Product Description

"All visitors ashore!"... was the familiar call from the ports of Tahiti, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa and our beloved Hawai'i in the 1950s. All who stepped foot on shore fell in love with the mystique and the romance of these magical islands including two distinguished composers, Alfred Newman and Ken Darby. Combined, these two brilliant men have composed for such award-winning films as "The King and I," "Wuthering Heights," and "How the West Was Won." After experiencing the islands, and working with similar arrangements on films "South Pacific" and "Bird of Paradise," the found it impossible to put down their conductor batons and ignore the wondrous and alluring sights and sounds of Hawai'i. In 1960, they produced for Capital Records, this album, Ports of Paradise, calling it "a culmination and most definitive expression of the enchantment which(they) have found in the moods, the repose, the mystery of those far-off places."

Track Listing

1. Ports of Paradise (Newman/ Darby)
2. The Enchanted Sea (Starr/ Metis)
3. Blue Tahitian Sea (Newman/ Gordon)
4. Farewell For Just a While (Lund/ Brooks)
5. Now Is The Hour - Haere Ra (Scott/Kaihan/ Stewart)
6. Isa Lei (Owens)
7. Whispering Wind (Darby/ Newman)
8. My Little Grass Shack In Kealakekua, Hawaii (Cogswell/ Harrison/ Noble)
9. Forevermore - Lei Aloha Lei Makamae (Raskin/ King)
10. Madonna of The Flowers (Darby/ Newman)
11. To You Sweetheart, Aloha (Owens)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #133569 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-05
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

The "Long Wait" is OVER!
Well music lovers, truth is stranger than fiction, and this one will be difficult to believe. I am on another professorial assignment to Chengdu, China, and after a difficult day, I played a little music that I brought with me on CDs. Last night I actually dreamed about this CD - except that there was no CD! About twenty minutes ago I was sitting with my wife and just "surfing," and recalling the dream, I typed "Ports of Paradise" into my search engine and "VOILA!" I could not believe it, and actually had misty eyes. Why?

For Christmas of 1960, on my return from a most difficult military assignment, my older sister gave me this LP, and she bought it "...because it has a pretty cover!" We both fell in love with it on the spot. Since the emergence of CDs, many other music lovers and I have continually petitioned Capitol Records to produce POP on CD, but to no avail, and we pretty much gave up. However, "There is a God!"

To provide a short "tour" of the CD, the title song, "Ports of Paradise" is a sweeping, almost epic introduction to a magnificent South Pacific cruise of the senses, beautifully guided by the Ken Darby Singers and matchless orchestration. You will be inclined to lie back and close your eyes. Equally inspirational, yet eminently shorter, is "Farewell for Just a While." Those with the most tender of musical souls will have no difficulty envisioning a tender "goodbye," against a glorious sunset, and it will most assuredly "put you in a mood!"

Perhaps the crowning glory, or the "home port" for the experience, is the incomparable "Now is The Hour," which is practically a religious experience. It is the best rendition ever recorded, in my humble yet considerable experience.

Thank you, Capitol - and Amazon!

Dr. Glenn in China

Best South Seas music ever
I have been looking for this particular record to be re recorded on CD for quite a few years. It has some of the most beautiful and haunting music from the South Seas I have ever heard.

Where's Newman/Darby's "Magic Island" CD?
"Ports of Paradise" is 1950s movie music for the mind and it has been restored beautifully on this CD. However it's not quite as memorable as the similar Alfred Newman and Ken Darby 1959 production "Magic Islands" on Decca. That it has yet to appear on CD is a crime. Two of Ken Darby's songs have become hapa-haole standards - "Magic Islands" and "Love Song of Kalua" covered by the late great Alfred Apaka and Hui Ohana among others. It includes awesome sound effects including a blast from the Lurline's whistle, apocalyptic thunder and lightning, monsoon rains, and a volcanic eruption - all in less that 40 minutes. Seeing "Ports of Call" makes me hopeful that "Magic Islands" will come out soon!