Ports of Paradise was originally issued by Capitol in 1960 as an exotica orchestral and vocal album centered on the various parts of the South Pacific -- Hawaii in particular (which makes it no mistake that Mountain Apple decided to reissue it on CD). Essentially, it is a misguided theme recording with the voices of
Alfred Newman,
Ken Darby, and
Mavis Rivers along with wildly overblown orchestration, unhinged dynamics, and a sense of otherness that was common for the space age pop and mood music of the era. While one can hear elements of
Ralph Vaughan Williams'
Sea Symphony in here, and even bits of
Debussy's La Mer, what is heard most is something like
Mantovani meeting
Lawrence Welk,
Guy Lombardo, and
Eugene Ormandy with
the Boston Pops fronted by vocalists imagining the South Pacific after having only read books about it. The reading of "My Little Grass Shack" is particularly hilarious.