Composer and arranger Gary McFarland (1933-71) and the legendary trumpeter and once-featured soloist in the Duke Ellington band, Clark Terry (1920-2015) get together and head “south of the border” for an especially tasty slice of Tijuana Jazz. This aptly-named record was clearly aimed at jumping aboard the runaway train that was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in the mid-sixties.
Make no mistake, 1965 was a banner year for the TJB: The group issued two of the year’s most popular albums, Whipped Cream & Other Delights (with that now-iconic cover) and Going Places. Indeed, Whipped Cream was the number one LP in the U.S. when “Tijuana Jazz” was recorded, and remained there well in to the following year.
(According to Wikipedia, Whipped Cream & Other Delights was the number-one album of 1966, outselling The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones.)
The TJB – which was just the brilliant Alpert, multi-tracked on trumpet, along with famed studio musicians The Wrecking Crew – also had a bunch of Top 40 singles on the radio in 1965, including “Tijuana Taxi,” “Spanish Flea” and a Top 10 cover of Bobby Scott’s “A Taste of Honey.”
The success of the TJB during this period also spawned any number of Tiawannabe “bands.” These are mostly studio groups on low-budget labels with names like the Living Brass, The Tijuana Trumpets, The Border Brass, The Happy Trumpets, The Mexicali Brass and The Toreador Brass.
Perhaps the more notable – and notorious – of these knockoffs was The Mariachi Brass, fronted by former heartthrob and West Coast Cool trumpeter Chet Baker (1929-88). The first of the group’s four(!) Meximush records, A Taste of Tequila, reached number 120 on the Billboard charts, remarkably making it Baker’s single best-selling record ever.
Little wonder, then, that someone like Gary McFarland (who had already waxed the earliest jazz covers of The Beatles, Burt Bacharach and the Rolling Stones) on a label like Impulse – which, at the time, was balancing the free jazz of John Coltrane and others with sometimes blatantly gimmicky crossover fare – caught the border bug. Recruiting the likes of Clark Terry – who was among the influences for Miles Davis, who, in turn, was an influence on Herb Alpert – to lead the charge here was no mean feat.
Terry had previously factored in McFarland orchestras featured on Bob Brookmeyer’s Gloomy Sunday and Other Bright Moments (1961), McFarland’s own The Jazz Version of ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ (1962), Stan Getz’s Big Band Bossa Nova (1962) and Gerry Mulligan ’63. But here, he takes a commanding leading role.
Still, Tijuana Jazz is anything but a cheap knockoff. This is a terrifically enjoyable outing that boasts some pretty solid musicianship – from the superb arrangements to the first-rate jazz interplay – and a genuine sincerity for getting it right. There are absolutely no gimmicks and not one ounce of cheese on hand. For all the talent involved here, I’d say it even one ups the TJB for south-of-the-border jazz.
That is largely due to Gary McFarland’s imaginative charts and clever originals and Clark Terry’s formidable presence. The rhythm section – or McFarland’s “& Co.” band here – is pretty strong, too; with Joe Newman on trumpet, Bob Brookmeyer (who takes a number of tasty solos here and, coincidentally, co-led a quintet with Terry during this period) on trombone, Barry Galbraith on guitar, Toots Thielman on guitar (and harmonica on “Fantastic, That’s You,” “Marcheta” and “Soul Bird”), Bob Bushnell on Fender bass, Grady Tate or Mel Lewis on drums and a surprisingly uncredited Willie Bobo on percussion. McFarland plays marimba throughout, and mans the Wurlitzer electric piano on “Ira Schwartz’s Golden Dream.”
The group here covers such typical fare as “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)” (1939), “Marchéta (A Love Song of Old Mexico)” (1921) and “Mexicali Rose” (1923). There are also such unexpected jazz standards as “Limehouse Blues” (1921), “Sweet Georgia Brown” (1925), and “Soul Bird (Tin Tin Deo),” which only received its avian nomenclature on the 1965 Creed Taylor-produced Cal Tjader release “Soul Bird: Whiffenpoof.”
McFarland himself provides such lively originals as “Acapulco at Night,” “Granny’s Samba” (which he would revive for the 1969 Armando Peraza album Wild Thing), “Mary Jane” (which actually predates the Sesame Street theme, to which this bears significant similarity), and the thrilling “Ira Schwartz’s Golden Dream” – a tongue-in-cheek ode named for McFarland’s manager, Norman Schwartz, whose “dream” was to present McFarland fronting a jazz orchestra, which he actually orchestrated a mere two months later, a performance that was captured on the 1966 McFarland Impulse record Profiles.
Two seemingly gimmicky, yet remarkably apropos George Cates tracks are here as well: “Fantastic, That’s You,” which featured on several (of co-writer) Bob Thiele productions over the next year or so, and “Tijuana,” which also appeared on the Thiele-produced record Olé Dixie (1965) by Dixieland trumpeter Yank Lawson and the Cates-produced Winchester Cathedral (1966) by bandleader Lawrence Welk.
“Tijuana: Happy Jazz for Fun”
Released in February 1966 (mere weeks after the Mariachi Brass debut), Tijuana Jazz attracted more favorable notices than actual sales. “The marriage of jazz and Latin music has been attempted many times,” wrote the music industry magazine Billboard, “but it seldom comes out as successful as on this outing.”
“McFarland’s Tijuana Jazz is considerably better than Herb Alpert,” wrote musician/journalist Mike Zwerin in his surprising four-star DownBeat review. Zwerin even considered that one of the album’s tracks could crack the pop charts, as such instrumentalists as Alpert and Ramsey Lewis recently had.
He continues, “Apparently people are willing to listen to instrumental music again. Now McFarland follows with a more musical, and occasionally really exciting, version of instrumental pop. When the masses become accustomed to hearing popular music conceived and played intelligently, they might eventually support intelligent jazz. So, I suppose my four stars are as much for etymological significance as for musical quality.”
A single of “Limehouse Blues,” backed with “South of the Border,” was issued, but never went anywhere. Neither side was designated as the “A-side,” nor was either track edited, as so many jazz singles tend to be.
But all was for naught.
Perhaps Tijuana Jazz – more jazz than Mexicali – was simply lost in the glut of music that resulted from the short-lived Tijuanamania of the day. But the disc – which has never seen a CD, digital or 180-gram vinyl reissue – holds up remarkably well some half century later and, is certainly better than almost all of the like-minded imitadora of the period.
If the presumed kitsch of the program threatens some comers, those who actually listen will respond positively to the depth of joy of the music found within. It swings, no matter which side of the border you’re on.
Those who dig Tijuana Jazz will also want to know that Gary McFarland contributed two like-minded originals not heard anywhere else to drummer Dannie Richmond’s Impulse album “In” Jazz for the Culture Set (1966). The album, which was recorded and released at around the same time as Tijuana Jazz, features McFarland’s “High Camp” and “Pfoofnick” – neither of which would be out of place on the McFarland/Terry set – as well as the contributions of Tijuana Jazz guitarist Toots Thielemans (who is featured on “High Camp”).
#McFarlandMonday