I composed that song in honor of the French Quebequers who visit Florida since years.
Quebequers are saying tabarnak every two words it’s like f… in English. Every winter they invade Fort Lauderdale to runaway wintertime.
For the local people who don’t speak a word of French, the only thing they keep hearing coming back all the time is the work “Tabarnak”… For that reason, they have been nicknamed Los Tabarnakos.
The song features two parts. The intro, that sounds a bit symphonic and the main song that follows a latin jazz groove, in a pure Chick Corea style.
The piano part I wrote was a pain to play for the poor piano player. I wrote both hand and it’s almost unplayable by a normal human being. Pierre hated me for that, but it was a nice challenge for him to beat the chart…
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar, solo
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards, solo
- Alain Picotte: Bass, solo
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums
Si Senor was written the week before entering the studio. It was recorded at the studio Harmonie in Longueuil. I don’t know if the studio is still alive nowadays.
It was a 24 tracks analog studio. I remember walking through Montreal with the three 24 tracks tapes in a bag that exploded many times until I got to the bus stop. It was heavy as hell…
Si Senior is the only song I ever wrote that features no solo. It also has one chord only thorough and everything is pretty much straight forward. It’s a nice easy listening song to open the album… The rest to follow is much darker!
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards
- Alain Picotte: Bass
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums
I wrote Rumba Buena with the help of the percussion player, Normand Bock, who was playing in a band named Queba under the musical direction of Don Alias.
He introduced us to salsa, and we had to do percussion homework at every reharsal,practicing cowbell, clave or chekere, while Normand was playing over. It was fun. We were doing long percussion block in our shows featuring th percussion and the drummer Gilbert Trahan.
Finally, I wrote that song including all the rhythms and musical genres I was learning from him. The harmonic and structure of the song was based on a multitonic modal system I learned in Jan Jarcic classes at the Concordia University of Montreal back in 85.
The song features a long, and really good keyboard solo of Normand Devault followed by a groovy percussion solo.
Line up:
- Soprano Sax: Jocelyn Menard
- Trumpet: Pierre Lafrenaye
- Guitar: Hervé Senni
- Keyboard: Normand Devault, solo
- Percussion: Normand Bock, solo
- Bass: Alain Picotte
- Drum: Gilbert Trahan
Download Fast Food for free.
This is the first song I ever composed back in 1983… The jazz fusion or jazz rock style was big on the jazz scene at that time. Everyone told me that it sounds like a cop movie soundtrack.
The song holds a heavily arranged theme and features Normand “Porky” Devault on keyboard and myself on the guitar.
It was one of my first solo in studio and I like it. I remember being packed in the studio boot, with no room to move.
I also remember banging my head on the studio door frame each time, and I mean each time I was going from the console back to my guitar. I had huge bumps on my head when the recording was over…
Line up:
- Tenor Sax: Jocelyn Menard
- Trumpet: Pierre Lafrenaye
- Guitar: Hervé Senni, second solo
- Keyboard: Normand Devault, first solo
- Percussion: Normand Bock
- Bass: Alain Picotte
- Drum: Gilbert Trahan
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