Sometimes artists find it necessary to hide their identity. After all, reputations are at stake.

Shorty Rogers was a trumpet and flugelhorn player who began his career at the tail end of the Big Band jazz era in the late 1940s, working frequently with bandleaders Woody Herman and Stan Kenton. He spent most of the following decade leading his own group and recording dozens of albums for RCA and Atlantic before transitioning into an arranger in the 1960s, writing horn charts for both jazz artists (like Mel Tormé and Vince Guaraldi) and pop stars (like Bobby Darin and The Monkees).

While working for RCA back in the 50s, Rogers earned extra cash by writing and recording music for RCA movies. These weren’t theme songs for the films, but rather, the pieces were likely used as background in scenes when they needed music playing at a dance or a club. Although there’s no record, some of these were likely low budget, B-movies aimed at the emerging teen market. Which is why Boots Brown & His Blockbusters came into existence.

Shorty Rogers and his fellow session musicians all considered themselves serious jazz artists. They wouldn’t be caught dead playing this simplistic, new-fangled, faddish, teenybopper music known as rock and roll. On the other hand, they were happy to be paid for it. Quietly.

And they needed a pseudonym because even though Rogers composed these songs for movies, RCA decided they were good enough to release as singles. Might as well exploit while the exploitin’ is good.

Released in August of 1958, “Cerveza” was a not too subtle take-off on “Tequila,” a #1 single released by The Champs earlier that year. This new song titled after a Spanish-language beverage wasn’t a hit, reaching only #62 on the US chart, but that’s not too bad for a song which wasn’t intended for commercial release by a group that didn’t exist. Just a little rock ‘n’ roll ditty by some of the most accomplished jazz musicians in America.