Apologies that this one is a week or two late - there were more anniversaries than we had days for in February, so we thought we would use a blank day in March to mention one of the more unusual musical personalities from our collection. Arthur Lyman was born in Hawaii in 1932, and his very strict father made him practise music every day, playing along to Benny Goodman records on his xylophone, and he became proficient playing with four mallets. Moving on to playing the vibraphone and marimba, he joined pianist Martin Denny's group, playing popular jazz in Hawaii's hotels and bars. Denny had a big hit in 1957 with "Quiet Village" which kicked off the craze for all things Polynesian, and when Lyman formed his own group he continued to develop that style, incorporating bird noises and other sounds. His album "Taboo" became hugely popular in the USA, selling 2 million copies, and the title track was a big hit around the world in 1959. A couple of years later he had his biggest hit with "Yellow Bird". His highly sophisticated recordings, which were made 'live' with no overdubbing in an aluminium geodesic dome with remarkable acoustics, were ideal for the rapidly developing interest in stereophonic recordings, which helped his album sales considerably. Although the fad for that style of music waned, he continued to enjoy a very succesful career playing the music for tourists in Hawaii, and made dozens of albums over the decades. His music enjoyed a new lease of life when re-discovered as "lounge music" in the 1990s. Lyman died of cancer in Feb. 2002. Acrobat has on catalogue a 2-CD collection of all his single releases. For full details click here.