I've been looking for a song for about 15 years that fits a similar description. I read your post a couple of years ago and always wondered if we were looking for the same one. I found mine today and thought of your post.
Could it be "Music To Watch Girls By" - The Bob Crewe Generation? Let me know if that's it.
How about "Morning Dance" by Spyro Gyra? It's got that same "baja marimba band" feel to it...
Hmmm, you never know:
Chalawa - Hop, skip and jump
Or the trumpet-part in: Crown heights affair - Dancin',
Deodato - Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) {1973}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKs7yXJd5p4
Dan
This seems like a good place to get help on a jazzy trumpet that I've had playing in my head for years... no luck identifying it. I'm pretty sure it's also from the 70s (it has that sound to it), maybe the early 80s.
In some part of the tune, the trumpet (I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a trumpet) goes like this:
http://www.miloonline.net/stash/jazz_trumpet_lick.mp3
Anyone know what that's from?
I recognize the melody, but can't pin it down right now. I'm kind of thinking of music by Al Jarreau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqSHqn6HmYU
Dan
The trumpet lick provided was very familiar. I know I heard it in Robert Palmer's version of "Mercy, Mercy Me/I Want You" from 1991. If you listen to that song, that trumpet melody plays at around 4:03.
https://youtu.be/kOqtvMRo3Cs?t=4m2s
So I figured that it must be part of one of the two songs that were combined, both by Marvin Gaye. I looked up both but couldn't find this melody in either. Had Robert Palmer used a line from another song to bridge the two songs he was combining? I don't know.
I hope this help on the way to figuring this one out.
-Daniel