Passport To Romance / Mucho Gusto

by Percy Faith

Description by OLDIES.com:

Favorites from Italy and France, 50's style, are showcased in "Passport To Romance" that features stunning melodic content and superb arrangements. "Mucho Gusto" takes us to Mexico with the title tune, a Faith original, showing a humorous side of Percy. Some names of the composers heard are Velazqwez, Fuentes, Espinosa, Jiminez, and Esperon. (Bill Halvorsen)

Product Description:

2 LPs on 1 CD: PASSPORT TO ROMANCE (1956)/MUCHO GUSTO (1961).

Includes liner notes by Mark Marymont.

These relatively early (1956) Percy Faith albums are typical of his early career: PASSPORT TO ROMANCE is a collection of sentimental love songs, plus, bizarrely, Kurt Weill's "The Ballad of Mack the Knife," here titled "Theme from the Threepenny Opera" and somehow managing to sound deeply sardonic and ironic even in Faith's straitlaced instrumental arrangement. "Bonjour Tristesse" and "The Little Lost Dog" are more typical. MUCHO GUSTO is Faith's second album of Mexican-influenced instrumentals, and the huge orchestral readings of tunes as bouncy or melodic as "Besame Mucho" and "Cielito Lindo" are a bit kitschy-sounding, but they actually maintain a certain amount of their fun and sentiment. There are far, far worse easy listening albums out there than these.