Quiet Village

[The animal noises] came about rather by chance. In 1956 we played in the Shell Bar, a part of the Hawaiian Village (a segment of an amusement park in Honolulu). The room where we played had a very exotic ambience, next to the stage was a small pond, cliff, palms - very tropical, very relaxed. One evening we were playing a certain tune and the frogs began to croak (with a deep sound) rivet! rivet! When we stopped playing the frogs stopped too. When we played the song again later the frogs started again and some of the band members spontaneously started to imitate bird calls. This arrangement was requested time and again...

We played at ‘Don the Beachcomber's’ on the beach of Waikiki and many of the soldiers stationed on Hawaii heard us and bought our records. When they were transfered, they took those records with them and played them for others. The name became famous through word of mouth: The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny. The S.S. Nautilus was the first American submarine to cross the North Pole. They had Quiet Village in their jukebox and after their expedition, they wrote me that this was their favorite tune.