Robert Drasnin

Robert Drasnin played alto, clarinet, and flute in the jazz bands of such leaders as Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo. His status as an artiste, however, rests upon an album that he might have considered as a trifle at the time. Voodoo, issued around the late '50s on the tiny Tops label, closely approximated the exotica sound of Martin Denny -- under, apparently, instructions from the Tops A&R chief himself. Drasnin devised a satisfying approximation of Denny's tropical-Latin-lounge jazz hybrid