South of the Border in Bloomington, MN

Herb Alpert
was still using an array of SoCal studio all-stars as his
Tijuana Brass
when
South of the Border
(1964) began to restore the combo's good name after the modest
Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, Vol. 2
(1963) failed to ignite a fire in listener's ears.
Alpert
later commented that the
Sol Lake
composition "Mexican Shuffle" "opened a new door for me." That passageway meant the loss of the
' practically forced mariachi style and the rise of
's approach in arranging familiar melodies in fresh, creative settings. Nowhere would this stylistic progression be as pronounced as in the horn-driven updates of several then-concurrent chart hits. For instance, the mod sonic wrinkle in "Girl from Ipanema" emits a darkness veiled in mystery, directly contrasting the light buoyancy of "Hello! Dolly" or the footloose feel of
the Beatles
' "All My Loving." They seamlessly fit in with
's "Salud, Amor y Dinero" and a cover of
Julius Wechter
's playful, midtempo "Up Cherry Street" -- which
Wechter
's own
Baja Marimba Band
had just recorded for their 1964 self-titled debut. The ballads "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," "Angelito," and "Adios, Mi Corazon" provide contrasts with
's sensitive scores never seeming maudlin or unnecessarily over the top. If the regal "El Presidente" sounds particularly familiar, it may well be due to
's slight renovation of the "Winds of Barcelona" from the
' previous effort, the less than impressive
. It was renamed "El Presidente," presumably to honor the then-recent memory of the slain U.S. leader
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
. ~ Lindsay Planer