Tacos and Herb Alpert

[Teasing the Korean]

We are making tacos for dinner and listening to the Tijuana Brass. I don't think they get enough love from you guys. They are one of the greatest jazz combos of all time. 

[JSngry]

I give them all the love I have for them.

[Teasing the Korean]

I don't know if you guys have ever tried the Garden of Eatin' brand taco shells, but they come with this totally 1970s-style taco sauce that you simply cannot find by itself. It is like time travel, like old-skool Ortega.

We are pairing this with Herb Alpert in MONO. You have to hear the mono versions of the Tijuana Brass. We have the first 8 albums in mono, but we have not yet found Herb Alpert's 9th in mono. This dates from the period when they were phasing out mono. Still, the comp I made from the first 8 in mono generally gets us through dinner. 

Anyway, this is one of the greatest jazz combos of the 1960s, although I file them in the space-age bachelor pad section. I also file Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, and Bob Graettinger in the space-age bachelor pad section.

You guys need to eat more tacos and listen to more Herb Alpert. 

 

[GA Russell]

My favorite of theirs was their third album, South of the Border.  I don't think it sold well compared to their first, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh.

I remember going to the store in March, 1964, and seeing a rotating rack filled with two brand new albums hot off the press (probably the day of their release):  The Tijuana Brass's second album and The Beatles' "Second" Album.

Edited May 4, 2020 by GA Russell

[JSngry]

40 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

You guys need to eat more tacos...

You have no idea who you're talking to about that....

[jlhoots]

Love tacos.

[Teasing the Korean]

2 hours ago, GA Russell said:

My favorite of theirs was their third album, South of the Border.  I don't think it sold well compared to their first, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh.

I remember going to the store in March, 1964, and seeing a rotating rack filled with two brand new albums hot off the press (probably the day of their release):  The Tijuana Brass's second album and The Beatles' "Second" Album.

That is the first album on which they truly solidified their sound. "Mexican Shuffle" is a good example. And also "All My Loving," where they cleverly cop Sinatra's arrangement of "I Get a Kick Out of You" and modulate up a half step on the ii-V progression. You know the part I mean? Have you tried those Garden of Eatin taco shells with the 70s taco sauce? It is really hard to find taco ingredients these days that deliver that 70s Mexican flavor. You need to pick these up and eat several tacos while listening to the "South of the Border" album.

[GA Russell]

TTK, I'll look for that taco brand.  Will it cost me my Donald Trump stimulus check?

[Teasing the Korean]

9 minutes ago, GA Russell said:

TTK, I'll look for that taco brand.  Will it cost me my Donald Trump stimulus check?

They were affordable last time I checked. Hopefully the food supply chain will stay intact. 

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

well i have this one from 1974 in mono cause its the latest US mono lp ive ever seen, a year after atlantic stopped their mono promos.  it continued on 45s until 1984 

Edited May 4, 2020 by chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

excuse me, 1985.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

On 5/4/2020 at 4:23 PM, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

well i have this one from 1974 in mono cause its the latest US mono lp ive ever seen, a year after atlantic stopped their mono promos.  it continued on 45s until 1984 

Have you tried the Garden of Eatin' taco sauce that I described?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i dont know how to cook that well, i wouldn't know how to fill them

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

i dont know how to cook that well, i wouldn't know how to fill them

 Do you order Mexican takeout when you listen to the Tijuana Brass?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

the place i like is too far during the crisis, haven't rode the bus since first week of mar

[JSngry]

Cool Herb, Mean Herb...

 

[DMP]

I prefer Chet Baker & the Mariachi Brass for my dinner music. 

[Teasing the Korean]

48 minutes ago, DMP said:

I prefer Chet Baker & the Mariachi Brass for my dinner music. 

Respectfully, I think they are awful. There was an X factor in Herb Alpert's music that could not be imitated. The imitators latched onto the superficial elements, but not the true essence. IMO.

[sgcim]

The Love album from 1967, "Forever Changes" had a schistload of Tijuana Brass-like arrangements on it. Arthur Lee used to meet with the great arr./composer David Angel daily for two weeks, and they'd sit at the piano and Lee would sing or play what he wanted on each tune. Angel would orchestrate it for strings and trumpets, with optional tacos.

[Teasing the Korean]

29 minutes ago, sgcim said:

The Love album from 1967, "Forever Changes" had a schistload of Tijuana Brass-like arrangements on it. Arthur Lee used to meet with the great arr./composer David Angel daily for two weeks, and they'd sit at the piano and Lee would sing or play what he wanted on each tune. Angel would orchestrate it for strings and trumpets, with optional tacos.

By the time I got that LP, I was finished with 60s pop. I was very sad; I was trying to imagine how it might have affected me when I was 16. 

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

There was an X factor in Herb Alpert's music that could not be imitated. The imitators latched onto the superficial elements, but not the true essence. IMO.

I heard about a far-later bacaharach solo conducting gig where he was trying to get the trumpet soloist to get that sound, and his alleged direction was to "play it like fog, like mist....LIKE HERB ALPERT..."

and you know to most trumpet players that's like a knife in the back and gut all at once, and quite understandably so, but still, that's what it is. No matter how cheezy (and not the taco kind) that shit was, Herb Alpert did have a sound. Personally, the TJB stuff pretty much sucks to me (I mean, crap, it was between-innings music in the Astrodome in its first years, that's how long it's been grating on my nerves), but to deny that there is a sound there is just foolish. And a sound is nothing more than a tool with which to construct. So Christ, Herb Alpert might well have been one of Burt Bacarach's muses, right?

I think that that sound has some very useful uses (sic), see Gary McFarland, but the TJB themselves? YUCK!!!!!

[Teasing the Korean]

52 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I heard about a far-later bacaharach solo conducting gig where he was trying to get the trumpet soloist to get that sound, and his alleged direction was to "play it like fog, like mist....LIKE HERB ALPERT..."

and you know to most trumpet players that's like a knife in the back and gut all at once, and quite understandably so, but still, that's what it is. No matter how cheezy (and not the taco kind) that shit was, Herb Alpert did have a sound. Personally, the TJB stuff pretty much sucks to me (I mean, crap, it was between-innings music in the Astrodome in its first years, that's how long it's been grating on my nerves), but to deny that there is a sound there is just foolish. And a sound is nothing more than a tool with which to construct. So Christ, Herb Alpert might well have been one of Burt Bacarach's muses, right?

I think that that sound has some very useful uses (sic), see Gary McFarland, but the TJB themselves? YUCK!!!!!

It was a pretty ubiquitous sound throughout the 60s and even into the 70s. Love it hate it - I LOVE it - the sound was distinctive.

I love that track you posted above. They were trying to expand their sound by then. I think that is the last album I have by them.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

12 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I love that track you posted above. They were trying to expand their sound by then. I think that is the last album I have by them.

I've always looked at it as Alpert giving John Pisano a chance at some some real revenue.

which, btw, would have been a real solid thing to do, like giving somebody a B-Side of a 45. Pays the same as the A-Side...or paid the same, I should say.

[Teasing the Korean]

I used to occasionally guest host a long-running Latin/Latin jazz radio show. I was the only non-Latino ever invited to do so, and I would end up doing the show a couple of times a year.

On one show, I went out on a limb and played Herb Alpert's gorgeous version of "Tangerine" from "Whipped Cream." I joked on air about never being invited back again. 

When I talked to the host a week or so later, I asked him if I was fired. He replied, "Are you kidding me? I LOVE Herb Alpert!"

So drop your prejudices for 2:49 and listen to this:

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

I'm old enough to have heard all those records, full sides of them at a time more than a few times enough. I know what they sound like, and it's not prejudice that keeps me from loving them, nor is it a disdain for tacos, which I love as much as I dislike TJB. It's simple fucking real life real time experience, that's it. Period.

But let me tell you a funny story anyway...

I had a college buddy, a trumpet player who always had an instinct for "entertainment", right? Had a good ear and good taste, wasn't a great player, but still, a really shrewd guy about what worked as entertainment, why, and what didn't (and also why). He could do a good Herb Alpert imitation, and laughed hiss ass off about how if HE could do it....

So...10-15 years pass, it's like, 1987-88, we've long ago lost touch, and one day in a Kroger, here this guy is. I don't see him, he sees me, comes up and I'm like WHOA!!! DUDE! What the hell have you been up to????

And he's gotten into local TV production, gotten a good gig doing both salaried and freelance work, married this gorgeous local model/actor, this cat's doing well for himself, so I ask him, you still play???

and he says, nah, I gave it up after I damn near went broke on a Tijuana Brass cover band.

Oh REALLY??? Tell me more...

And he's all like, yeah, I got investors, I got uniforms, I got charts, I made a top-shelf demo, man, I got photos, COLOR photos, spent everybody's money, got the TOTAL package ready and then took it to the streets. I'm thinking, hey, this is Dallas, cheese capitol of North America,  I'm gonna clean up with country clubs and anniversaries and Cinco De Mayo For White People gigs, ANYPLACE where people would want to LOVE to remember HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS.

Yeah, and?

Not one call. Not one. NOT ONE GODDAMN CALL...(long pause...)

I THOUGHT THERE WAS A MARKET!!!!

Ok, I tried not to laugh too much, because this was obviously bringing back bad memories. But try is all I could do.

And to this day, whenever I see an obviously and spectacularly bad miscalculation about product, that's my go to line -

I THOUGHT THERE WAS A MARKET!!!!

True story.