Riding the Curl: The Surf Music Explosion 1958-61

It's been said that surfing is the only sport with it's own particular genre of music. It sprang up in the years between 1958 and 1961 along the southern Californian coastline; a new lifestyle around which a whole culture evolved. Surf music was inspired by the likes of the Ventures and Link Wray and then pioneered by the reverb-drenched guitars of Dick Dale and a legion of loud, primitive local bands such as the Bel-Airs, whose Mr. Moto was one of the genre's early anthems. The second half of this set is devoted to Bud Shank's remarkable music for Bruce Brown's exhilarating debut surfing movie, Slippery When Wet. Brown chose a modern jazz scoring because he felt it would be new and different and his judgment was good. The Quartet improvised the music while actually watching the film, giving the musicians freedom to express more clearly the actual thrill of the surfer than any pre-written score.