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Tijuana Moods


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Just listened to this for the first time!

This is a great album IMHO. Really inventive playing all around, and by a cast including some lesser known guys.

Clarence Shaw is awesome on trumpet, and I really like Bill Triglia on piano. Does anyone know anything else either of these did? I hadn't even heard of Triglia, but he's quite original.

Anyway, a hearty recommendation for this great Mingus album!

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I think that we have to take the Mingus quote with a grain of salt!

I've been living with this music for a long time! I can heartily recommend any of the recordings that Mingus made with the front line of Shaw, Hadi and Knepper--my favorite Mingus band!

Especially. . . East Coasting on Bethlehem.

Edited by jazzbo
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Clarence Gene Shaw (b. Detroit, Michigan, 6/16/26) was one of the "mystery" musicians for those of us who grew up with this music. I, like you, was blown away when I first heard him on 'TIJUANA MOODS" and made a real effort to find other music featuring his unique trumpet sound. Other than his recordings with Mingus, he did three fine albums for the Argo label between 1962 and 1964 -- "Breakthrough" 707, "Debut in Blues" 726. and "Carnival Sketches" 743. As far as I know none of these have been reissued on CD in this country. The story has been widely circulated that during the taping of the Bethlehem jazz and poetry album, "SYMPOSIUM" in 1958, Shaw became ill, and was forced to miss a session. Shaw tried to call Mingus, but Mingus has apparently taken his phone off the hook. Eventually an angry Mingus called Shaw at home to say that he was ruining the recording date, and that "I'm going to have some cats kill you!!" Shaw was so upset by this that he actually destroyed his trumpet, and never played for Mingus again, and Bill Hardman played trumpet on the remaining two cuts. It should be remembered that TIJUANA MOODS was actually recorded in 1957, and not released until 1962, at which time Clarence Shaw become an instant hit with jazz fans. However, it is not certain whether his intimidation by Mingus had an effect of his susequent career, but he never fulfilled the incredible promise he offered in with TIJUANA MOODS.

I have consulted all of my many jazz directories, encyclopedias, and discographies, but I am unable to find out much about his life after the mid-1960s. I do know that he is deceased.

Garth.

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A technical question - is it worth trading in my French RCA 2 CD edition of this session from a few years ago for the USA Bluebird 2-fer? There appear to be quite a few additional tracks on the U.S. version but they also are all false starts and incomplete takes...anything illuminating? Sound quality comparison? The French version sounds fantastic as is, and my inclination has been to hold off on "upgrading."

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A technical question - is it worth trading in my French RCA 2 CD edition of this session from a few years ago for the USA Bluebird 2-fer? There appear to be quite a few additional tracks on the U.S. version but they also are all false starts and incomplete takes...anything illuminating? Sound quality comparison? The French version sounds fantastic as is, and my inclination has been to hold off on "upgrading."

You can probably keep the French set.

I made the switch, but I'm a huge fan of this band. The fragments give you some studio chatter and a little insight into Mingus' studio methods. Nothing earthshattering. Disc one is 77 minutes long and disc two is 79, if that helps.

The sound is great on both versions

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A technical question - is it worth trading in my French RCA 2 CD edition of this session from a few years ago for the USA Bluebird 2-fer? There appear to be quite a few additional tracks on the U.S. version but they also are all false starts and incomplete takes...anything illuminating? Sound quality comparison? The French version sounds fantastic as is, and my inclination has been to hold off on "upgrading."

You can probably keep the French set.

I made the switch, but I'm a huge fan of this band. The fragments give you some studio chatter and a little insight into Mingus' studio methods. Nothing earthshattering. Disc one is 77 minutes long and disc two is 79, if that helps.

The sound is great on both versions

Chuck, that replacement question is one I thought about, too. Can you answer another question: the french disc has other mixes on disc 2, right? Not music as it happened, but other mixes?

Does the US one have snippets of music as it happened instead of these other mixes, or in addition to?

thanks,

ubu

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Here is the track listing, so you can compare.

Disc one, tracks 1-5 = original lp

6 Dizzy Moods (composite) 8:23

7 Ysabel's Table Dance (composite) 13:07

8 Los Mariachis (composite) 12:28

9 Flamingo (alternate) 6:43

Disc two

1 Tijuana Gift Shop (alternate) 4:43

2 A Colloquial Dream 10:54

3 Flamingo (composite) 7:06

the rest is called "session footage" and is made up of a series of incomplete takes, false starts and studio chatter. Listed as follows:

4 Ysabel's Table Dance 11:43

5 Dizzy Moods (breakdown) 1:35

6 Dizzy Moods (bass solos) 0:48

7 Tijuana Gift Shop (breakdowns) 7:11

8 Tijuana Gift Shop (solos edited out of master take) 1:22

9 Los Mariachis 4:29

10 Los Mariachis 9:05

11 Los Mariachis 14:54

12 A Colloquial Dream (breakdown) 0:33

13 A Colloquial Dream (breakdown) 3:22

Are you really confused now?

I have to say I've been playing the "session footage" as I type this, and I'm loving it. YMMV!

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Here is the track listing, so you can compare.

Disc one, tracks 1-5 = original lp

6 Dizzy Moods (composite) 8:23

7 Ysabel's Table Dance (composite) 13:07

8 Los Mariachis (composite) 12:28

9 Flamingo (alternate) 6:43

Disc two

1 Tijuana Gift Shop (alternate) 4:43

2 A Colloquial Dream 10:54

3 Flamingo (composite) 7:06

the rest is called "session footage" and is made up of a series of incomplete takes, false starts and studio chatter. Listed as follows:

4 Ysabel's Table Dance 11:43

5 Dizzy Moods (breakdown) 1:35

6 Dizzy Moods (bass solos) 0:48

7 Tijuana Gift Shop (breakdowns) 7:11

8 Tijuana Gift Shop (solos edited out of master take) 1:22

9 Los Mariachis 4:29

10 Los Mariachis 9:05

11 Los Mariachis 14:54

12 A Colloquial Dream (breakdown) 0:33

13 A Colloquial Dream (breakdown) 3:22

Are you really confused now?

I have to say I've been playing the "session footage" as I type this, and I'm loving it. YMMV!

Thanks a lot, Chuck!

This pushes me over the edge!

ubu

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I've got it on vinyl, a double-album that has alternate takes and such on the second disc.

This is a truly classic album, but how many thousands of times is it going to be re-issued in every conceivable format? Whatever happened to having one cannonical version of something (the way the artist wanted it, preferably) and leaving it at that? It reminds me of these obnoxious "corrected" editions of classic novels that started littering the bookshelves over the last 10 or 15 years. Give us all a break.

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A key difference from what you're talking about with "corrected" versions of books is that stuff isn't generally being added to these CDs based on some person's biases regarding translations etc, but rather restored versions as they went down, without editing, and extra takes are simply appearing ALONGSIDE the original edited versions.

That way you get the best of both worlds, and with the ability to use a programming function to skip stuff you're not interested in, well heck, I don't see much to be bothered by.

In some cases I find myself agreeing with the original editing, but in plenty others it was solely a function of the time limitations of vinyl and it's damned nice to have the artist's original vision, just exactly as you're calling for.

Edited by DrJ
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Clarence Gene Shaw (b. Detroit, Michigan, 6/16/26) was one of the "mystery" musicians for those of us who grew up with this music. I, like you, was blown away when I first heard him on 'TIJUANA MOODS" and made a real effort to find other music featuring his unique trumpet sound. Other than his recordings with Mingus, he did three fine albums for the Argo label between 1962 and 1964 -- "Breakthrough" 707, "Debut in Blues" 726. and "Carnival Sketches" 743. As far as I know none of these have been reissued on CD in this country. The story has been widely circulated that during the taping of the Bethlehem jazz and poetry album, "SYMPOSIUM" in 1958, Shaw became ill, and was forced to miss a session. Shaw tried to call Mingus, but Mingus has apparently taken his phone off the hook. Eventually an angry Mingus called Shaw at home to say that he was ruining the recording date, and that "I'm going to have some cats kill you!!" Shaw was so upset by this that he actually destroyed his trumpet, and never played for Mingus again, and Bill Hardman played trumpet on the remaining two cuts. It should be remembered that TIJUANA MOODS was actually recorded in 1957, and not released until 1962, at which time Clarence Shaw become an instant hit with jazz fans. However, it is not certain whether his intimidation by Mingus had an effect of his susequent career, but he never fulfilled the incredible promise he offered in with TIJUANA MOODS.

I have consulted all of my many jazz directories, encyclopedias, and discographies, but I am unable to find out much about his life after the mid-1960s. I do know that he is deceased.

Garth.

Interesting - cheers for that!

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  • 6 years later...

Here is the track listing, so you can compare.

Disc one, tracks 1-5 = original lp

6 Dizzy Moods (composite) 8:23

7 Ysabel's Table Dance (composite) 13:07

8 Los Mariachis (composite) 12:28

9 Flamingo (alternate) 6:43

Disc two

1 Tijuana Gift Shop (alternate) 4:43

2 A Colloquial Dream 10:54

3 Flamingo (composite) 7:06

the rest is called "session footage" and is made up of a series of incomplete takes, false starts and studio chatter. Listed as follows:

4 Ysabel's Table Dance 11:43

5 Dizzy Moods (breakdown) 1:35

6 Dizzy Moods (bass solos) 0:48

7 Tijuana Gift Shop (breakdowns) 7:11

8 Tijuana Gift Shop (solos edited out of master take) 1:22

9 Los Mariachis 4:29

10 Los Mariachis 9:05

11 Los Mariachis 14:54

12 A Colloquial Dream (breakdown) 0:33

13 A Colloquial Dream (breakdown) 3:22

Are you really confused now?

I have to say I've been playing the "session footage" as I type this, and I'm loving it. YMMV!

The version Chuck mentions seems to re-re-re-released again... except this time on Sony/Columbia and very cheaply, I picked up a copy for €8, not bad for 2 cds, but it's the third version of it I've bought on cd, not including the one time I bought it on cassette.

Tijuana Moods

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I think this is my favoutrite Mingus line up too. But if made to choose I'd still go for East Coasting over Tijuana Moods though.

The Bill Evans factor probably swings it for me. Didn't Mingus personally rate this as his best album?

Found the 2CD RCA 'Tijuana Moods' for £5 last year. A good find !

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  • 4 years later...

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