Shelly Manne 'Daktari' LP

Cut in the birth pangs of electric fusion and afro-funk, West Coast drummer Shelly Manne’s brilliant score for the popular ‘60’s TV series Daktari still stands as a global fusion landmark.

Daktari is an album by drummer Shelly Manne recorded in 1967 featuring music from Daktari. The heavy use of the marimba with various percussion instruments serves the score well and makes it a huge success.

On the album, Mike Wofford plays a tack piano to evoke an African sound, and Manne is joined by percussionists Emil Richards, Larry Bunker, Frank Carlson, and Victor Feldman. According to the record liner notes, Manne and fellow percussionists play ankle and wrist jingles, Thai mouth organs, angklungs, ocarinas, vibraphones, tympani, and different kinds of marimbas.

Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker was a fan of the album’s ‘vaguely African’ music, sounding like it came from “Hollywood session players” rather than actual Africans. In the late 1990s, Becker modelled a percussion sequence after this style on the song “Two Against Nature” released on the Steely Dan album of the same name.