Latin-Continental Sound of the Sixties Part Two!

Bert Kaempfert’s luscious LP THAT LATIN FEELING launches this review instalment with mesmerizing Spanish eyes, red lipstick, a fashionable black sombrero, and a dainty white Rose. Landing somewhere between the soulful trumpet solos of the sound of Cuban rhythms, the mariachis of Mexico, and the gentle sambas of Brazil, Kaempfert takes the listener on an unforgettable sonic vacation to the evergreen culture of Latin America.

Kaempfert’s trademark swinging bass lines accompanied by guitar and trumpet leads are all present plus clarinet, flute and lots of percussion. Recorded in Studio Rahlstedt, Hamburg, according to Bert’s dedicated website, the maestro himself wanted an authentic sound from the Latin world so each composition was arranged with samples of local flavours. The track list spells it all:

                         The Bandit (O’ Cangaceiro)

1. Sweet And Gentle (Me Lo Dijo Adela)
2. Maria Elena
3. Mambo Mania
4. Say Si Si (Para Vigo Me Voy)
5. Poinciana (Song Of The Tree)
6. The Breeze And I (From The Suite “Andalucia”)
7. Cha Cha Brasilia
8. Besame Mucho
9. Trumpet Fiesta
10. Bert’s Bossa Nova
11. Chicken Talk

 ‘O’Cangaceiro’ [The Bandit] opens up with a stirring brass led introduction reminiscent of a movie opening – which indeed is where this track is taken from – a 1953 film of the same name. Kaempfert’s affinity for a slow trumpet-led solo to inject some grandeur into the tune is evident in ‘Maria Elena’, ‘Poinciana’ and of course ‘Trumpet Fiesta’. This evokes the very Cuban styling evident in the very popular songs from the Buena Vista Social Club Cuban jazz ensemble, and it is testimony to Kaempfert’s good taste when he used it in this album from 1964. What’s more, the use of the ‘twang-like’ electric guitar in the tone and tempo of the mid-1960s pop scene is evident throughout all the tracks and places this album squarely in that era of pop instrumentals. ‘Cha Cha Brasilia’ is a surprise since it goes back in time to the sound of Warren Covington, Tommy Dorsey, and takes a friendly jab at Bert’s contemporaries Xavier Cugat and Perez Prado, with its trombone-centred melody. Finally, ‘Chicken Talk’ takes the prize for the most innovative, and entertaining, Kaempfert composition for this album with its mellifluous imitation of the sound of ‘chickens clucking in a coop’. Of course, Kaempfert was not only sketching the sounds of a street market in Tijuana or Mexico City, Havana, he probably had in mind the colour of social gossip and daily conversations in any South American marketplace. Some interesting production trivia from the official Bert Kaempfert site (http://kaempfert.de/en/album/that-latin-feeling/):

Kaempfert’s orchestra were reinforced by an exotic range of percussion instruments – bongos, cabasa, congas, cowbell, güiro (rumba gourd), maracas, sandpaper, timbales, triangle, marimba and xylophone -, played by Bert Kaempfert’s drummer Rolf Ahrens, together with percussionists Hans Bekker, Günther Platzek, Max Raths and Manfred Sperling.

Ladi Geisler not only guaranteed a “cracking” bass guitar, but also took the guitar solo in Maria Elena, The Breeze And I and Bésame Mucho; the trumpet solos were given to Werner Gutterer (Poinciana), Heinz Habermann / Werner Gutterer (Trumpet Fiesta), and Manfred Moch (Bert’s Bossa Nova); Emil Wurster’s tenor saxophone is to be heard in Bert’s Bossa Nova and Say Sí Sí (together with Karl-Hermann Lüer on the flute in the latter), while Willy Surmann’s bass clarinet vividly produces a special feature with the clucking of chickens in Chicken Talk.

Smile when you’re listening to THAT LATIN FEELING!

What ties Kaempfert, Manuel and his Music of the Mountains and Franck Pourcel together? The light hearted, romantic serenades. The worded and wordless notes celebrating the joy of being alive. And the graciousness of every musical note imitating the movements of dance and physical rhythm in real life. Latin percussion mimics very accurately the entire range of human emotions. Sambas celebrate, Rhumbas exalt, while Bossa Novas both convey deep introspection and beauty amidst sadness. Of course, in easy listening, one does not need to plunge into such depths of analysis. The music speaks for itself transporting the listener to paradise – every time, and on-demand!

Manuel’s (a.k.a. Geoff Love of Britain) early albums are just beginning to be remastered for Compact Disc, digital downloads and streaming services and here’s a fine example – EXOTICA, originally released jointly on both the Columbia Parlophone and EMI Studio 2 Stereo labels, catalogue number TWO103, in 1965. In January 2017, this was finally remastered by sound engineer Isao Kikuchi on Warner Music Japan’s series of ‘Take It Easy’ remasters that include Werner Muller LPs as well. EXOTICA’s track list nicely collects some of Manuel’s signature tunes:

 

1.       A1 Exotica

2.       A2 Autumn Leaves

3.       A3 Sabara

4.       A4 Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White

5.       A5 Dusk

6.       A6 Forget Domani

7.       B1 Tico Tico

8.       B2 La vie en rose

9.       B3 Life Goes On

10.    B4 The Dancers of Delphi

11.    B5 Two Strangers Met

12.    B6 Blood and Sand

 

The A and B prefixes indicate where the original LP tracks were placed on the two sides of the vinyl record. As the Album cover suggests, this is a collection evoking the beauty of the mythical, mysterious unforgettable lady one encounters in a fantasy. ‘Exotica’ the title track evokes the glorious, celebratory, inspiring rhythms of Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘España’ suite and delivers the listener on a fasntasy trip wading through the haunting scene of ‘Autumn Leaves’, with Manuel’s characteristic wordless chorus and lilting guitar solo in the middle, the sentimentality of the slow rhumba ‘Sabara’, and launching into evening tempos with the classic Cha-Cha ‘Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White’, a romantic ‘Dusk’, and the fiery ‘Tico Tico’. ‘La Vie En Rose’ gets a Spanish guitar treatment outside France and one ends the trip to exotic lands with the evocation of the sounds of seaside Greece with ‘The Dancers of Delphi’, ‘Two Strangers Met’ and Geoff Love’s own composition ‘Blood and Sand’. The Warner Japan remaster is of very high quality despite the embryonic quality of stereo in 1965 and one can pick out the thrilling lower registers of the orchestra’s violins and cellos in every piece. In fact, regular visitors to my blog may already have noticed that I am shamelessly biased in favour of playing back nostalgia instrumentals on amplifiers built in the 1960s and 1970s. I would STRONGLY recommend the same with Manuel’s EXOTICA album. The photo below shows the SANSUI AU20000 amplifier that brought out the liveliest reproduction of Manuel’s EXOTICA. While this amplifier will form the subject of a separate review in the next few instalments of my blog, I will only say for now that it transforms mere enjoyment of the sound of Manuel into an instant vacation into that magical Latin fantasy land blatantly inspired by the original LP cover! Before you know it, you have to get up, clear your furniture and invite your partner for a twirl!  

            It is testimony to Geoff Love’s creative evocation of what ‘Mountains’ might sound like if they could sing to one another and have their natural ‘voices’ ricochet in harmonic unison off the surfaces of cliffs and rocks. Geoff Love employed many cellos and violins in duet and in simultaneity to create this wall-to-wall choral effect as I have pointed out in my previous reviews. The serious addict to classy easy listening instrumentals cannot help but be entranced by Manuel. If you don’t already have these two albums below, you must acquire them at some point:

 

Manuel & the Music of the Mountains – Latin Hits

 Guantanamera

Mascara Negra

You Belong To My Heart

Tico Tico (From The Film 'Bathing Beauty')

Vaya Con Dios

Ramona

La Golondrina

Cumana

Meditation

Siboney (Danzon Cubeno Fox Trot)

Eso Beso

El Rancho Grande

Besame Mucho

La Bamba

Estrellita

Frenesi

A Banda

El Condor Pasa (If I Could)

Brazil (Acquarella do Brasil)

Adios Muchachos

Begin The Beguine

Blue Tango

‘Latin Hits’ from 1988 is a compilation for the Compact Disc era, circa the 1980s. In their rush to spread the digital revolution the compilers at EMI resurfaced their STUDIO 2 STEREO albums and put them together in a hurry without anticipating that Manuel fans might like to own his original LPs singly as a complete set. This is not a drawback at all since ‘Latin Hits’ has withstood the test of time and acquired something of a collector’s ‘must-have’ status. I listened to it all over again for this review and I remain amazed at the crystal clarity of EMI’s remaster. The dance tempos and – and almost aural dance steps – lead one to imagine the many graceful massed performances one associates with the classical South America that one associates from time immemorial. Next, let us check out another double remaster of ‘Mountain Fire’ and ‘Beyond the Mountains’:    

Mountain Fire
LP TWOX 1061 (1977) STEREO
Mountain Fire (Love)
Sailing (Sutherland)
Evergreen (Streisand; Williams) from ‘A Star is Born’
El Porompompero (Ochaita; Valerio; Solano)
Forever and Ever (Costandinos; Vlavianos)
Dancing in the Dark (Schwartz; Dietz)
Cachita (Hernandez)
Don't Cry for Me Argentina (Lloyd Webber; Rice) from Evita
Rio (Nesmith)
When Forever Has Gone (Mason; Vlavianos)
On Rainy Afternoons (Schifrin; M & A Bergman) from The Eagle Has Landed
Mexican Hat Dance (Trad arr Love)

Beyond the Mountains
LP TWO 184 (1967) STEREO
El Rancho Grande (Uranga; Ramos; Costello)
Shangri-La (Malneck; Maxwell; Sigman)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (I Will Wait for You) (Legrand; Gimbel)
Stranger in Paradise (Wright; Forrest) from Kismet
Dancers of El Paso (Supron; Woods)
Beyond the Mountains (Love)
Over the Rainbow (Arlen; Harburg) from The Wizard of Oz
Spanish Eyes (Kaempfert; Singleton; Snyder)
Carnival in Mexico (Jaramillo)
Lisboa Antigua (Portela; Galhardo; do Vale)
St Tropez (Glass)
Arrivederci Roma (Rascel; Garinei; Giovannin)

 

Over the expanse of a decade, Manuel has been fairly consistent. 1967’s BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS threads a perfect continuity with EXOTICA. The wide sonic panorama of picture postcard Latin America and Spain mixed in with cinematic kitsch of happy dancing parades of massed Flamenco dancers. 1977’s MOUNTAIN FIRE witnesses a slight shift in Manuel’s Latin sound. The choral sections recede deep into the background. The violins and violas take up the main notes dueting with the percussion and Latin congas. Manuel was very keen to adapt to the serious introspective qualities of some of the 1970s pop parade. ‘When Forever has Gone’ retains the melancholy of the vocal original and ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ tracks Andrew Lloyd Webber’s original but with the added atmospherics of higher register string arrangements matching the irony of the celebratory mood of the character Evita. There is an intriguing violin solo substituting where the original sung version puts out the lyrics ‘Have I said too much? There’s nothing more I can say to you…’, precisely the spot where Evita pleads her innocence before the adoring, empathetic crowd from the presidential balcony. Manuel plays this as a musical ‘aside’ amidst the pomposity of the grand string and conga arrangements implying the moment of a lyrical, poetic and political sleight of hand. Beautiful take, without overdoing the song in the Manuel manner. Demis Roussos’ ‘Forever and Ever’ is enchantingly taken in the direction of a Rhumba instead of a passionate popular love song. As of 2017, the other major Manuel release on Dutton Vocalion twins another two very rare 1970s LPS – ‘Viva!’ and ‘The Magic of Manuel’. Like the evergreen cultural icon of Spain, the Matador, or the evergreen Spanish eyes, Manuel retains his consistency with his interpretation of the hits of ABBA, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Perez Prado, Leo Sayer, Debbie Boone and Herb Alpert. It was also a pleasant treat for both older and newer Manuel fans that he did a breathtaking rendition of Princess Lei’s theme from the blockbuster film STAR WARS. As it so happens, Princess Leia was ‘Latin inspired’ in its original musical DNA – listen and you’ll realise that Star Wars wasn’t such a faraway location after all – its strains developed in South America! The Music of the Mountains was completely at ease on this one, and Geoff Love (a k a Manuel) cleverly inserted a solo wordless female chorus at the end to bridge the musical worlds of opera, Latin and the intergalactic all at once – simply sublime. The rest of the simply flows poetically from Princess Leia taking you in a cascade of lush Latin strings, spiced with light percussion to the Italian Riviera and the shores of the Mediterranean for a relaxing tour to revive the spirits. Fittingly, the final few tracks of this 1978 LP are titled ‘You Light Up My Life’, ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Cuanto le Gusta’.

Manuel and the Music of the Mountains – Viva Manuel! (1979)

Viva!
Chiquitita
Tijuana taxi
On this night of a thousand stars
Cumana
Los hombres
Mambo jambo
Copacabana (at the Copa)
Mexican magic
One note samba
Can you read my mind?
Mambo no.5
Chante
Zorba's dance

The Music of Manuel (1978)
Princess Leia's theme
Il cielo in una stanza
When I need you
My thanks to you
The ways of love
Noche de ronda
Scheherezade
Mi sono innamorato di te
Poldark
You light up my life
Fantasy
Cuanto le gusta

Finally, I absolutely have to feature an Edmundo Ros classic STRINGS LATINO, released by DECCA records, London in 1968 as catalogue number PFS 4145, remastered in various colourful covers by LONDON records for the first wave of their digital re-releases in 1985-90, as well as the more current Dutton Vocalion remaster from 2009.



A1	Cumana Written-By – Spina*, Allen*, Hillman*
A2	Felicidade Written-By – Jobim*
A3	Mas Que Nada Written-By – Ben*
A4	A Man And A Woman Vocals – Edmundo Ros; Written-By – Lai*, Keller*, Barouh*
A5	Green Eyes Written-By – Utrera*, Menendez*
A6	Malagueña Written-By – Lecuona*, Banks*, Hansen*
B1	Granada Written-By – Lara*, Musel*, Dodd*, Lisbona*, Poletto*, Siegel*
B2	La Cumparsita Written-By – Rodriguez*
B3	La Macarena Written-By – Calero*, Monterde*
B4	Thank U Very Much Vocals – Edmundo RosWritten-By – McGear*
B5	Delicado Written-By – Lawrence*, Azevedo*
B6	Rumba Rhapsody Written-By – De Bru*, Audinot*

On this one, Ros pioneers some very unconventional work with strings on Latin music. While Manuel, Mantovani, Chacksfield and the Clebanoff Strings made their mark from the starting point of classical string arrangements, Ros treats the strings as though they were a direct substitute for saxophones, trumpets and percussion! This album is in fact very close in conception to Kaempfert’s THAT LATIN FEELING, but with more ‘fire’ and ‘energy’. The strings are in fact never shrill and mostly played several notches lower than Ros’ easy listening contemporaries. There is a blistering pace throughout that never quite lets the listener sink into a plush lounge chair. Listen to ‘Felidade’, ‘Cumana’, ‘Delicado’, ‘Ryumba Rhapsody’ and ‘La Macarena’ and you’ll be convinced this is one serious album that showcases how authentic Latin rhythms can avail themselves of the violin as an extended ‘voice’ of drums, trumpets and human voices. Th congas are always in the room , even where ballads like the popular ‘A Man and a Woman’ and ‘Green Eyes’ are played.

To close this set of reviews, I spotlight two recent (2014) remasters from Franck Pourcel and his incredible output: 1977’s 20 TOP INSTRUMENTALS and 1978’s LATINO AMERICANO ’78. Despite the inspiration from indigenous folkloric tunes and familiarity with local styles, maestro Pourcel takes Latin sounds deep into the lounge sofa spaces with very relaxed string arrangements and the substitution of some fast rhythms, trumpet segments and percussion parts with synthesizer, Fender Rhodes and plenty of electric guitars. In fact, these two albums of Latin and Latin-inflected arrangements were in the late 1970s, considered far ahead of their time.

Franck Pourcel - Hi Fi 77- 20 top instrumentals

Tico Tico

Stranger on the shore

Tequila

Petite fleur

Wheels

Pink panther

La Playa

Brazil

Deguello

Winchester cathedral

Ebb tide

Delicado

Misty

La petite valse

Blue moon

Caravan

Maria Elena

Holiday for Strings

Blue Tango

A Summer Place

Franck Pourcel - Latino Americano 78

Mama Inez

Conticinio

Bahia

Yo vendo unos ojos negros

Tres perlas

La flor de la canela

Copacabana

El gavilan

El dia que me quieras

Lamento boricano

Campanitas de cristal

Las mañanitas

In these two albums, Pourcel marks a definitive break from the other three orchestras reviewed in this post. The use of electric guitar in playing the signature chorus of ‘Tequila’ may be a clear attempt to keep up with the times, but it might just as well irritate fans of Manuel, Cugat and Ros. Likewise, the musical tour of Latin America 1978, signified by a vastly more spacious string arrangement (a photo of the sleek Concorde supersonic jetliner on the LP cover) may not be to everyone’s liking. If you have heard Paul Mauriat interpret ‘Lamento Boricano’ a decade earlier, this version pales in terms of fire and passion. Clearly, Pourcel was aiming for a different market – the crowd that embraces the plush new travel trends signified by the Concorde’s arrival. It took me a while to get used to his heavily string laden, slow tempo versions of ‘Petite Fleur’, ‘Brazil’, ‘Maria Elena’, ‘Mama Inez’, ‘Bahia’ and ‘Las Mañanitas’. For those who do try a little deeper appreciation, digging into these two Pourcel albums will still be rewarding because the remasters on France EMI’s copyrighted ‘HCX’ digital filter really unveils the precise soundstage on which Pourcel conducted his orchestra. And these two albums do ‘ooze’ large doses of rose-tinted orchestral romance.    

Till the next instalment, put the strings and congas on your stereo and enjoy the moment!

ALAN