Wonderful World

Album Review

With the passing of Iz in 1997, Hawaii lost a major star and musical ambassador. There have been a few albums since his death, including a fine retrospective, also on Mountain Apple. On this album, Jon de Mello, whose father, Jack, was one of the key players (if not the key player) in Hawaiian exotica and string arrangements in the late '50s and early '60s, overlays some of Iz's lighter fare with lush string arrangements. The key here is the soft and smooth nature of his vocals — they're gorgeous, and always have been. The songs, however, probably don't need the string arrangements in order to help transfer them to a new audience, as much of the exotica movement did in the past. De Mello does an admirable job of keeping the strings in the background, allowing Iz's vocals to remain the true star of the album, but they're ultimately just not needed — Iz's music stood on its own just fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the end result; it's simply redundant with the catalog of existing Iz material. True fans of Iz may find it worthwhile to pick up as part of the collection, but newcomers to his music are likely better served with some of his other albums — E Ala E and N Dis Life in particular will show a fair amount of his range.