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Tamboo! is an album by Les Baxter, His Chorus and Orchestra. It was released in 1955 on the Capitol label (catalog nos. T-655).[1][2]

The album debuted on Billboard magazine’s popular albums chart on January 28, 1956, peaked at No. 6, and remained on that chart for two weeks.[3][4]

Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle in 1955 described the album as “an odd LP”, “really musically very dreary” but a “hi fi fan’s dream” with its great recording and unusual sounds. He predicted “it could be a big hit as it is unlike anything else but, perhaps some of Baxter’s own previous work.”[5]

Philip Hayward, in his 1999 book on exotica music, compared the album to the work of Maurice Ravel:

All of the tracks utilise the same limited set of musical devices techniques which closely resemble those used by Ravel. Especially conspicuous is Baxter’s use of the textless choir — what Mickey McGowan has dubbed “pseudo-head hunter oogum-boogum . . . Like the wordless choriuses in Daphnis et Chloé and Sirenes, Baxter’s “native chanting” serves to position the exotic other in a mythic time and place.”[6]

AllMusic gave the album a rating of four-and-a-half stars. Reviewer Jo-Ann Greene wrote: “It’s brilliantly done, and helped to broaden American minds and widen musical views.”[2]

Track listing

Side 1

  1. “Simba”
  2. “Oasis of Dakhla”
  3. “Maracaibo”
  4. “Tehran”
  5. “Pantan”
  6. “Havana”

Side 2

  1. “Mozambique”
  2. “Wotuka”
  3. “Cuchibamba”
  4. “Batumba”
  5. “Rio”
  6. “Zambezi”

Charts

Chart (1956) Peak
position
US Billboard’s popular albums[7] 6

References

  1. ^ “Les Baxter His Chorus And Orchestra* – Tamboo!”. Discogs. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  2. ^ a b “Tamboo!”. AllMusic. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  3. ^ Joel Whitburn (1995). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Albums. Billboard Books. p. 27. ISBN 0823076318.
  4. ^ “The Billboard Buying and Programming Guide: Best Selling Packaged Records”. The Billboard. January 28, 1956. p. 36.
  5. ^ “An LP Version of Voodoo”. San Francisco Chronicle. December 4, 1955. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ Philip Hayward (1999). Widening the Horizon: Exoticism in Post-War Popular Music. John Libbey. p. 53. ISBN 9781864620474.
  7. ^ Whitburn, Joel (1973). Top LPs, 1955–1972. Record Research. p. 15. Retrieved July 10, 2025.