Hawaiianology

You know, back in the golden days of Waikiki — when the air was thick with the scent of plumeria and the nights sparkled with the glow of Tiki torches — there was one sound that wrapped around the whole scene like a lei on a visiting cousin. That sound belonged to a man named Martin Denny. Martin wasn’t born in Hawai‘i, but once he set foot on the islands, it was like the place claimed him. Sitting behind his piano at the Shell Bar in the Hawaiian Village Hotel, he’d play the kind of music that took you on a journey — even if you never left your seat. Birds chirping, island drums beating, soft piano floating like the trade winds. He called it Exotica, and man, it was the soundtrack of Waikiki’s golden era. His music wasn’t just notes and rhythm — it was the sound of paradise. It was the sound of sipping a mai tai under the moonlight, the sound of an island romance, the sound of adventure in far-off tropical places... even if you were just parked at the bar on Ala Moana Boulevard. And t...