I'd agree with those points. Although considered an "early adopter" by my friends, I was late in buying my first CD player mainly because at the time I owned in excess of 14,000 vinyls and one solitary CD!
By the time the balance started to shift, the CDs were mostly out of print. A few - like "Whipped Cream" sat in the browsers of some city stores, but these were "Imports" and sold for around £20 each. With vinyl at around £3 - £4 an album, twenty quid for something I already had seemed a daft idea. Then.
Now I look eagerly for Herb's CDs in every shop I visit. Our local good indie, "Fopp" files him under "Jazz". When they have anything, which isn't very often.
I'd disagreee on the deterioration point, though. Having compiled commercial albums from 60s and 70s masters, I can tell you that in many big record companies, there's quiet panic that many original multitrack tapes are unplayable. This isn't a result of poor storage - big record labels look after their assets - but a result of poor manufacturing. Certain master tape brands - notably from the 70s - were hailed as technically perfect at the time, but now suffer from serious shedding as a result of the adhesive either turning to dust, or sticking as a consequence of the adhesive bleeding to the edges and attaching itself firmly to the first piece of metal on a tape machine that it comes across.
Does Herb Alpert care and is he working on a re-release project? I'd guess he cares (after all the music is as much his offspring as his children are) but he may well prefer it to remain in the past. Yesterday I gave my 17-year old sun a CD of the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra playing instrumental versions of Rolling Stones material. It's a collector's classic, and after changing hands for silly money it eventually found its way on to CD. My son was delighted with the music (one track was the basis of The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony") - but was singularly unimpressed with the sound. The 1966 recording quality was poor - distortion, noise, excessive compression, all sorts of things. He asked if I could get someone to "clean it up", pointing out that he's accustomed to much better technical quality nowadays. And he's quite right. Herb's recent recordings are bright and clean, and with the best will in the world, tracks from albums like "Lonely Bull" don't sit comfortably alongside.
The contractual side of the business can also be a minefield. I have no idea how the original rights were assigned, but I'd hazard a guess that even if it all seems like Herb "owns" his stuff, there's almost bound to be someone, somewhere who claims otherwise, and is willing to do so in a court if there's a few bucks to be made as a result. In the early days of the TJB, material was leased to overseas labels - like Pye Records in London - and there may well be a residual right of ownership in some territories. (I know that most of these contracts were limited to a few years duration, but some may not have been.)
In the end, we must preserve and protect the recordings we already have in our collections, and keep our fingers crossed that we haven't already heard the final chapter of the TJB story.
By the time the balance started to shift, the CDs were mostly out of print. A few - like "Whipped Cream" sat in the browsers of some city stores, but these were "Imports" and sold for around £20 each. With vinyl at around £3 - £4 an album, twenty quid for something I already had seemed a daft idea. Then.
Now I look eagerly for Herb's CDs in every shop I visit. Our local good indie, "Fopp" files him under "Jazz". When they have anything, which isn't very often.
I'd disagreee on the deterioration point, though. Having compiled commercial albums from 60s and 70s masters, I can tell you that in many big record companies, there's quiet panic that many original multitrack tapes are unplayable. This isn't a result of poor storage - big record labels look after their assets - but a result of poor manufacturing. Certain master tape brands - notably from the 70s - were hailed as technically perfect at the time, but now suffer from serious shedding as a result of the adhesive either turning to dust, or sticking as a consequence of the adhesive bleeding to the edges and attaching itself firmly to the first piece of metal on a tape machine that it comes across.
Does Herb Alpert care and is he working on a re-release project? I'd guess he cares (after all the music is as much his offspring as his children are) but he may well prefer it to remain in the past. Yesterday I gave my 17-year old sun a CD of the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra playing instrumental versions of Rolling Stones material. It's a collector's classic, and after changing hands for silly money it eventually found its way on to CD. My son was delighted with the music (one track was the basis of The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony") - but was singularly unimpressed with the sound. The 1966 recording quality was poor - distortion, noise, excessive compression, all sorts of things. He asked if I could get someone to "clean it up", pointing out that he's accustomed to much better technical quality nowadays. And he's quite right. Herb's recent recordings are bright and clean, and with the best will in the world, tracks from albums like "Lonely Bull" don't sit comfortably alongside.
The contractual side of the business can also be a minefield. I have no idea how the original rights were assigned, but I'd hazard a guess that even if it all seems like Herb "owns" his stuff, there's almost bound to be someone, somewhere who claims otherwise, and is willing to do so in a court if there's a few bucks to be made as a result. In the early days of the TJB, material was leased to overseas labels - like Pye Records in London - and there may well be a residual right of ownership in some territories. (I know that most of these contracts were limited to a few years duration, but some may not have been.)
In the end, we must preserve and protect the recordings we already have in our collections, and keep our fingers crossed that we haven't already heard the final chapter of the TJB story.
Also, eliminating all of the TJB titles except for Definitive Hits sure looks like a move to deplete inventory and create demand. May not be for a year or two, or three or more, but I"m sure these will get reissued at some point in the future. At least the popular titles will...I doubt the lesser-known TJBs are marketable enough.
