TIKI CULTURE

The Hukilau 2011 and Conversations at the Tiki Bar

Stolen Idols at The Hukilau 2010

The Hukilau 2011

Hey swingin’ kats and kittens, just a reminder that The Hukilau 2011…one of the world’s largest, swingingest and longest running Tiki parties…is happening this June 9-12 in sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Tikiphiles, Retro Hipsters, Jazz Cats; whatever your scene, if you dig Tiki or anything Retro, you neeeeed to be there.

Visit The Hulilau 2011 website for the down-low, with lists of very kool entertainment, books signings, art and more.

Also…for all you very hip kids who procure, create, carve, sew, assemble, and sell Tiki/Retro-related goodies, there are still a few prime vendor spots available, so get in gear and email Christi Crowe, Hukilau sponsorship, vending and/or advertising contact at christi@flagmarketing.com.

Conversations at the Tiki Bar

It’s nice to have friends all over the world. Thanks to teh interwebs, of course. I verily enjoy rapping with the swingin’ kats and kitties that dig the same jive I do. It’s fun here, but even easier over at The Retro Tiki Lounge on Facebook. Check it out, dig the photos, watch the videos, and feel free to join the convo. Lots of fun stuff going on over there! Plus admission is free, and the bar is always open.

Murder on Tiki Island

Most of you have already heard that my new novel is in the works…Murder on Tiki Island is right up your alley, believe me. It takes place at a Tiki resort in the Florida Keys in 1956, and is a retro-style pulp noir fiction with a twist of lime. Due out April 30, it will be available in softcover and eBook format on Amazon.com See the official website or join the fan page on Facebook for details.

Later swingers,
Tiki Chris P.

If you dig Facebook, drop by The Retro Tiki Lounge

Some of you swingers may not know that Tiki Lounge Talk has an official Facebook fan page, The Retro Tiki Lounge. There you’ll find daily posts of kool pix, jazzy videos, swanky Tiki stuff, cocktail recipes, kool music, krazy stories and more. Kool kats & kittens even post info on swingin’ retro/vintage style and Tiki events, bands, stuff to buy, etc. etc. There’s a lot going on there every bright, with much more swag than I can fit here at the Tiki Lounge, so swing on down to The Retro Tiki Lounge on FB for a double shot of Tiki & Retro fun. Can you dig it? I knew that you could;)

-Tiki Chris P. reporting from the Retro Tiki Lounge on Facebook.

The Manhattan: Weekend Cocktails at the Tiki Bar

Ready for the weekend kids? We sure are at the Tiki Bar! Since out last post was on some sophisticated Latin Jazz, lets Jazz the weekend up with some sophisticated cocktails…

The typical Manhattan calls for rye whiskey and sweet vermouth. Here are two twists on the original:

Bourbon Manhattan

3/4 oz sweet vermouth
2 1/2 oz good bourbon whiskey (I’d go with Maker’s Mark)
1 dash bitters
1 maraschino cherry
1 twist orange peel

Pour the booze and bitters over the rocks and stir gently. Add the Cherry; twist the orange into the drink and ditch the peel. A little sweeter and smoother than the traditional drink.

The Manhattan Cocktail. Old-style is served in a rocks glass.

Southern Comfort Manhattan

1 1/2 oz. Southern Comfort
1/2 oz dry vermouth
dash bitters
Cherry

Stir with cracked ice, strain into a glass (also good on the rocks). Drop in the cherry and you’re good to go with a ’60s style cocktail that will make the southern belles melt.

Either of these splashes would be a great accompaniment to the sultry tunes presented in our previous post.

-Tiki Chris reporting from the Tiki Bar

Getz/Gilberto - The Girl from Ipanema

Getz-Gilberto, 1964, one of my all-time favorite Jazz albums

96 Weeks on the Billboard charts, Getz/Gilberto reached the number 2 spot in 1964 - beat out only by The Beatles. Dig it.

This is the album that sealed the deal for Bossa Nova as a permanent form of Jazz. Featuring two of the original creators (and most well-known cats) of the Bossa Nova movement, Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, this album is without doubt one of the most incredible representations of mid-century jazz at its finest.

Every song on this platter is fantastic, but the stand-outs are the ones which have stood the test of time: Corcovado, Desafinado, O Grande Amor, and of course The Girl From Ipanema, by Jobim’s account influenced by a hot young Brazilian chick named Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto who used to stroll by the beach-side bar where he hung out.

If you want proof this album is boss, it won the 1965 Grammy Awards for Best Album of the Year, Best Jazz Instrumental Album - Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. “The Girl from Ipanema”, released as a shortened version for 45 RPM won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. Dig this: It was the first time a jazz platter took Album of the Year.

Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Gilberto, João’s wife at the time had come along as an interpreter. She’d never sung professionally before this recording. The story goes Joåo liked her voice and asked her to fill in for him on a rehearsal. The rest is history.

The music on this album is equally enjoyable at your Tiki bar or mod-50’s corner bar, sitting by the pool with a Caipirinha or relaxing in the den on a rainy day. It’s available for download and on CD…but of course to really dig it retro-style, you’ve got to spin the vinyl.

Stan Getz

My take: I first heard this album’s version of The Girl from Ipanema when I was around twelve years old. Getz’s sax playing blew me away. His style is so smooth, so delicate…so much different from the strength of Coleman Hawkins or the insane vitality of John Coltrane, I couldn’t help but get hip to it. When I started playing sax a year or so later, one of the first songs I learned was TGFI, by playing along with the record. Later it would become one of my ’signature songs’ that I played at almost every gig, and in two of my murder mysteries with Stardust Productions. Of course I play it in my own style, but I did borrow a couple of Stan’s riffs

-Tiki Chris, AKA Zoot the Saxman swinging from Tiki Lounge Talk’s bandstand.
Tiki Lounge Talk - The Tiki Culture & Swingin’ Retro Blog for Hep Kats and Krazy Kittens

One last funny thing…my last name is Pinto, and my great grandfather’s last name was Gilberti…small world, huh?

Peter Gunn, The Series 1958-1961 - A New Twist on Mod Movie Monday

Peter Gunn is available on DVD, ya dig?

(Cue mid-tempo jazz bassline)
Lay back kats, and knock your swingin’ lobes to the riffs I’m layin’ down before thee; as this week we dance to the tune of a different bongo-ist, take a beat off the beaten path and give Mod Movie Monday a little twist - a foray into the land of the groove tube, the noise box, the all-mighty television. This week I present to you for your hippest approval, that hippest of hip private dicks,

Peter Gunn

Starring Lola Albright, Hershel Bernardi, and the inimitable Craig Stevens as the swingin’ gumshoe Gunn.

There has never been, nor shall there ever be an equally jazzy, kool and quintessentially hip cop show on the airwaves. From the opening, pre-credit crime scene with swingin’ background bass and eerie horns, to the slick late ’50s ragtop that Gunn motorvated around in, to the sultriest if sultry atomic blonde bombshells Edie Hart as the jazz joint’s singer, Peter Gunn just oozes with dark kool.

Craig Stevens and Lola Albright

Imagine a cop show where the PI is a tough, good-looking Rat-Pack-era swinger who’s always in total control, even when he pushes the line between legit and vigilante. Instead of driving a cop sedan, he drives a sleek convertible. He dresses sharp and hangs out at a jazz club with the musicians and has a thing going with the smokin’ girl singer, a swingin’ chick if ever there was one. Throw on top of that the fact that he’s a damned good detective, and his notoriety helps him gain the potatoes he needs to lead his swingin’ lifestyle, and you’ve got the makings of one hell of a TV series - good enough to last 114 episodes.

Thanks to our pal Blake Edwards, the style of the show holds up 50 years later. A Noir undertone driven by a jazz beat and purposely subtle acting, Peter Gunn is considered one of the best stylistic TV dramas of the time.

The Jazz, man, it’s all about that swingin’ background jazz, the musical soundtrack that very often came out of the background and coolly slid into the spotlight whenever Gunn entered Mother’s Jazz Club on the waterfront. Several scenes featured the hipster musicians getting in the groove with their sexy singer, Edie, riffing out tunes by Henry Mancini, played in the style of The Modern Jazz Quintet and Dave Brubeck. Peter Gunn is credited as being

Peter Gunn Album, 1958

the first TV show to have a custom designed soundtrack (all others used stock music up until then), and the resulting Peter Gunn album stayed at #1 on the charts for 10 weeks (and is still a best seller today). That unforgettable theme has been used so many times since then that even kids who never heard of the show know that krazy piano intro and those blaring horns. Oh, and by the by…that piano intro…was originally played by another kat you may have heard of, a young pup by the name of John Williams.

Style aside, the series was ahead of its time in the ’50s, and still holds up as great to watch today. The crimes were never sugar-coated…murder, drugs, all of it right out there lightened only by an occasionally funny hipster character who was so way out there you had to chuckle. In my opinion, the only thing that would have made this show better was if they didn’t have to squeeze it into a half hour. An hour would have done it much more justice.

Splash Screen before and after commericals, Peter Gunn

And what beat-era libations and repast doth thou deal out during said performance? ’50s hipsters were all about trying new things…which of course, are now old things. Maybe some cucumber sandwiches, with sour cream/dill dipping sauce. Maybe some mini spinach quiches wrapped in bacon. Pretzel rods with mustard. Finger sandwiches of smoked oysters or salmon spread. Kooky stuff like that. Serve Port, or Sambucca, or Galliano over the rocks. Or if you can get your hands on it, Absinth. Top it off with fresh pineapple, mango and coconut over vanilla ice cream for dessert. And don’t forget to smoke a pack of Camels before the show ends, dig?