’t really explain it, but it felt something like sorcery. I don’t know about it at all, so I want to learn about it today. [laughs]
Hosono-san said “mood music” earlier, but is there anything similar between mood music and exotica?
Hosono: Yes, but at the time, that’s what they called the sound of music made by people like Martin Denny. Mood music is a word made up by Japan. Americans called it—what was it… Easy listening?
Hama: I wonder how they broke it down.
Hosono: In Japan, the breakdown of genres is different from record store to record store. There was a section back then labeled “middle music,” and that’s where you can find those records.
Hama: “Middle music,” that’s funny. [laughs]
Hosono: There was this box called the “feed box” that had all the records that were hard to classify.
Hama: The ones that make record store clerks go, “in which rack do I put this?” [laughs]
Hosono: I think people like Martin Denny were in those places. But for mood music, string ensembles like Mantovani and Percy Faith were popular.
Hama: A more formal ensemble. I get curious of what about it makes it exotic. I have somewhat of an image, like the kind of instruments they use.
Hosono: There’s not much of a strict rule.
Hama: So it’s more feeling.
Hosono: Feeling. But it’s usually in the song title.
Hama & Abe: Ah!
Hosono: Like for Martin Denny, there’s “Quiet Village” but also “Rush Hour in Hong Kong” or “Busy Port.” There’s a lot of scenery away from America, by Asia and the Pacific.
Abe: I see. Interesting.
Hama: I never thought about how there’s exotica in the song titles.
Hosono: Because it’s an instrumental, those guys had to express it through the song titles. [laughs]
Hama: If you put it that way, you’re right. [laughs] It sounds that way because of the title.
Hosono, a tropical guy
What got you to incorporate exotica into your music, Hosono-san?
Hosono: There was a song I made for Tropical Dandy. Something felt missing about it, and then I thought about the jungle sounds from Martin Denny that I heard when I was a child. But I didn’t have a Martin Denny record, so I asked around people who might own it. And it got me to Tadashi Tanaka—S-KEN.
Abe: Wow.
Hosono: I asked him because at the time, he was the editor of this magazine called Light Music, and he knew a lot about music. I asked him, “is there anybody who has a Martin Denny record?” He told me Yosuke Kawamura, the illustrator, would have it, and they dubbed the whole thing on tape for me.
Abe: So there was a long gap since you first heard it. It was a sound from your memory, you can say.
Hosono: Right. It’s not like I was too interested in exotic sounds.
Abe: I see!
Hama: You didn’t even think, let’s try this one day?
Hosono: No, it was all something I just thought up then and there. The song I made then was “Nettaiya,” but I originally wanted to make it sound more like The Band.
Hama: I see!
Hosono: It came out totally different. [laughs]
Abe: Right. [laughs] I want to hear it before it became exotica.
Hama: So, it was more a coincidence that “Nettaiya” sounded like that?
Hosono: Yeah. My whole life is just making things up on the spot. [laughs]
Abe: So it could’ve become something totally different.
Hosono: Yeah. It might have sounded more like The Band.
Hama: Tropical Dandy, Bon Voyage co., and Paraiso is now called the tropical trilogy. So if you didn’t think about Martin Denny while you were making “Nettaiya,” maybe that trilogy wouldn’t have happened.
Hosono: I think so. Meeting Tanaka-san, getting the tape from Kawamura-san, and also Makoto Kubota-kun had a big influence. He was playing funk as a bass player at the time. I wanted to make something like that after Hosono House. But when I sang over a funky sound, my voice didn’t fit at all. Around then, Kubota-kun came to hang out, and he saw me stuck and told me, “Hosono-san, you’re a tropical guy.”
He told you that your voice fit a tropical sound.
Hosono: Right, right. “Hosono-san is the tropical dandy,” he said, and that ended up becoming the title. [laughs]
Abe & Hama: Hahahaha.
Abe: Is that what got you into exotica?
Hosono: At that time, I was listening to Latin music because of Touyou Nakamura-san, the editor in chief of Music Magazine at the time. So I was listening to a lot of Cuban music. I was also listening to calypso because of Van Dyke Parks. I was listening to a lot of Caribbean music.
Hama: I don’t know if this is a proper way to put it, but exotica has this feeling of fakeness to it. It’s music made from the imagination, so there’s a different feeling to it than more formal music.
Hosono: It’s fun how it feels phony and have no real grounds to it. [laughs]
Hama: It’s very relieving to hear it from Hosono-san. [laughs] That feeling of phoniness in exotica is really appealing.
Hosono: So at the time, I thought the hurdle was too high for me to try actual Latin music.
Abe: Oh, I see. Interesting.
Hearing it now, Bon Voyage co. is a rock record
Following Tropical Dandy, there’s a lot more exotica in Bon Voyage co., but what were you thinking about while arranging the music?
Hosono: No, when I hear it now, Bon Voyage co. has a rock-band sound to it.
Hama: Ah! You’re definitely right about the performance.
Hosono: Because it’s by people who play rock. [laughs] Even in Tropical Dandy, we do a song called “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” but the playing of it sounds like Little Feat. Shigeru (Suzuki) would play slide guitar. When I hear it now, it’s rock music. We were the rock generation, so we didn’t get out of that.
Hama: But that feel became original.
Hosono: I guess so.
Hama: Maybe the feel of rock came out without thinking about it. If you consciously played like the source music, I don’t think it would’ve sounded that cool.
Hosono: Yes, exactly. It’s imagination.
Hama: That’s right. There is a kind of sound that suggests a feeling layered on top of it. [laughs]
Hosono: We were just immersed in this feeling of freedom that we haven’t felt before. I was probably able to open a different world in myself. Since I was dancing to Martin Denny. [laughs]
Hama: Hahaha.
Hosono: I was dancing along to songs like “Sake Rock,” “Hong Kong Blues” and “Sayonara (The Japanese Farewell Song).”
Abe: That’s a good story.
Hosono: It was fun.
Hama: But you ended up making a trilogy, so didn’t this tropical path have a strong effect on you? Like on your adventurous side?
Hosono: Hm, I wonder. I didn’t really feel like I was being adventurous.
Hama: You were making music because it was fun, and next thing you know, you ended up making three records?
Hosono: It was more that that feeling of freedom continued for three records.
Hama: “That feeling of freedom continued for three records” is an incredible way to put it. [laughs] I very much thought Hosono-san had in mind to explore this path.
Hosono: I probably should’ve said that. [laughs]
Hama: No, no. [laughs]
Hosono: I said it before, but I kept on doing whatever, and I got to here. [laughs]
If you have fun while you’re doing it, it will eventually all work out.
Abe: When I was talking with Gen Hoshino-san before, he asked me “how did Never Young Beach get to their sound?” At the time, I told him, “We wanted to make something like Hosono-san’s tropical trilogy, but we didn’t know how to do it, and it ended up like this.” And he said, “SAKEROCK was exactly the same.” We wanted to do something like the tropical trilogy but couldn’t.
Hosono: And that’s fine. Even us back then, we couldn’t do what Martin Denny was doing.
By the way, Gen Hoshino-san named SAKEROCK after Martin Denny’s song that he knew through Hosono-san.
Hosono: That’s right. I was surprised when I first heard the name of the band.
Hama: It’s all connected.
Hosono: I didn’t think what I was doing then would reach a much later generation.
Hama: The reason why Gen-san wanted to play marimba was also because of Hosono-san.
Hosono: He said he ended up actually buying one. I didn’t think he’d go that far. [laughs]
Hama: Now I know the first person in my life who has their own marimbas.
Hosono: Yeah, yeah. Not often do you see that.
Abe: Oh, I bought one too.
Hosono: What! You bought a marimba? [laughs]
Abe: Yes. I bought one for when I want to use a sound like that one day. I have one just in case.
Hosono: I’m surprised. Do you practice?
Abe: I did, but it’s hard. I stopped for a bit, and it’s hanging on my wall right now. [laughs]
Hosono: But it’s incredible you decided to buy one. Amazing how you get the feeling to buy one. Something that big.
Abe: I thought I wouldn’t know if it’s right for me without trying it once.
Hosono: I see. Back in the day, the studio would have a marimba as equipment.
Abe: That kind of environment is starting to go away.
Hama: The studio itself is disappearing nowadays. Our generation would play a Fender Rhodes because they had one in the studio, but that’s starting to not be the case. So I know what Abe is saying when he says he has to try it before he knows it’s right.
Abe: Hosono-san played the marimba for a Chinatown show, but did you practice a lot for that?
Hosono: No, no, I don’t own one, so I can’t practice. I’m always just winging it.
Hama: You do not look like you’re winging it in that footage. [laughs]
Hosono: I play it by feeling in the studio, and then get serious when it comes to the actual show.
Hama: Put all focus on the show.
Hosono: Right, and then I can’t play it anymore once it’s over. [laughs] I forget it.
Abe: I thought you were really good.
Hosono: No, not at all. I was amazed watching Hoshino-kun play.
Hama: Gen-san is so good at marimba.
Hosono: He’s great. That’s the sound of a person who practices the marimba.
Abe: The marimba is so hard.
Hosono: But everyone learned how to play the guitar and the bass on their own. If you’re having fun while you’re doing, it will all eventually work out.
Abe: I think that’s what’s cool about Hosono-san. It might look different from someone who’s actually a marimba player, but Hosono-san plays it loose while feeling it out, so it’s easier for us to listen to.
Hama: I get it. When I sat down with Hosono-san before, I asked, “have you practiced playing bass,” and you said, “I went out dancing in place of playing bass.” That feeling probably goes into your playing. I’m not so much of a practice guy myself, so I really felt that.
Hosono: Oh, then we’re all the same. [laughs]
Hama: It’s an honor to be one of the same with the class teacher. [laughs]
Hosono: But it takes a lifetime to really become the master of an instrument.
Abe: That’s right!
Hosono: I respect people who hone their craft, but I can’t do that. I don’t have the time or the energy.
Hama: It’s enough to play and have fun doing it.
Hosono: Right, that’s good for us.
Abe: That makes me feel better a little bit. [laughs]