Ep. XXIX: 'Christmas Album' - Herb Alpert

 Welcome back, fans.  For today's installment, we're headed south of the border for some Tijuana-fashioned yuletide jammage. . .

Album Title:  Christmas Album

Album Artist:  Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

I picked up this gem during last February's great Record haul with Dad.  It was a buck, it's a Tijuana Christmas album, it's a no-brainer.

It should go without saying that anyone sitting down and putting this record on their turntable knows exactly what they're getting themselves into.  Herb's trumpet is prominent on most tracks, with his band's '60s laid-back swing backing him up on familiar Holiday standards.  It's unoffensive, familiar, and doesn't take any chances with the well-known material - which, for a pigeon-holed genre artist like this band, is probably a safe gamble.  Still, it leaves you wanting a little bit more in terms of arrangement.

When I picked this up, I was honestly expecting a more upbeat Tijuana-styled album from Herb and Co.  Not so much with this record.  This LP is straight-up, '60s, holiday cocktail music, with a Latin-infused twist.  Like several holiday albums I've reviewed previously, this is turtleneck sweater-wearing, cigarette-smoking, holiday-themed martini-sipping music one would place on their living room Hi-Fi while they entertain their neighborhood guests.  Only, in Tijuana.

(Why someone would wear a turtleneck sweater in Mexico is beyond me - it's hot as shit down there.)

"Hey amigos, anybody down for a nap?"

Anyway, the music, despite it's obvious Latin sound, is very '60s - just that slooooow, chill '60s swing.  It's much more chill than I would have expected.  I guess if you're a huge Herb Alpert fan - and you're probably not, as most Herb Alpert fans must be dead (that's all you can find in the record section at thrift stores anymore) - you can probably already guess what these slow jams of his sound like.  As if his band started falling asleep halfway through the recording process and Mr. Alpert just said 'screw it' and kept the tapes rolling.

I love me some Holiday, well-wishing, 'from our house to yours' messages on the back of Christmas albums. . .

All in all, it's an okay background LP, but not something I'd put on very often.  I rarely feel the need to wear a sweater and chill out with a martini in Mexico.

VERDICT:  6/10 - Decent  (As expected, and definitely not too bad. . . just a little too chill for my liking.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. XXVI: 'Tijuana Christmas' - The Border Brass Band

 Feliz Navidad, muchachos (y muchachas.)

Album Title:  Tijuana Christmas

Album Artist:  The Border Brass Band

When I first stumbled across this gem in a thrift store, I nearly crapped my pants.  And that's something I haven't done in, like, twelve years.  Thereabouts.

Honestly, it's like this album was designed just for Yours Truly.  I mean, the cover itself looks like something Virgil Q's Dixieland Kazoo Revue would throw on their Christmas album (it's still in the works, fans.)  From the get-go, the hombre on the LP cover clearly catches one's eye, as it did mine when I was ruffling through stacks of Katie Smith, Mantovani, and Andy Williams.  Clearly this dude's getting into the spirit of Christmas.

Es muy bueno.

Badass cover art aside, this music collection is super badass, and I don't like to throw a multiplier like 'super' around readily, gang.  No, this really does earn the 'super':  instrumental arrangements of Holiday standards, given a Tijuana twist.  It sounds more or less exactly how I imagined it would.

This doesn't mean every track on here gets the mariachi treatment, mind you.  We've got some harpsichord interludes here and there in a few songs, as well as that spy-themed, swingin' '60s sound.  It might not sound like it'd blend well with the more Latin-ish, typical-Tijuana instrumentals (a la Herb Alpert, per se), but, if you think about it, an entire album of mariachi Christmas music might be a little too much.

Even for me.

This is the Christmas album they made for those movies where James Bond has to track down a Mexican arms dealer during the Holidays, and as he flies through the crowded streets of Tijuana in some sporty '60s coupe - with a hot-ass blonde sitting beside him in the passenger seat, exchanging machine gun fire with multiple banditos on motorcycles in hot pursuit, 007 learns the true meaning of Christmas.

. . .

Sounds like a pretty shitty movie, actually.  But at least we know now that it'd have a bitchin' soundtrack.

VERDICT:  9/10 - Cowabunga! (Aye dios mio! )

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -