Arthur Lyman

Arthur Lyman ( born February 2, 1930 in Kauai, Hawaii; † 24 February 2002 in Honolulu ) was an American jazz vibraphonist and marimba player - of Exotica style.

Life and work

Lyman grew up in Honolulu and brought the marimba game in reference to the plates by Lionel Hampton. He won the talent contest a local radio station in Honolulu and played even as a schoolboy semi- professionally in the cool jazz combo The Gadabouts. After leaving school in 1951 he worked as a clerk in a hotel, where he incidentally also starred in the hotel bar. Martin Denny discovered him there and offered him a place in his band in 1954, which played in the Shell Bar at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (then Kaiser Hawaiian Village ) in Honolulu ( Waikiki ). The hotel resort was owned by the industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. In 1957 he played on the album Quiet Village ( Liberty Records) by Denny, which was a great success and in the U.S. triggered a Hawaiian trend. In the same year, the two separated, but remained lifelong friends. Lyman founded his own band, which was hired by Henry Kaiser for its night clubs in Honolulu, and he took for Hi Records in Los Angeles ( first performance of Jazz 1957). The recordings were almost always in the Dome aluminum Auditorium (designed by Buckminster Fuller) of Kaiser Hawaiian Village. Lyman and his band played for almost 10 years in the Shell Bar at the Hawaiian Village Hotel. For the band were in the occupation from 1957 to 1965 in addition to Lyman on vibes, John Kramer ( bass), Alan Soares (piano), Harold Chang (percussion ), each next to his main instrument also played all kinds of exotic instruments. They toured a lot in the U.S. and entered the 1960s in various TV shows (as well as regularly in the television series Hawaiian Eye ). In 1968, he was the life on tour after a show in Las Vegas. Lyman returned to Hawaii, where he played in clubs and hotels like Don the Beachcombers Polynesian Village.

He recorded more than 30 albums and 400 singles. Three of his albums reached gold status. They had titles like Taboo (1958), Legend of Pele, Hawaiian Sunset, Bahia.

Trademarks of Lyman were exotic sounds such as birdsong. He played mostly at the same time with four mallets. Its distinctive piece was Yellow Bird, with whom he was in 1961 ten weeks in the Billboard Top Ten.

Lyman was divorced four times and brought it never finished to save much, so he worked until his death from throat cancer. In addition, he participated in Hawaiian Canoe Race.

In the 1990s, his music gained new popularity in the context of lounge music with new releases of his records than CDs.