Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass - "Volume 2" (1963) - A&M Records
Hola Amigos,
Everyone's favorite Jewish trumpet player is back with his second album, simply titled, Volume Two, a record that at the time sold poorly compared to his debut record, The Lonely Bull (1962). Funny, because there's really not a big sonic departure on this record. In fact, it sounds pretty much like everything else Herb Alpert has ever done!
Lesson learned! Put a sexy brunette on the cover and come up with a snappy title and you're good to go! Speaking of which, here's an interesting article about Alpert's famous Whipped Cream album cover model, Miss Dolores Erickson.
Volume Two kicks off with a rowdy crowd at a bullfight with "The Great Manolete"-- Alpert's tribute to the great Spanish Matador featuring some great spaghetti western-style trumpet solos.
Everyone's favorite Jewish trumpet player is back with his second album, simply titled, Volume Two, a record that at the time sold poorly compared to his debut record, The Lonely Bull (1962). Funny, because there's really not a big sonic departure on this record. In fact, it sounds pretty much like everything else Herb Alpert has ever done!
Lesson learned! Put a sexy brunette on the cover and come up with a snappy title and you're good to go! Speaking of which, here's an interesting article about Alpert's famous Whipped Cream album cover model, Miss Dolores Erickson.
Volume Two kicks off with a rowdy crowd at a bullfight with "The Great Manolete"-- Alpert's tribute to the great Spanish Matador featuring some great spaghetti western-style trumpet solos.
His take on Ben E. King's (actually Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector's) "Spanish Harlem" is pretty good, too. It features some signature Alpert trumpet-playing over an accompaniment of marimba and percussion, and ending with a pleasant wordless-vocal chorus with some fine acoustic guitar soloing.
"The Swinger from Seville" is a boozy, striptease-type number written by Alpert. Its like the theme song to some sleazy television game show! (Wife Swap?)
Side one ends with a trio of easy listening ballads, "Winds of Barcelona", "Green Leaves of Summer" and "More." Much of the same, although, we really like the Spanish style guitar and lone trumpet that starts off "Green Leaves".
Side Two kicks off with a cover of Leonard Bernstein's "A-me-ri-ca" from West Side Story.
Perhaps influenced by the fledgling California band called The Beach Boys (heard of 'em?) is Alpert's own composition, "Surfin' Senorita".
There's two Sol Lake compositions, "Marching Thru Madrid" and "Crea Mi Amor", as well as another Herbal Pert original entitled, "Mexican Corn". Sounds yummy!
The album concludes with some more of that rowdy crowd noise, cat calling and bottles clinking. It sounds as if the Mezcal's been flowing all album long! We end with a jubilant, sing-along take on Edith Piaf's familiar "Milord"! (Although I don't think this version is necessarily what the original songwriters intended! A quien le importa!)
RATING: 3.5 Surfin' Señoritas out of 5
Oh. One of my absolute favorites. Thank You Vinyl In The Valley!!!!
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