Taquero

Raised in part on the sounds of salsa in his San Francisco home, Marinero’s Jess Sylvester had no trouble with the music of “Taquero”—with horns sailing above and cascading down propulsive percussion, piano crisscrossing between it all until the song smears into a psychedelic wash. The trouble, though, was the lyrics: How could he say something surprising and even a little irreverent with the form? The answer comes in the form of his come-on to the taco slinger with the hottest salsas and deepest flavors in town.

“Taquero! Taquero! Te quiero mi amor,” Sylvester, who loves a good pun, sings in an enthusiastic vow of carnal and culinary love. “It’s flirtatious, with all that talk of ordering food,” Sylvester says. “I wanted to give people the opportunity to dance, a liberating feeling, and mix that with humor.”