13. The Torero BandTijuana: Sound of Brass
I can’t imagine that our school orchestra was good, because of the way that I’ve grown since then. But we had a laugh. I played the trumpet and the cornet and French horn and different things when I was a kid. My maternal grandma bought me this record, and I don’t even know which record it was. I think it might be this one that I’ve listed. That was a Music for Pleasure record as well.
It was not really approved of, because this is easy listening, I think. I don’t think I knew it was easy listening then. My grandma knew I played the trumpet, so she bought me this record of trumpet music. It was very different from anything I played in the school orchestra, where we only played the classics. Even though my brass teacher was a bit of a jazz player as well, he also played in the City of Birmingham symphony orchestra, and he was charged with teaching me to play the classics, and to rehearse for the school orchestra. But he was an alternative figure, this brass teacher, and somehow this connected with this kind of swing.
It’s very constructed, Tijuana Brass. The early stuff is just [Herb Alpert], where he’s got no money, he’s multitracking himself. Obviously he goes on to found a legendary record company, none of which I knew at the time. It was a relaxed, enjoyable kind of world that is painted on in this easy listening lounge music, and for some reason I liked it. This helped my progression into a much wider world of jazz and alternative pop and rock music that I expanded into as I moved out of the family home. It’s a little early touch, which was where I was nudged by my maternal grandma. So it’s a very personal record for me. I remember it well, it’s long before I heard any real jazz. But it’s entertainment, it’s pure entertainment. I liked it. I don’t even know why.
I realized that in making tracks and making music, every track is important. Because it’s been my experience making many records with different people, there’s always someone where it’s their favorite track. It’s been the soundtrack to a profoundly life-changing moment for them. Not that the music might change them, but it might have been a birth or a death, or a breakup or a marriage. There’s always someone for whom that track that you thought, "Oh, that’s only the third track on the B-side. It’s not that important." We’ve got to value all the children.
