“Mexican Special” (PDF) from the Rebirth Brass Band album, Feel Like Funkin’ It Up

Much of the original content of 1989’s Feel Like Funkin’ It Up is a response to the rising popularity of hip hop and electronic music in America - the band prides itself in the album liner notes for its ability to entertain audiences with acoustic instruments through dance music and jazz traditions. In a similar fashion, the Kermit Ruffins-led “Mexican Special” relies on the preservation of Caribbean influences on American music, with the Mexican port city of Cancún being a hotbed for trade, trafficking, and tourism as a result of the Spanish invasion the island colonies and native Maya land.

While the band’s intended use of the phrase “Mexican Special” appears to have never been publicly explained, it could be appropriated slang for “hot sauce” simply based on Ruffins’ own affinity for barbecue. In a musical sense, it could also refer to the blend of Caribbean rhythms with American blues melodies, as displayed within Keith “Wolf” Anderson’s trombone solo - a minor-blues scale should not fit over a major-chord progression, and yet somehow it does. If hip hop culture was established by the sampling and blending of music, dance, and art from the Caribbean, then Rebirth’s response is the desire to improve upon these traditions with its own secret recipe - as the album title would suggest.

In 2005, Kermit Ruffins and Rebirth Brass Band included “Mexican Special” in a brass band medley for the album, Throwback.

Recommended reading: Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans by Matt Sakakeeny. Published by Duke University Press