BMB "As Time Goes By"

[Silentseason]

Of all the A&M albums that were recorded by the Baja Marimba Band I am curious to individual opinions and/or information regarding this album. It is seems to me to be sonically all over the map. I don't know how it was recorded or who Julius used for the tracks.

 

[Harry]

I love it. In fact, I sort of came at the BMB in a backwards order. AS TIME GOES BY, as a promo copy, was already in my record library when I wanted to start listening to the group. Thus I have fond memories of the album.

It's been described here as somewhat akin to Herb's WARM in the sense of being a departure from normal, and a sort of growth period for both.

 

[bob knack]

It sounds like something that could have been released on the CTI label as it has a jazzy kind of feel to it. I doubt if any of the travelling band is on it and may have been recorded after the breakup with studio guys. I can't believe that Picasso Summer is not on this or some other album...they must have spent a lot of money production-wise on the single. And what about Can You Dig It? I think that would have gotten some air-play. Would have made a nice theme song for DJ's. You're right about it being all over the map...bits and pieces cobbled together to make one last LP?

 

[Rudy]

14 years and several hundred albums ago...

AOTW: Baja Marimba Band AS TIME GOES BY (A&M SP 4298)

My favorites are "Samba for Vicky," "Jorjana #1," "Midnight Sun," "Big Noise from Encino" and "Think of Me." I like that it expands musically, although I wish it had less of the strings and the handful of "easy listening" tracks. Hearing Julius in jazz mode is something we never heard enough of!

I think I found this sealed about 20 years ago. I need to clean it up and do a needle drop one of these days.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I think I had this on 8-track when it first came out, and may have had an LP of it at some point but I don't seem to have it at all anymore. The 8-track probably went away when I generally purged myself of 8-tracks, and I'm not sure what happened to the LP....I may have given it away in a grab bag or something. I wasn't all that thrilled with it at the time, obviously.

In retrospect, I wish I still had it, because I think I'd like it better now than I did then. I used to only like the "fast" tunes by Herb, Julius and Sergio (not to mention Bacharach) but since then I've warmed up to the ballads as well.

 

[Rudy]

We had it on LP at home, but when I got my new cassette player/recorder back in the early 70s, this and TJB's Summertime were two cassettes I got with the player as a gift, so I played those quite a bit. I still have those around in fact. They sound awful (as cassettes did back then) but can't part with them for nostalgia reasons.

 

[Bobberman]

This was one of the last BMB titles that completed my collection I got this in 2006 ( I know I was late) and the place I bought it from made needledrop cds as an option needless to say i loved it i only had the single of as time goes by/ spanish flea which i wore out long ago even though it's all over the place I love all the songs especially Jorjana #1 the title song .midnight sun .think of me. We've only just begun and Spanish Flea to me it's a mix of Classic BMB and a little bit of Jazz and not only is it their Final A&M Album but it was kind of a turning point of sorts for them

 

[Bobberman]

And sadly I have reason to believe this album along with many others were among those Lost in the Universal fire sometime back but I hope I'm wrong. However I still hope (albeit not likely) to see at least a Digital release at some point but I'm not Holding my Breath though.

 

[Rudy]

I know UMe will not tell anyone what was lost. It could have been only the multitracks, or it could have been the 2-track masters. They store masters in multiple places. And there could still be production masters scattered around too.

As far as a digital backup, I think I've heard that UMe had done some at standard-resolution CD rate, and were not ideal. (At least Columbia/Legacy, aka Sony, had the smarts to develop DSD, Direct Stream Digital, to work as an archival format, achieving very high resolution.)

A digital release would be welcome, for certain. The BMB sells in way too few numbers to make any future physical releases a viable option.

 

[Steven J. Gross]

This is one of my, if not my all time favorite BMB effort, it's a classy, amazing and sophisticated album...

 

[Silentseason]

Thanks to everyone for the input. The album didn't have the cohesive BMB "sound" as the previous albums on all it's tracks, but that certainly doesn't detract from it. I almost wish Julius had made this a full jazz oriented pop album which alot of the tracks have. I get the feeling that As Time Goes By and We've Only Just Begun were included as a concession in order to try and get airplay, and he maybe threw in a couple of classic sounding BMB songs as well. Still an excellent album.

Another BMB question for those who might know: I am guessing that I Don't Want To Walk Without You from Fresh Air was the BMB version of Herb's This Guy's In Love With You. Who was the singer for that song? Another departure for the band.

 

[Harry]

That was Julius himself singing "I Don't Want To Walk Without You."

 

[Steve Sidoruk]

 

[Mike Blakesley]

My mom-in-law was a TJB fan and I made her a "best of" Baja CD a few years ago -- she had never heard of them but I told her they were in the same ballpark as the TJB. It turned out that "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" was her favorite song on the disk.

 

[AM Matt]

"I Don't Want To Walk Without You" is from "Fresh Air" (late 1969). Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Bobberman]

"I Don't Want To Walk Without You" is from "Fresh Air" (late 1969). Matt Clark Sanford, MI

Another Great BMB Classic in fact "ALL OF THEM ARE GREAT CLASSICS "worth having

 

[Harry]

I started paying attention to popular music on the radio back in the mid-60s. I had discovered the TjB just a bit earlier and found that there was a radio station in my town that would mix in some TjB tracks along with other stuff I was now liking from Dionne Warwick, The Vogues, The Lettermen, Sergio Mendes, etc. You get the picture.

But the Baja Marimba Band was never really on my radar at all. They weren't on my radio station at all that I can recall. And I had always dismissed them as Tijuana Brass wannabees, kind of funny to watch whenever I encountered them on TV, but I didn't pay any attention to their actual music. Stupid me!

In 1969, this radio station DID play "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" and it was so evocative of Herb's earlier vocal hit that it fell right in line stylistically, and I couldn't help but fall in love with it. Even so, I still sort of viewed the BMB as a somewhat lesser act and never bought any of their records. Even though I liked the tracks I'd heard on FAMILY PORTRAIT or SOMETHING FESTIVE, I just never managed to investigate their records.

During radio station record purges that I got to witness and partake of, I managed to grab a fair number of BMB albums - not all - but more than a few. Still, I don't think I ever sampled them. Except I was happy to find that "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" was on FRESH AIR.

It wasn't until finding A&M Corner that I ever turned my conscience onto the Baja Marimba Band. Rudy helped me find some missing albums, still sealed, and my collection of their A&M albums was finally complete. And THEN, I finally decided to actually give them a listen.

While I consider myself head-smack-worthy for ignoring them all those years, , I now delight in giving these recordings a listen now and then. Unlike the well-worn TjB tracks that I'm so familiar with that I can hear the next track in my head before it ever starts, the BMB material is fresh, innovative, and delightful.

All except "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" - it sounds like an "oldie" to me! I still like it, but it's more familiar to me than most.

 

[Silentseason]

Thanks for your BMB story, Harry. I kind of "found" them later in life as well. As my musical tastes began to mature I really began to appreciate the almost ethereal sounds that the marimba/vibes can make, particularly in conjunction that the BMB used them. Their sonic output is so sweet to listen to, even more so today. And the combination of BMB and a thread Bobberman started here led me to fully embrace Cal Tjader.

Oh, and it turns out that Julius has a good singing voice as well.

 

[Bobberman]

Thanks for your BMB story, Harry. I kind of "found" them later in life as well. As my musical tastes began to mature I really began to appreciate the almost ethereal sounds that the marimba/vibes can make, particularly in conjunction that the BMB used them. Their sonic output is so sweet to listen to, even more so today. And the combination of BMB and a thread Bobberman started here led me to fully embrace Cal Tjader.

Oh, and it turns out that Julius has a good singing voice as well.

You Have Good Taste Silentseason. My first BMB experience happened in 1979 after acouple years of seeing their album covers on the back of the TJB LPs i was naturally curious when i saw their 1970 Greatest Hits Lp in a store fortunately i was able to obtain it and i was immediately a fan shortly after that i saw them on the Mike Douglas show and they were just reuniting and i was a Very Happy 12 year old unfortunately it was to be several years before I could find more BMB LPs because They were all out of print except Greatest hits and where I lived there were no used record shops but as I lived in other cities over the years I was in range of some good collector's shops and thrift stores and by 2006 my BMB collection was complete as for Cal Tjader as I mentioned before it was because of my mom's two Tjader albums on fantasy " the Cal Tjader Quintet" ( now known on CD as Black orchid" and his Collaboration with Stan Getz and both were on Red vinyl. I'm glad you were benefited by my post. After all "The Music is what we are all about Here". And if I help anyone along the way then all the better.

 

[AM Matt]

On the Billboard Charts, "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" went to # 121 (Billboard's Bubbling Under The Hot 100 Charts) & at # 21 (Billboard's Adult Contemporary Charts). Matt Clark Sanford, MI