So I was getting ideas ready for this week’s article and I decided to do a more Jazz and horn incorporated show, right? I’m a mild fan of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, so I wanted to lay some notes down that would make for some good, easy listening. I was at my boss’s house the other night. He’s a fan of big band and jazz and he gave me some names. I checked them out, listened for a fortnight, and low and behold it turns out what I listened to was better studying music than what I gave you!

If you did take my advice, and I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t, I should have added a disclaimer stating something along the lines of “don’t actually do it.” I realized a couple days later that Sigur Rós takes the notion of ‘difficult to concentrate’ to a whole new extreme considering their good songs are built off what appears to sound like crashes from every type of instrument and utter gibberish in terms of the vocals. Anyway.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass: Herb is the voice of the trumpeter and composer of the bands music of Grade-A classy sounds such as Whipped Cream, Peanuts, Ladyfingers and Green Peppers. Mind you, this is only from one album (Whipped Cream and Other Delights), which featured, arguably, one of the best album covers of all time. Also, Whipped Cream was the sixth studio album Herb Alpert made and he’s done something like 25 albums in his career and I didn’t have enough time to get to all of them, nor the financial capabilities.

Buena Vista Social Club: My boss recommended this to me and it sounds as good as the title makes it. The BVSC was a members club out in Havana, Cuba, that held dances and musical activities and eventually became a popular place for musicians to meet and play in the 1940’s. It’s a lot of Latin jazz (which is to say they speak Spanish so I don’t really understand what they’re saying) and salsa influences. Its energetic, upbeat, happy and sounds like a good time. Rarely does music transport me into a cultural feel rather than an emotional feel. This is one of those bands. For those of you who like movies, Wim Wenders directed a documentary under the same name, and its very swell.

Other names you may be interested in that I highly recommend are Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke, two extremely influential jazz players in the 1920s, Chet Baker and Stan Getz. If you’re also feeling up maybe for a more modern tune to some older hits, check out Whipped Cream and Other Delights: Rewhipped, which remix’s all the songs albums from artists such as The Thievery Corporation. Until then, enjoy. Cheers.