Los Angeles' jazz musician and pop arranger Les Baxter was one of the founding fathers of exotica. He arranged Harry Revel's six songs of Music Out of the Moon (1947), issued as a set of three 78 R.P.M. records, for cello, horn, choir and (mainly) a theremin played by Sam Hoffman, the man who had debuted the instrument in Miklos Rozsa's soundtracks for Lost Weekend (1945) and Spellbound (1945).

The same partnership (music by Revel, arrangement by Baxter and theremin by Hoffman) was repeated on Perfume Set To Music (1948)

Baxter incorporated exotic themes in the instrumental easy-listening music of Ritual Of The Savage (1951), particularly the theme song Quiet Village,

He also had orchestral hits such as Wake The Town And Tell The People (1955) and Marguerite Monnot's Poor People of Paris (1956).