It was vague and perhaps naive, but he sensed an open window. There were neither listening stations nor World Music bins in the record stores - no way to find, let alone choose, the records he liked. Like Putumayo's album jackets, his calling cards are decorated with idyllic, colorful, ''faux-primitive'' images of dreamy villages, flowers, birds, smiling faces of many races, people playing musical instruments, dancing, taking a siesta under a benevolent sun. The image it adds up to is perhaps a bit too idealistic, too literal, too close to a sort of hip ''have a nice day'' sticker. Tra la tra la.
People are in it because they love it.
He sends copies of his CDs to businessmen friends, and he is ''constantly getting notes from them about how great the music is.'' Earlier this year, Putumayo, which employs 20 people in the SoHo district of New York, and has released 14 albums so far, linked up with Touchstone Records, a division of Disney, for distribution in France. Storper says he has noticed that ''Disney people walk out whistling a happy tune after a screening of one of their pictures. I met who are with them. It is good to see a mainstream company saying, 'Maybe we should look at ways to have a better connection to our community . . . Finding ways to get good music to a new audience, helping people discover it, he considers that he is in the happy position of being able to build a strong qualitative case along with a healthy product base.