The Mexicali Brass- Viva Mexicali Brass

$3 bucks I paid for this one.  Yep, $3 is the new bargain price.  As I am quite familiar with the work of The Mexicali Brass, I decided to take my chances with this one, which appears to be Chet Baker-less.  I mean, they were not shy about plastering his name on the records he played on.  

This record , released on Crown in 1967, follows this Tijuana Brass knock off with ten songs of Latin flavor.  By this point, I do not know what more I can say about this group as there is not a whole lot of information out there and I have already posted about everything I know.  If someone knows something, please let me know.

Decent album.  Sounds like one would expect.  For a sample, I went with “Dengozo”.  Satisfactory.

The Mexicali Brass- A Taste of Honey

Here is something I got for $3.20 with the Memorial Day 20% off discount last year, I believe.  Have been wondering how involved I will be in this years Memorial Day Sale.  I am kind of at peak record inventory and really do not want to increase it.  I currently have 3 shelves of unlisted records.  It was mainly due to my hitting up every Half Price Books in town three years ago that caused this inventory to grow.

Well here is this from The Tijuana Brass knock off, The Mexicali Brass.  Chet Baker’s name is not on this which leads me to believe his is not on this album.  Brought to you by Crown Records in 1964, the album tears thru ten tracks with various interest.  A couple of the tracks are pretty good.  Well sort of good at least.  I mean, this is a clear Herb Alpert copy, so much so that I believe Alpert sued to stop these records.  At least that is what I took away from the fellow blog post below.

Music By The Pound’s blog post

 

For a sample, I went with “When The Saints Go Marchin’ In” which borrows its beat and rhythm from “Brazil”.  I really liked the title track which oddly enough was not from the play turned movie A Taste Of Honey.  The song writers just wanted to capitalize on its popularity.  I recently saw the film on TV.  I really liked it but I like that period of British film in general.  Anyway, Rita Tushingham’s performance as the first angry young woman in a genre of angry young men was great.  So with all that, here is “When The Saints Go Marchin’ In”.

I knew well in advance what this when I bought it and for what it is, it really is not that bad.  Satisfactory.

Guadalajara Brass- Around The World

This was $1.  The track list was impressive.  The cover suggested a cheap Tijuana Brass knock off, which was popular during the latin explosion of the sixties.

Well, that more or less is what this is.  I could not find much info on the “band” itself but one source suggested that this might have been a legitimate band and not some consortment of studio musicians thrown together by Coronet/Premier Records.

In doing research, I came across a posting of this record from a fellow music blogger, Unearthed In The Atomic Attic.  His review is less than positive some of their previous work stating it was “so bad and not bad good”.   I am going to be honest, this is not a great album.  But in that line of honesty, you kind of had to know what this was going to sound like before purchase and that is exactly what I said above, a cheap Tijuana Brass knock off.

Link to Unearthed in The Atomic Age

That being said, I am sure this came out sometime in the late 60’s.  Other than that, I do not know much else about the subject.  A lot of common instrumentals at the time, including “Moon River”, “Midnight in Moscow”, and what was one of the MORE popular tunes of the era (and keeping the alliteration up), “Mondo Cane” or “More”, which is what I used as a sample. For the record, this song has less of the brass on it and is more string driven.

Eh, meh.  I know.  I kind of knew what this would sound like and it was dirt cheap but I was hoping for more and not just the song.

 

Los Norte Americanos- Galveston, I Saw The Light, and Other Hits In The Tijuana Sound

I paid $4 for this?  God knows why?  I remember I had a good reason why when I bought it but for some reason, it escapes me now.  Egads, $4 I paid for this steamer.

I guess I should take a second to point out that I am okay and have weathered the floods in Houston associated with Hurricane Harvey.  As I am on the 20th floor, I was really never concerned.

I was the only one able to make it to the office today (after some re-routing) and it looks like we only took minimal water and will only need to replace some carpet ( we elevated all our inventory off the ground prior to the storm and used my idea to use folding tables to do so).  And it looks like I will get a paycheck this Friday.  Plus gasoline was not too terribly gauge-y yet.

But I must acknowledge that I am one of the lucky ones and this storm did cause a lot of devastation.  I did spent a lot of my time holed up working on this blog so when you read about me preparing for Harvey in October, that is why.

The record states this is by Los Norte Americanos but in all reality, this was probably done by one of the many sessions bands for Somerset/ Allshire Records, more than likely outside of the US.  Made, no doubt very hastily in a bid to compete with the Latin explosion of the time, coming mainly for A&M Records (Herb Alpert, Sergio Mendez, etc), I believe this came out around 1969.

The first time I listened to this, there was something I liked about it.  Well what ever that was, it has escaped me the second time around.  I found this record to be pretty insipid and generally uninspiring.

But we do need a sample, so I went with the song I liked best, the Jim Webb penned anti-war song which Glen Campbell made into a hit (downplaying most of Webb’s sentiment), “Galveston”.

Meh. Got taken to the cleaners with this record.

The Mariachi Brass Featuring Chet Baker- A Taste of Tequila

Welcome back to Continental Week . Although this may not fall under the true definition of Continental music, it definitely belongs with the other records I have posted this month.  It was $3.  I got it for the inclusion of Chet Baker.  I would love to put some of his solo work on this site but it is hard to come by and probably not under $5.

 

IMDB Link to Movie

On the flight overseas I made in November, I watched the Baker Biopic Born to Be Blue.  A Canadian/ UK production filmed in Sudbury, Ontario and released in 2015, it was my favorite movie from the trip.  I thought it was fantastic for two reasons.

Baker was very prolific both early and late in his career.  In the middle, there was a period of struggle and that is the period in which this film is set.  That is first reason I really liked it.  This period made for a good story.  It showed his struggle to get clean off drugs, to learn to play the horn again, and to compete with Miles Davis and the East Coast sound.  Second, I thought Ethan Hawke did an excellent job in his portrayal of Baker.  Hawke was not playing a pretty boy.  He was playing a former pretty boy.

There is a brief scene in the movie (as well as the above trailer), in which Baker was struggling to get work and takes any job he can get.  One such job is with the Mariachi Brass.  In the movie he is wearing a sombrero in the studio. And that is pretty close to the truth.  Baker joined this quickly assembled response to Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass.  Not really highlighted in the movie was the fact that Baker played flugelhorn on the album, quite possibly because his embouchure was still healing due to be broken by a drug dealer over non-payment of services rendered. This scene was also shown in the movie as well.

And since I was over in that part of the world, I stopped by the hotel where Baker overdosed in Amsterdam.

Baker released five albums with the Brass. This album, released in 1966, was the first, I believe.  Arranged and conducted by Jack Nitzsche, this album has a decent selection of songs with a Latin tint to them.  It should go without saying but this is not among Baker’s best work.  In fact, it is rather uninspiring.  What it is is an interesting picture of a period of struggle for Baker, the same as the biopic.  It is also interesting to hear Baker on an instrument other than trumpet.

There are some decent moments on this.  Two country standards, “Flowers On The Wall” and “El Paso” come to mind.  That is why I am using them as samples.

For the most part, this is meh territory.  But seriously, go see Born To Be Blue.  I thought it was a great film.