Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Box Set

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Rudy

¡Que siga la fiesta!
Staff member
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I figured I'd start off the posts in this forum with a bang. :wink: No, there's no box set in the near (or apparently distant) future, but I'm going to toss this idea out for some opinions. I'd like to have all TJB listeners chime in with some of their favorite picks for an eventual box set, or at least give ideas for what the ideal box set would contain.

For a TJB-only box set, I would not recommend exceeding 3 CDs. If you include solo Herb Alpert recordings in the set, you could not get away with more than four or five CDs before you hit a price barrier...perhaps a better idea would be to create a companion solo-Herb 2-CD set.

To start, my gut feeling is that for a TJB box set to be complete, it should cover three areas: hits, rarities, fan favorites. You don't want too many hits, or it will sound like just another compilation. You don't want to weight the set toward a lot of rarities, since they are interesting but don't hold up as well as the album tracks. (There's a reason they were B-sides.) And you don't want to scare away potential buyers with a lot of fan favorites at the expense of leaving off familiar hits.

It goes without saying that a Rhino-quality booklet would be a requirement for the set.

Discussions: this thread is for discussions of a box set. At some point in the future, I'm going to be attempting to put up a poll of all TJB songs so that we all can vote on what our favorite tracks will be.

And hopefully somebody will listen. :wink:

-= N =-
 
I think you hit the nail on the head. Three discs, one for the hits, one for the fan favorites, and one for the rarities. If a listener is in a hit mood, then the first disc will sound great. If one is tired of "The Lonely Bull" and "This Guy's...", then the second disc, a collection of favored album tracks would sound great. Finally, for the true fan, a rarities disc, all by itself. That way, when you want to hear a particular single mix or b-side, it'll be there for you without cluttering up the flow of a listenable disc. This is where Capitol/EMI failed with the Beatles ANTHOLOGY. Too many outakes and false starts make the discs unlistenable without time spent programming the CD player.

Disc One - well, we've pretty much covered that with the 80-minute charted singles. I STILL like the sound of that disc, and it even contains one rarity in "Mexican Drummer Man." I suppose, for the purposes of this box set, it could be left off of disc one in favor of either a "bubbling under" single or another favored track that is "almost" a hit like "Lollipops And Roses."

Disc Two - This is the meat of the box set for most of us, for it would be here that the best of the album tracks and not-so-successful singles would reside. This disc would provide the texture for the set, highlighting perhaps some of the great compositions of the band members and the extended TJB family. This is where you'd find songs like "For Carlos" and "The Sea Is My Soil." I predict that after the novelty of the b-sides and rarities wears off, this second disc would turn out to be most serious fans' favorite.

Disc Three - The rarities and b-sides. This is where you'd have the Spanish version of "This Guy's...", the single and mono mixes of "Tijuana Taxi", and "Zorba", the rare singles like "Whistlesong" and "El Bimbo," plus any un-released matierial languishing away on master tapes that never saw the light of day.

Those are my thoughts. I'll consider a list of those "fan favorites" and post them further down in this thread.

Harry
...in thinking mode, online...
 
Harry said:
Disc One - well, we've pretty much covered that with the 80-minute charted singles. I STILL like the sound of that disc, and it even contains one rarity in "Mexican Drummer Man."

I say leave it in. :) I like the "countdown" idea of having all the TJB hit singles in one place. Hmmm...just had a thought: would you use the single versions here, or the album versions? (Technically, though, the single versions would be mostly mono. Hmmm.)

This is where you'd find songs like "For Carlos" and "The Sea Is My Soil." I predict that after the novelty of the b-sides and rarities wears off, this second disc would turn out to be most serious fans' favorite.

And I'd bet that someone who remembers the hits, and had a few of the albums, would listen to this disc and remember some of these lesser tracks ("hey, I remember this song!"), and discover others they'd either forgotten or never heard.

Disc Three - The rarities and b-sides. This is where you'd have the Spanish version of "This Guy's...", the single and mono mixes of "Tijuana Taxi", and "Zorba", the rare singles like "Whistlesong" and "El Bimbo," plus any un-released matierial languishing away on master tapes that never saw the light of day.

There ya go! I'd definitely include mono versions of some "Lonely Bull" songs (as I do prefer those to the stereo). And not to mention, the alternate mix of "The Great Manolette."

A couple of other random thoughts:

1. Balance. I'd like to see all the albums represented almost equally. Not five songs from Lonely Bull with only one from Volume 2, for instance. Even if it's a lesser album, it should be included.

2. Few repeats. Nothing bothers me on a box set than having a song repeated three or four times. Two times, tops, for any song is enough. The Earth Wind & Fire box set only had a couple of songs repeated. The most amazing was "Shining Star." Their original mix is on the box set, and I'll be honest--had this version been released, it never would have been a hit, let alone become their first Billboard #1.

3. No false starts, botched takes, alternate takes, etc. Those are mostly superfluous, and to me, ruin a good CD having to sit through it. I've always thought there was a reason a song wasn't released. If an alternate mix or alternate arrangement were drastically different and still interesting...yes, I'd include it. (I'm thinking of Steely Dan's "Everyone's Gone To The Movies", which is on the Citizen Steely Dan box set twice--once in its Katy Lied version, and a second in a demo version that has a slightly different beat, a different melody line, in a different key, slightly different chorus, but still the same words.

Yes, I do agree about the Beatles Anthology discs. For the true hardcore fans who live and breathe every note, these could be a treasure trove. For me, it was always a tedious listen. All told, these three sets all could have been boiled down to a good two-CD set. The only non-album tracks I've ever really wanted to hear was a bootleg set called Sweet Apple Tracks (among other names). Basically, the Let It Be album w/o the Phil Spector production.

-= N =-
 
In my opinion the box set should aim at catering to the big fans as opposed to the Definitive Hits CD. Also I think it would be nice with a historical/chronological angle, so the box would illustrate the development of Herb's and the TJB's sound. I believe that the right thing to do would be to include Herb's solo stuff as I think it is all really about his "sound idea" more than actually a "band". Also he has revisited the TJB sound frequently on his solo outings. Recently I got hold of a high quality video with the 1975 TV show from England with the Muppets. The live sound of the (reformed) TJB on that recording is phenomenal. In many ways it bridges the gap between the sound of the sixties and what would later be heard on records like Alpert/Masekela, Fandango and Passion Dance.

- greetings from the north -
Martin
 
I agree that the box set should cater to the long-time collectors and listeners. And yet there would still be enough familiar tunes that the casual buyer would find a reason to buy it. Good argument for doing the chronological method, too. One pet peeve of mine about some box sets--I'd always prefer that an original version be presented on the box set. So if the box set had, say, a live "Tijuana Taxi," I would not want it to be in place of the original version, but rather, in addition to it.

I thought of another great idea for a box set (which I'd discuss in a different thread at length): the Classic A&M Years. Some choice cuts from many different early A&M artists. This would be an ideal Rhino project! Technically you could make it a four-CD set, 25 songs per CD, and feature one cut from the first 100 albums, or something along that line, with less emphasis on TJB and BMB (lest they take up too many tracks, where you could have a more obscure track in its place).

-= N =-
...wishing I was Rhino...
 
Hi pals, please, no more TJB compilations for next 40 years, please, even not in wildest dreams! No matter if 3 CD or 4 CD, I am sick of all these compilations. F**k all these Best ofs... and Greatest hits and Definite hits and Even more definitive hits...

What we all need is THE COMPLETE HERB ALPERT RECORDINGS ON A&M RECORDS box set.

Sory for my rude vocabulary but I am really pissed off realizing that some people here are not overloaded by all these stupid compilations, yet.
 
Peter said:
Hi pals, please, no more TJB compilations for next 40 years, please, even not in wildest dreams!

I hear you. While it's true that the last thing most of us need is a Tijuana Brass compilation, a Box Set that offers some rarities and maybe some missing pieces may be the best we can, or should, hope for. Neil's exercise here was meant to stimulate thought as to what we fans would want to see if a box set were to be issued. As mentioned, we'd all like thorough liner notes that might answer some of the questions we've had to leave unanswered all these years. And getting some rarities on CD (with decent remastering) would be icing on the cake. Yes, we'd all like to see WARM, and NINTH, and SOUNDS LIKE on CD, plus all of the others. If that happens, so much the better.

Harry
NP: radio at work
 
Yeah Harry, I know and I understand. But for me as a Herb Alpert and TJB fan there is only one thing acceptable: THE COMPLETE box set. Until then, I will stick to my TJB CDs I managed to buy (and - yeah, I am saying it frankly - the CD-Rs of these I didn't).
Musically yours,
Peter
...definitely tired of all the "Best of" albums...
 
The fact is that there is little or no market for the "underdog" original albums, other than those like us here. Univer$al's thought is that one compilation is all we should be privileged to have...hence, the flawed Definitive Hits being released and all the others being cut out. I'd also welcome a "complete" box set, but the more CDs and songs that are in it, the higher the price would be and, ultimately, fewer would be willing to pay that much. The 3- or 4-CD concept is the best we can hope for--it's still within affordability, and has room to provide songs we haven't heard yet. I've long given up hope of ever seeing all the original albums on CD.

So, I stick to the CDs I own, and CD-Rs I've made myself which, quite frankly, do just fine for me.

-= N =-
 
Actually a complete TJB box set wouldn't be too unthinkable if they would two-fer the disks. The whole set could fit on 6 CDs then (not counting YOU SMILE and CONEY ISLAND).

But, it probably would not sell enough to make it work out, and frankly there ARE a few songs that I would not miss if I never heard them again. (Most of those are on LONELY BULL and VOLUME 2, with one or two sprinkled on some of the other albums.)

So, 3 or 4 disks is probably the ideal. The problem with fan-favorites, is the ever-popular "different strokes for different folks." My personal favorite TJB albums are WARM and GOING PLACES, but there are probably folks around who think LONELY BULL is the high point.

It would be nice to see that packed-to-the-rafters hits disk, even though many already have most of the songs, it would still be great to have all the hits in one place "for the first time ever!" (Listening, marketing people?)
 
"Fan favorites" is tough to make a call on, of course, but I think by picking out the best "album" tracks from each album, there's a good chance most everyone would be pleased. The emphasis is more on NON-hits than hits, in other words. And despite what anyone picks, someone is always going to have one of their favorites left off the set.

It'd certainly be better than Def Hits.

As for the "complete" idea, let's give the first 14 albums 400 minutes on CD (yes, this includes the Xmas album). Then throw in all the b-sides, and a couple of the alternate mixes. That's 6 CDs right there. But that leaves out You Smile, Coney, and any unreleased tracks for the rumored third New TJB album, which would require another two CDs. (Not sure if You Smile and Coney would fit on one CD without the extras...haven't timed it.) 8 CDs, priced at $15 list, would be $120. Could see it discounted to possibly just under $100, but you'd have considerably fewer buyers than selling a 3- or 4-CD set.

One thing that bothers me about some "complete" sets is the way they are sequenced. Citizen Steely Dan took the albums in order, track for track, except they rearranged a couple of tracks to finish and end a CD. The Police "complete" set Message In A Box is in exact album order, with extras surrounding the album contents. Good idea. (Although of the first three albums, Regatta de Blanc is my favorite, and it's the one that is split in the middle.)

I have two Led Zeppelin box sets--one is four CDs, and is still popular 10 years after it was released. If you buy the companion 2-CD "completer" set, you have all their recordings on six CDs. What they did here was sequence the songs so they sounded good together, and did not follow any chronology or album sequence. And I do enjoy listening to this set exactly how they've programmed it. Not having owned the original LPs (other than IV and Houses Of The Holy), I didn't miss it that much. But I could always reconstruct the original albums if I wanted to. (Led Zep also had a 10-CD box set that reproduced the original albums in sequence and packaging...I may have bought it if I didn't have the other two sets already.)

One pet peeve of mine with the Mosaic Records sets is that they present the recordings in the order in which they were recorded. For some, that's OK, but I still prefer to hear the tracks in the order in which they were presented on an album. My Maynard Ferguson box, spread over 10 CDs, suffers from this. I got used to hearing the albums Si! Si! M.F. (love that title!! :wink: ), Straightaway, and others in their original order. That in itself isn't totally bad, as I could still reconstruct an album and put it on my own recordable CD. Thing is, for albums I never owned, I have no clue what order to put them in! Mosaic fails to include detailed track and sequence notes for the LPs, as well as any cover art! I think with their "completist" attention to details on the recordings (which sound wonderful on my set, BTW), the booklet certainly had room for an extra couple of pages to tell us how the original albums were laid out and what the artwork looked like (even if it was in black and white). They do give master numbers and dates for when songs were recorded, and I think they do tell which album it may have been on, but from that, I still don't have enough to reconstruct an album myself. (Can't even do it from a single-play CD player, since an album's contents are often spread across two CDs.)

This is a lot to read, I know, and a lot to think about...but I'm sure those who put these sets together probably spend a lot of time thinking about the same issues: what to include, what to leave out, how to sequence it, how to package it...and that's befor the huge task of researching and finding the correct master tapes, writing and verifying any information in the booklet, etc.

Doesn't make me want a box set any less than I still do, though! :D

-= N =-
 
I'll try this again. I posted a reply and everything froze, with no access at all to any page on the site. Looks like it didn't go through.

My reply was:

They do give master numbers and dates for when songs were recorded, and I think they do tell which album it may have been on, but from that, I still don't have enough to reconstruct an album myself. (Can't even do it from a single-play CD player, since an album's contents are often spread across two CDs.)

While it's inconsiderate of those who compile a Box Set's liner notes not to include original running order, if you really wanted to reconstruct the original albums, you could probably consult fan pages on the Internet, or even amazon or CDNow for those albums still in print.

Harry
...rudely bumped off the site, and back online...
 
OK, let us imagine what if. Rudy used a good example. The Police's Message In A Box is exactly the way that I think THE HERB ALPERT COMPLETE box should look like. Do not forget that early TJB albums were very very short, sometimes not even 30 minutes! So in my opinion

CD 1: LONELY BULL - VOLUME 2 - SOUTH OF THE BORDER (split)
CD 2: SOUTH OF THE BORDER (split) - WHIPPED CREAM - GOING PLACES
CD 3: WHAT NOW MY LOVE - S.R.O. - SOUNDS LIKE (split)
CD 4: SOUNDS LIKE (split) - NINTH - BEAT OF THE BRASS
CD 5: CHRISTMAS ALBUM - WARM - THE BRASS ARE COMING (split)
CD 6: THE BRASS ARE COMING (split) - SUMMERTIME - plus rarities
CD 7: YOU SMILE, THE SONG BEGINS - CONEY ISLAND (split)
CD 8: CONEY ISLAND (split) - JUST YOU AND ME - plus rarities
CD 9: ALPERT/MASAKELA -
CD 10: MAIN EVENT LIVE (plus unreleased tracks - the rest of the show)
CD 11: RISE - BEYOND (split)
CD 12: BEYOND (split) - MAGIC MAN
CD 13: FANDANGO - BLOW YOUR OWN HORN (split)
CD 14: BLOW YOUR OWN HORN (split) - BULLISH
and so on.

The songlist is not very dense, so it allows to add some B-sides, alternate tracks etc.

It is not necessary to release it at once. Why not use the Sony Music's "Complete recordings of Miles Davis" as inspiration? They did not release all the recordings at once but they are releasing a box of 3-to-6 CDs each year. I do not know how many CDs there will be at the end but I am eagerly waiting for any new title.

And what about the upcoming Warner release of "The Complete Miles Davis Live At Montreux"? I have heard rumours that it will be 18 CD set. Yeah, why not? I was born and I am living in Slovakia, a poor country in the middle of the Europe, with an annual income that is just a fraction of an average US income but I will not hesitate a second if it comes to purchasing the Herb Alpert COMPLETE box. I am a fan. This explains all, I suppose. :)

P.S.: A Maynard Ferguson Box? WHAT BOX? :-O
 
Harry said:
I'll try this again. I posted a reply and everything froze, with no access at all to any page on the site. Looks like it didn't go through.

I'm marking it up to an internet outage (or a heavy load on the database server).

Harry said:
While it's inconsiderate of those who compile a Box Set's liner notes not to include original running order, if you really wanted to reconstruct the original albums, you could probably consult fan pages on the Internet, or even amazon or CDNow for those albums still in print.

I did hold on to some of my Roulette vinyl, so I do have some running orders for favorites. It just seems like album/track listings should be included for the sake of completeness. The problem with Ferguson's Roulette recordings, few, if any, have ever been in print on CD. (Which made the Mosaic set all that more appealing.) LPs I ruled out--I think Roulette must have used nasty vinyl back then, because all the Roulette LPs I've owned have been noisy. I was grabbing for straws until Mosaic came out with the box set. The set was $150 when I bought it...and I did pause before ordering, but only briefly. :D Glad I did--with the limited run, it's now no longer available on CD. (They may still have LP copies, but even there, I'm not sure.)

One box set I may have liked was Mosaic's 15-CD Complete Nat King Cole Trio recordings. Last set I saw was in a local used record shop, possibly still sealed, selling for more than what it was originally worth.

-= N =-
 
Peter said:
OK, let us imagine what if. Rudy used a good example. The Police's Message In A Box is exactly the way that I think THE HERB ALPERT COMPLETE box should look like.

Yes, that is a very compact layout to do it that way! The only bonus to doing two albums per CD is that you could put rarities and extras for, say, Lonely Bull and Volume 2 on the same CD. So, different mono or single mixes, or unreleased tracks from the same era, would stay together on the same CD, sort of keeping it in chronological order.

Peter said:
It is not necessary to release it at once. Why not use the Sony Music's "Complete recordings of Miles Davis" as inspiration? They did not release all the recordings at once but they are releasing a box of 3-to-6 CDs each year. I do not know how many CDs there will be at the end but I am eagerly waiting for any new title.

That does make collecting the titles easier! I don't think it would be unreasonable to split a "complete" TJB set into two pieces, and solo Alpert into another two.

Peter said:
...but I will not hesitate a second if it comes to purchasing the Herb Alpert COMPLETE box. I am a fan. This explains all, I suppose. :)

Exactly! Whatever comes out next, if it's truly original, will once again have all of us stampeding to buy it. :D

-= N =-
 
I'd like to see some early pre-TJB material of Herb's included in a boxed set..."Hully Gully", "Sweet Georgia Brown", "Tell It To The Birds", "Little Lost Lover" and "Gonna Get A Girl" are all historically significant because they each illustrate how the sound we all identify wth as being the TJB evolved over time. And, if Herb ever recorded "Wonderful World" with Sam Cooke, THAT would be a real find. I also think that it would be nice to have a few tracks that Herb and Julius arranged for other artists, like Lucille Starr, for example; some Pisano& Ruff, perhaps...some "guest appearances" like on Kris Kristofferson& Rita Coolidge's "A Song I'd LIke to Sing", and the grandaddy of them all IMHO, Peter Allen's "The More I See You". Some Herb/Lani tracks like "Come What May" would be nice, too...
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned releasing a full TJB concert on CD. I also think the Box Set should include all of the recording from the first 10 albums and then unreleaed stuff. Bear Family does it. Rhino sells limited edition box sets on their Handmade label. Make a limited number and sell them for $125. I know I'd happily buy it. Then, to coincide with this release could be the Herb Alpert / TJB TV DVD Box Set featuring his specials and other TV appearances.
Here's hoping for a box set soon.
-K
 
I am not sure if there is any quality recording, audio or video, of a complete original TJB concert. At least, I know of two later videos of complete shows - 1996 Montreux (Second Wind Tour - with Jeff Lorber) and 1997 Munich (Passion Dance Tour). Unfortunately, I did not manage to localize the first one, yet.
 
With all this talk about a box set, I am busy getting ready for the ultimate disappointment....there will be a TJB box set, with 4 CDs, rarities, and all the hits, but it won't include my favorite TJB song of all, "The Sea Is My Soil."
 
As much as that song comes up, they'd have to include it!! I'd gladly ditch "Never On Sunday" for that one. :D

-= N =-
NP: more annoying Tom Petty on WCSX
 
Rudy said:
I figured I'd start off the posts in this forum with a bang. :wink: No, there's no box set in the near (or apparently distant) future, but I'm going to toss this idea out for some opinions. I'd like to have all TJB listeners chime in with some of their favorite picks for an eventual box set, or at least give ideas for what the ideal box set would contain.

Okay, I've finally come up with my idea for a box set (and have done this on CD-R). For a TJB only set I would go 3 CDs. This would be affordable and would cover a lot of material. So here's my solution:

Disc One - Charted Hits - The Lonely Bull; Marching Thru Madrid; Mexican Drummer Man; Mexican Shuffle; Whipped Cream; A Taste Of Honey; The 3rd Man Theme; Zorba The Greek; Tijuana Taxi; Spanish Flea; What Now My Love; The Work Song; Flamingo; Mame; Wade In The Water; Casino Royale; The Happening; A Banda; Carmen; Cabaret; This Guy's In Love With You; To Wait For Love (45 version); My Favorite Things; Zazueira; Without Her; Jerusalem; Last Tango In Paris; Fox Hunt (76:31)

Disc Two - Closet Jazz - I'm Getting Sentimental Over You; Desafinado; Anna; Butterball; Wall Street Rag; And The Angels Sing; The Love Nest; I Will Wait For You; Slick; The Nicest Things Happen; Ratatouille; Marjorine; Summertime; Our Day Will Come; Panama; Crawfish; Moon River; This Masquerade; Lollipops And Roses; Sunny; Legend Of The One-Eyed Sailor; Senor Mouse; Coney Island; Carmine; Catfish; Up Cherry St. (79:03)

Disc Three - Fan Favorites - Acapulco 1922; Never On Sunday; Winds Of Barcelona; America; South Of The Border; All My Loving; Bittersweet Samba; Love Potion #9; More And More Amor; Walk, Don't Run; So What's New?; If I Were A Rich Man; Mexican Road Race; Blue Sunday; Gotta Lotta Livin' To Do; Treasure Of San Miguel; My Heart Belongs To Daddy; Love So Fine; Monday, Monday; She Touched Me; The Sea Is My Soil; Warm; Good Morning, Mr. Sunshine; Robbers And Cops; Hurt So Bad; Strike Up The Band; Save The Sunlight; Vento Bravo; El Bimbo; Whistle Song (Whistlestar) (79:36)

I know some hate the idea of "Lonely Bull" starting off a disc, but hey - that's why there's a random button on your machines. :D On the Fan Favorites disc, I kind of went with the tunes the TJB did in concert, as well as some favorites that've been discussed here. I tried to get 2 songs from each album. IMHO this would be a great representation of what the TJB was about. At least, that's how my collection is. :cool:


Capt. Bacardi
 
"The Lonely Bull" occured as track one on the following officially released compilations:

GREATEST HITS
FOURSIDER
THE BEST FROM HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS (DEE JAY SAMPLER)
CLASSICS VOLUME 1
A&M GOLD SERIES VOLUME 1
A PORTRAIT IN MUSIC (Rondor)
THE VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT
DEFINITIVE HITS

It appeared on a Japanese A&M GOLD SERIES HERB ALPERT as track 2, on a German compilation called THE VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS (16 GREATEST HITS) as track 9, and on yet another German compilation called GREATEST HITS HERB ALPERT as track 4. Interestingly, on each of those three, "A TASTE OF HONEY" occurs as track 1.

The following Alpert compilations understandably do not have "The Lonely Bull" at all:

GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2
SOLID BRASS
HERB ALPERT CLASSICS VOLUME 20
A&M GOLD SERIES VOLUME 2

The two volume 2's are extensions of their respective volume 1's and are effectively the second disc of two-disc sets. The Volume 20 was a solo album, and SOLID BRASS came out before GH 2 and served as a de facto volume 2 to GREATEST HITS for a few years.

Harry
...details, details, details, online...
 
I noticed few "rarities" on the Captain's list. There are pros and cons--as a box set, we sometimes expect a lot of rarities to appear, and often buy a box set for that reason. Then again, a lot of those songs were "B" sides for a reason...I mean, heck, "Fire and Rain" is a nice little song, but I wouldn't be heartbroken wtihout it. If you include a lot of rarities, or an entire additional CD of rarities, you risk having more of the general public want to pass it up. (Basically, $45 for three CDs vs. $60 for four.)

I personally wouldn't listen much to the pre-A&M tracks. And for the sake of a truly A&M-based box set, who knows if BMG would even license the Dore Alpert tracks for inclusion in the set? I don't see why not, since they've been sitting unused for decades...but BMG is also known to keep a grip on their recordings, too.

I'll have to give it more thought and cook up my own box set list. Interesting to see how they would overlap! If I'm ambitious, I'll do it a few different ways. One would be similar to the Cap'ns box set. Another would expand to include rarities. A third approach would be to keep it strictly chronological, sort of a running history of the TJB. (And possibly three- and four-CD variations of this.)

-= N =-
 
Rudy said:
I noticed few "rarities" on the Captain's list. There are pros and cons--as a box set, we sometimes expect a lot of rarities to appear, and often buy a box set for that reason. Then again, a lot of those songs were "B" sides for a reason...I mean, heck, "Fire and Rain" is a nice little song, but I wouldn't be heartbroken wtihout it. If you include a lot of rarities, or an entire additional CD of rarities, you risk having more of the general public want to pass it up. (Basically, $45 for three CDs vs. $60 for four.)

Yeah, I had considered an extra disc of the pre-A&M stuff along with the 'B' sides, but I don't think that's realistic (although I've already made my own disc with that stuff). And I did hesitate some when it came to songs like "El Bimbo" and "Whistle Song". After all, were they really "fan favorites"? And would anybody really be broken-hearted without "Fire And Rain"? I was considering using "Dida" and "Sweet Georgia Brown" instead, keeping with the 2-songs-from-each-album concept. But then again, "Bimbo" and "Whistle" were sort of the last TJB recordings (as far as we know), and You Smile and Coney were well represented in the jazz disc. So that was my reasoning there. I maintained the chronological feel on the fan favorite, because I thought it was neat to hear how the sound of the TJB evolved over the years. Same with the hits disc. I didn't think it was all that important to do with the jazz disc.


Capt. Bacardi
...hoping Herb feels free to copy my ideas online... :D
 
First off, let me say that I would like to somehow have all of the rarities on a CD. I've heard TJB all my life, and this is something I don't yet have. I don't have the time to scour the 45 bins all over town, nor the $$$ to bid on them when they sell for inflated prices on eBay...and in either case, having them on ratty worn-out 45's on sub-par plastic isn't as enticing as getting them on a clean CD.

With that said, in a four-CD box set, would we really want as much as 25% of the programming to be all rarities? If there were that many, I'd almost prefer they be relegated to their own CD. Some box sets that do include rarities tend to make me skip around. The Carpenters From The Top box is that way. Sometimes I just want to hear some of their early demos, and I'll play the first disc. Or commercial spots, I'll pick those out. If I want to hear just some of their hits, I'll skip the rarities.

If it's done right with some rarities, it's fine. But for some box sets, rarities can overpower the better material. And as is often the case, these songs were rejected from albums and relegated to B-sides for a reason. Those of us who listen and collect have an interest, but would the typcial buyer of a good, solid 3-CD TJB box want to hear all these?

It's a tough call either way. It would almost be better to just reissue original albums and put rarities on as bonus tracks.

-= N =-
 
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