Two Of A Kind: TJB vs. BMB -- "Acapulco 1922"

Which version is your favourite?

  • Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

    Votes: 5 45.5%
  • The Baja Marimba Band

    Votes: 6 54.5%

  • Total voters
    11

JOv2

Well-Known Member
  • The Tijuana Brass and the Baja Marimba Band have at least eight recorded songs in common.
  • Vote for your favourite version and tell us a bit about why you made your selection. (The selections are listed in release order.)





(Note to Harry and Rudy: Wasn't sure whether to post in Herb's forum or here. Please amend as necessary. Thanks.)
 
I suppose my favorite of these two would be Herb's - that's the one I heard first, so it seems definitive. But actually, the first version I heard was the mono recording from the mono LONELY BULL album, which was the same on the mono single. The extraneous woodblocks and other percussions added to make a stereo recording out of a mono just clutter the record up.

 
And, a final note on the song. When it appeared on the Collectors' Choice compilation for the Baja Marimba Band, the song was listed a hundred years too early:

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The Baja version was the First version I heard way back in 1979 when the only album of theirs available was "Greatest Hits" I didn't get to hear Herb's Version on Lonely Bull until 1982 as in my area Herb's early albums were never easy to find and the stores usually stocked his most recent Releases mostly Compilations and Rise and Whipped Cream but that started changing after "Rise" when much of his In print back catalog began showing up but I love Acapulco 1922 as the BMB gave it a nice Dixieland spin to it and knowing now it was written by Herb ( but credited to his brother Dave) I wasn't aware of the facts at the time but the songwriter credits on the cover gave me a hint that there was much more than what I saw
 
The TJB version, because it sounds as if it could have been recorded in 1922. I listen to it, and I visualize a silent film taking place in Acapulco (or somewhere abouts in Mexico).
 
I'm not a huge fan of either version. I heard the Baja version first, I think, because The Lonely Bull was among the last TJB albums I heard.... I remember hoping the TJB version of "Acapulco" would have more zing to it than it turned out to have, or maybe not be so "bouncy." (Or as Herb might have said, I wished it was funkier.) And, I'm less of a fan of Herb's trumpet sound on the earliest albums anyway. Long story short, I wish he would have given it the "El Presidente" treatment -- taken another shot at it when he had his sound more finalized.
 
If this were a boxing match, I'd say Baja wins by a split decision. Both versions are good as each has a clever arrangement.
 
The free-for-all sections on Acapulco 1922 — featuring an intoxicated-sounding horn section — must have been a gas to record. When I first heard this at age 10 this was my favourite number with that mirthful soprano sax and the pileup ending with the trumpeter nailing a G above high C! (I wonder who those screech and reach trumpeters were that Herb hired?).

Herb's 45 version is preferred to the LP version for the reason Harry cited, and although the piano is terrific, it sounds more like a demo to me.

BMB's drunken crash-collision version is the one for me.

The TJB version, because it sounds as if it could have been recorded in 1922. I listen to it, and I visualize a silent film taking place in Acapulco (or somewhere abouts in Mexico).
The visual I always associated with this piece is a man waiting for a haircut in a barbershop (the whistling barber) in a small mid-western railroad town (the piano groove)...circa 1922.

Harry, any idea why the song is attributed to Eldon Allan? I've always seen song authorship attributed to Dave Alpert.
 
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And, a final note on the song. When it appeared on the Collectors' Choice compilation for the Baja Marimba Band, the song was listed a hundred years too early:

Along those lines, here's a really odd one: According to the liner notes of a Paul Bley' Floater LP -- recording of the LP began in 1693 -- then he waited 269 years to finish up the recording (which is quite a feat in itself given recording technology wasn't developed until the late 1800s).

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