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Features Disc of the day
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
Christmas Album
(A&M, 1968)
Have yourself a samba little Christmas.
The further we get away from the fur-lined festive grotto of the '60s and '70s American lounge sound, the more glorious it seems. While many Americans might possibly have reality-bruised memories of these festive rites of passage (mom 'n' pop sozzled on sidecars while Pat Boone and family shimmy with Scooby Doo) we Brits stare at the pixelated images on YouTube and imagine a winter wonderland far more bright and colourful than our own grim session with a bowl of nuts, mince pies, Empire sherry and Christmas Night With The Stars. Perhaps the urtext of the Santafied style is this 1968 release from Los Angeles trumpeter Herbert Alpert and his gang. Repackaged in 2005, with liner notes that assure us Herb and the gang "weren't going to give the project a going-through-the-motions effort", this cocktail of smooth-sailing jazz, sleighbells, and ba-ba-ba-ing boys and girls now sounds surprisingly groovy. This is thanks in part to the assistance of Herb's "good friend", legendary West Coast jazz trumpeter and arranger Shorty Rogers. Alpert's signature sound - bi-polar honey bee trapped in a yogurt pot - remains ever present, but on tracks like Sleigh Ride and My Favourite Things Rogers brings a woozy fruit punch pep to proceedings and even lets Herb sing a few. Purists out there can dismiss Herb's sound as the epitome of Republican naugahyde cool, but this album still manages to capture the warm, woozy buzz of being one egg-nog over the line. Like the reindeer in the song, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass really know how to fly.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 23/12/2009
Further Listening
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass – Herb Alpert’s Ninth (A&M, 1967)
Vince Guaraldi Trio – A Charlie Brown Christmas (Fantasy, 1965)
Kenny Burrell – Have Yourself A Soulful Little Christmas (Verve, 1966)
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