The Official TJB Press Reviews Thread + COMMENTS

[Numero Cinco]

Recent comments about the TJB cover of "Hello, Dolly!" prompt me to wonder if anyone other than I might enjoy ranking their favorites among the reissued albums (The Lonely Bull, South of the Border) as we've done with the tracks on Lost Treasures.

I think it would be fun and interesting, but I'd like a second to the motion before trying to post the polls myself—or, better, allowing someone else with more technical sophistication to do that.

 

[DAN BOLTON]

I've always found a bit of cringe-worthiness in the fake Mexican accents on "Hello, Dolly," but over the years I've gotten so used to it that I forgot how cheesy it really is.

At least it's still there for all to hear and not edited for some kind of political correctness. I find comfort in that fact, anyway.

Harry

Me, too...it just sounds like a mariachi street band version of a song that was kinda cheesy to begin with.


Dan

 

[Jay Maynes/Juan Oskar]

RE: the article by Devin Grant....He talks of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The WHO, and The Grateful Dead as "Cool" in the 60's then adds Herb Alpert. When you look at these acts/bands, you really can't compare because they are either, dead, arrested, in trouble for internet porn, dope heads, or have illegitimate kids all over the place. Ladies and gents, if HA were a Catholic he'd be an alter boy.
Later amigos..................Jay :bandit:

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Yeah, but the Beatles and the Stones would never have come up with some of their most interesting music if it weren't for the "substances."

Makes you wonder what Herb would have done if he was a pot-head!

 

[Mike]

A Brass-Pot-Head?

 

[Jay Maynes/Juan Oskar]

"Yeah, but the Beatles and the Stones would never have come up with some of their most interesting music if it weren't for the "substances."

Maybe they need more "substances" now. I haven't heard anything creative in the last few years from these guys. Maybe the "Stones" could take some meth, and make new music and treat women better. I'm being sarcastic...

Mr. Alpert is a gentleman and Mr. Wechter is a Saint.
Some day I'll tell da Corner how the music of these two saved my buns when I was young. Up lifting music is a gift..........Just getting a little deep here on the Corner Paz amigos...............Jay

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Here's a new review of Lost Treasures from the San Jose Mercury News http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/11185240.htm

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

"Lost Treasures''

Shout Factory

***

After the Beatles' ``Hey Jude'' and Otis Redding's ``(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay,'' the best ballad of 1968 was ``This Guy's In Love With You,'' a Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition that benefited from a beautiful melody, simple and heartfelt lyrics, and a perfectly understated and sweetly confessional vocal from Herb Alpert. To that point, Alpert had led the seven-piece Tijuana Brass, a middle-of-the road pop-meets-mariachi show band. The song's success -- it ambled its way to No. 1 on the pop charts -- inspired the Bacharach-David team to give Alpert its next potential chart-topper to sing, a ditty called ``Close to You,'' but he decided it would be better suited to the Carpenters, a brother-and-sister duo he had recently signed to A&M.

This addictively listenable collection of unreleased and little-heard Alpert & Brass recordings doesn't include ``This Guy's'' but does feature his respectable ``Close to You'' and slick but hip covers of ``Killing Me Softly,'' the undervalued ``Alone Again (Naturally)'' and best of all, a rendition of James Taylor's chestnut ``Fire and Rain.'' Also worth revisiting are remasters of Brass albums ``The Lonely Bull,'' ``South of the Border'' and the record whose jacket caused teenage boys everywhere to linger leeringly at the record racks, ``Whipped Cream (and Other Delights).''

-- Terry Lawson


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Steve Sidoruk]

Here is a link to today's story in The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28538-2005Apr5.html

 

[Harry]

Thanks Steve. Interesting article. This paragraph is certainly noteworthy:

Despite one health issue last year (atrial fibrillation, a heart ailment), Alpert remains active and creative. He practices every day on the same trumpet he has played since 1953, works on his art and oversees the considerable fortune he has amassed, especially since selling A&M to Polygram in 1990 for a reported $500 million. Sometime soon, he says, he plans to produce an album by his wife, singer Lani Hall Alpert, who once recorded with another A&M group, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.

The first part is scary, and the second part wonderful!

Harry
NR: page 2

 

[Dave]

OK, I finally felt moved to read the entire article and I am glad I did! Very touching story!


Dave

...only I'm feeling "hardwood", 'neath my feet...!

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Nice article! The man is doing more now at the age of 70 than a lot of people have done their whole life. Impressive!


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Captaindave]

I really like that Washington Post article from today. I think the concluding paragraphs are especially nice and make a good summary of this very special part of American musical and cultural history.

Thanks a lot for posting it.

 

[Magicman2004]



I am now 38 and I feel like I am finally seeing some recognition by my world of Herb's talents and contributions. I have been an advocate of his since I started playing trumpet in high school band in the early 80's. Talk about being a square peg! My music teachers sniffed at him and instead were enamored of Maynard and Chuck Mangione. Maybe they were right to steer me away from him based on technical proficiency (though I think that is debatable) but the man and his music have continued to hold a big place in my heart and CD player and always will. I was lucky to shake his hand on the "Second Wind" tour and my two little boys know that Herb Alpert is "Dad's favorite musician". I do my part to let my current colleagues know about him and listen to his music. This post article was long overdue and painted a realistic portrait of a man whose "simple, nonthreatening, happy music" has made all of our lives richer.

thanks for the forum and keep your eye on Herb!

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Here's a new review from the May issue of Jazz Times (also on their website www.jazztimes.com):

It seems redundant to rerelease Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass' whole catalog since it's readily available at used record stores and thrift shops across the country. But the lure of CDs' deluxe packaging, including extensive liner notes, supersedes the vinyl editions. And speaking as someone who took to Alpert's music the way other '60s babies took to security blankets and stuffed animals, there is something addictive about this music that should be heard again every so often.

Alpert-the A of A&M records-always played with a bright, strong tone, which is the most noticeable aspect of his debut, The Lonely Bull (1962). Despite the catchy mariachi lilt of the title track and pleasant versions of "Desafinado" and "Let It Be Me" most of the album feels like filler. South of the Border (1964) introduces Alpert's skill as an arranger: the title track gets a rock backbeat, "The Girl From Ipanema" does a tango and the Beatles' "All My Loving" paraphrases "I Get a Kick Out of You" in the opening bars.

It's hard to fully appreciate Whipped Cream (1965) in all its splendor when its infamous cream-covered model has been reduced to a five-inch photo. But musically, the 12 food-themed songs-plus two bonus tracks-are often as addictive as the titular foodstuff itself. "A Taste of Honey"'s stop-start arrangement holds up four decades later, as does "Whipped Cream," later known as the theme for The Dating Game. This smash LP's follow-up, Going Places (1965, and scheduled for reissue in June), has a more consistent set of tracks, but this one is no slacker either.

Lost Treasures compiles 22 unreleased tracks from 1963 to 1974, and most of them are worthy contenders. Four of the five Burt Bacharach tunes, including an astounding rip through "Promises Promises," are almost worth the purchase alone. The faux funk of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" might evoke scary images of 1970s key parties, but it's countered by versions of "Lazy Day" and "Alone Again (Naturally)."

-Mike Shanley

Capt. Bacardi

 

[Mike Blakesley]

"Girl from Ipanema" is a tango?!

I agree that much of Lonely Bull feels like filler, but that's because the album was recorded in a hurry, obviously.

Apparently this person's advance copy of Whipped Cream didn't come with the poster!

 

[Steve Sidoruk]

A taste of the Swingin' '60s
Herb Alpert and his 'Whipped Cream' get special edition
By Todd Leopold
CNN
Thursday, April 14, 2005 Posted: 8:10 AM EDT (1210 GMT)

The album that made Herb Alpert a superstar gets a rerelease Tuesday.
(CNN) -- In 1966, perhaps the greatest year rock 'n' roll has ever known, the biggest-selling album artist of the year wasn't the Beatles or Beach Boys or the Rolling Stones.

Indeed, it wasn't a rock 'n' roll artist at all, but a 31-year-old trumpeter and label co-owner whose records were full of finger-snapping instrumentals with a vaguely Latin sound called "Ameriachi."

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass were on top of the world. Three of the group's albums made Billboard's year-end Top Five; several singles hit the Top 40. At one point during the year, the group had five albums in the Top 20 at the same time, still a record.

Alpert's hot streak began with "Whipped Cream & Other Delights." The album, with its legendarily naughty cover (later parodied to terrific effect by Soul Asylum) and hits "A Taste of Honey" and "Whipped Cream," came out in 1965 and stayed at No. 1 for eight weeks. It was on the charts for almost three years.

Alpert and the TJB followed with "Going Places," which topped the chart for six weeks at the end of '65, and continued their success with 1966's "What Now My Love" (nine weeks at No. 1) and, at the end of '66, "S.R.O." (which peaked at No. 2).

Alpert and the TJB continued their hit making well into the psychedelic era, with the band leader even topping the charts on his own with the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song "This Guy's in Love With You" in 1968.

Who was buying these records? Adults, mainly. Even today, something about Alpert and the TJB says "bachelor pad" or "nightcap in the suburbs," and in an era when the teens bought the Top 40 material and the hipsters were into Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman, Alpert's tuneful trumpeting and sharp arrangements filled a gap in the market.

"Whipped Cream & Other Delights" is getting a 40th-anniversary release, courtesy of Shout! Factory Records.

Eye on Entertainment blows a kiss.

Eye-opener

As the indispensable Web site Allmusic.com notes, Alpert got his start as a songwriter. He and Lou Adler -- later the producer of the Mamas and the Papas and Carole King -- wrote Sam Cooke's "What a Wonderful World" and "Only Sixteen," and Alpert also dabbled in production.

He founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss in 1962 and immediately had a hit of his own, "The Lonely Bull," a song that later inspired Jack Nitzsche's "The Lonely Surfer." A&M became the biggest independent label in the industry; its artists eventually included Phil Ochs, Joe Cocker, the Carpenters and TJB colleagues Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.

Despite the success of "The Lonely Bull," Alpert and the Tijuana Brass -- originally a collection of Los Angeles session musicians -- didn't have much chart success until "Whipped Cream," which was released in April 1965. The album -- or album cover, featuring a nude Dolores Erickson covered in ersatz whipped cream -- caught the public's fancy, and the rest is history.

"We'll never know exactly what made this album Herb Alpert's big commercial breakthrough -- the music or the LP jacket," writes Richard S. Ginell on Allmusic.com, praising the album for its "eclectic" selections (all of which involved food) and "unique sense of timing."

"[But] no wonder Alpert drew such a large, diverse audience at his peak; his choices of tunes spanned eras and generations, his arrangements were energetic enough for the young and melodic enough for older listeners."

When his albums started to fade from the charts in the early '70s, Alpert retreated to the business side, later re-emerging with the No. 1 song "Rise." He remains one of the most honored -- and most successful -- people in the music industry.

And what of Erickson? Three months pregnant (!) at the time of the "Whipped Cream" shoot, according to the Web site www.swinginchicks.com, she appeared on other covers (the Sandpipers' "Guantanamera" and a Rodgers and Hart compilation) and later divorced and remarried. She's now a painter and has her own Web site, http://www.whippedcreamlady.com.

The 40th-anniversary edition of "Whipped Cream" comes out Tuesday.

 

[Brasil_Nut]

Ladies and gents, if HA were a Catholic he'd be an alter boy.

After all, Herb and Lani were noted as being two of the best parents in Hollywood for something like five years in a row, so this doesn't surprise me. Herb's a very positive spirit, which comes across in his music, his marriage, his parenting and his public image.

Jon

 

[Mike Blakesley]

NOTE: All articles before this post have been posted into the Herb Alpert Articles thread.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I've waited until now to publicize these wonderfully evocative reissues. That's because THE one album found in most American households circa 1965 -- displayed prominently next to the phonograph furniture piece -- finally came out in CD form, and that's "Whipped Cream & Other Delights."

I kind of figured this might happen. People will now start reading about WHIPPED CREAM, and by the time many of them get to the stores, other albums will be out. Nice bit of marketing.

 

[thetijuanataxi]

In addition, it will be interesting to see how much of a splash GOING PLACES makes when it comes out in June. It's the second half of the one-two punch that catapulted the TJB into mega stardom in the 1960s. I think that at least as many people will be grabbing GP as WCAOD. After all, there's still a pretty lady on the cover and this one even has something for the ladies, Herb smiling jovially with a cape around his neck flappin' in the breeze. I wonder how many ladies in 1965 wished they were laying on the wing of that plane serving Herb his martini and other delights.........

David,
al geared up for GP, WNML and S.R.O......

 

[walterphil]

picked up the next 3 reissues this weekend at a strret fair here in nyc. email me if you want to talk about em. they're super of course and there are some great outtake pix as usual.

[email protected]

 

[Mr Bill]

picked up the next 3 reissues this weekend at a strret fair here in nyc.

Hehehehehee!

--Mr B

 

[walterphil]

" I wonder how many ladies in 1965 wished they were laying on the wing of that plane serving Herb his martini and other delights......... "

or guys for that matter!

i sure wish i was on that plane with uncie herb!

hee hee

 

[Maitlen]

I've noticed an absence of press reviews regarding the GP, WNML, and SRO re-issues -- I wonder why.

 

[Mr Bill]

Found this from Eric Johnson's website. Not too bad though it does get off to a rambling start...

--Mr Bill

Tijuana Dreamin’

Call me an exhibitionist, but I get a kick out of going through my bills
in public. Something about exposing myself to the prurient eyes of
the passing public just gets my juices flowing, you know? “My God,” I
imagine the gape-jawed woman with the Funyons saying to herself,
“would you look at the size of that guy’s debt? I love my husband an
all, but this guy's a freak.”

The BP, nee Amoco, station here in town is the best place for me to
indulge my secret passion. It has wide aisles, adequate lighting and a
booth beside the town’s only ATM. Admittedly, it doesn’t have the
ambience of a table at some tony Left Bank café, nor can it offer me
the sheer number of bystanders that setting up shop at, say, Grand
Central Station could provide, but it is smack dab in the middle of a
convenience store, by God. To a guy like me living in a place like this,
it might as well be Heaven.

Today, my friend John happens to be with me. Knowing my bottom
line the way he does, he looks about as bored with the various bills and
reminders I’ve scattered across the table as Sharon Gless used to
look with the flasher at the beginning of Cagney and Lacy. Come on,
pal, the look says. Show me something I haven’t seen before.

John’s much more interested in the energy drink he’s sipping. They’re
everywhere, these drinks. With their oozing claw marks and pseudo-
satanic symbology, they look more like something sold from a back
room than they do a beverage you can purchase in broad daylight
without a valid picture ID. John claims the high octane concoction is
his way of compensating for the marriage drain, but I suspect it has
more to do with trying to look hip for the pretty young brunette
working the register.

Men can be so transparent, I think, brushing a dribble of Diet Cherry
Vanilla Dr.Pepper from my Green Day t-shirt.

Besides the eye-popping enticements strewn provocatively across the
table, today’s mail also includes a boomerang, which is what I call the
self addressed stamped envelopes I send away with my story
submissions. Like their namesakes, sometimes they come back and
sometimes they don’t – I’m a writer, after all, not an aboriginal
hunter. This particular boomerang has been out for the better part of
a year – I can tell by the stamp – and when I hold the envelope up to
the light, I let out a little whoop.

“Sell something?” John asks, reluctantly turning his eyes away from
the inviting midriff exposed by the little clerk’s tiptoe stocking of the
cigarette case above the register.

“No,” I say, enthusiastically waving the little slip of paper in front of his
nose. “It’s another rejection, but look at this – writing!”

He shoots me another look – an Eric, jeez. She was stocking the
cigarettes above the register look – and rejoins the show at the front of
the store.

Obviously, John hasn’t read Steven King’s On Writing or he wouldn’t be
so quick to dismiss my good fortune. In the book, King relates how
significant, how career changing, some of these scribbled notes can
turn out to be. Personally, I don’t even need wisdom right now – I’ve
been without so long, an attaboy would suffice.

I’m not, by nature, an optimistic man (which might explain my
indifference to the pretty strip of flesh that has John so enraptured),
but somehow the sight of so much writing captures my imagination, so
I’m not immediately skeptical when the editor seems to think my
name is Hey. “Hey,” the note reads. “Not bad, but you lost me with
the Harvestore.”

The story I’d sent him all those months ago involved moving a
Harvestore – one of those white-topped blue silos you see in cattle
country – to a more convenient location on a recently purchased
farm. Such an action, the editor smugly pointed out – and I can just
see him sitting there at his cluttered desk shouting “Ah-ha!” between
bites of a pastrami sandwich – was a virtual impossibility. He
happened to know a little something about Harvestores, you see – his
uncle used to sell them – and because of that (“Ha!”) he knew no one
would ever move a Harvestore purely for the sake of convenience.
“Check facts,” he advised. “Research.”

Moving the Harvestore was the only true thing in the story.

Instead of offering sympathy – or, better yet, offering to hunt down the
little bastard and string him up by his pastrami – John gives me the
“perfect world” question. Without averting his gaze, he asks me what
I’d be doing with my life “in a perfect world.”

“You mean, what would I be doing if I wasn’t a piss-poor hack with an
empty refrigerator and a rainy day fund small enough to keep in a
measuring cup?”

I’ve heard this one before, you see. When you’re a writer, everyone
figures it’s just a temporary gig, seasonal work that’s run on a bit. It
seems to be the only way to explain why an otherwise rational human
being would choose to sit at a desk all day next to a phone that never
rings. So when people ask me the perfect world question, what
they’re really asking is “what are you going to do when you finally come
to your senses?” The perfect world bit is just a smokescreen, a
politically correct way of calling me stupid.

The bit about the rainy day fund, though, is true. I keep my mad
money in a one quart Anchor Hocking measuring cup. Actually, you
might be surprised at how quickly the ounces add up. A quarter cup
of change will get you a couple Dr. Peppers. A cup and a half will buy
you a Value Meal – another ounce and you can Super Size it. The only
hitch is having to cash in at the bank.

“Gonna see the new Star Wars movie, Eric?”

“Yeah. Seems like I was just here for the last one.”

John, however, isn’t going to let this one lie. “Seriously,” he says. “If
you weren’t…what you are…what would you be?”

He looks earnest enough – he’s temporarily abandoned his Marlboro-
stocking honey, at any rate – so I tell him the truth: If I wasn’t a writer,
I’d be fronting a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass tribute band.

With that, he shakes his head and turns back to the front of the store
for good. “No wonder you’re so single,” he mumbles under his breath.

He’s free to think what he wants, of course, but I happen to believe
playing the trumpet in a matador’s get up ought to be a great way to
pick up chicks. The fact that it’s not only confirms what I’ve been
saying for years: the world needs more Tijuana Brass.

And it’s getting it, too, thanks to a company called Shout Factory. If
you haven’t heard, Shout Factory is bringing back the Brass in a big
way. In fact, if you happened to be mall walking early on February 8,
you probably saw people camped out in front of Sam Goode, waiting
for the gates to open. I know I was there. People kept asking me what
I was waiting for – more lost Beatles recordings, the DVD of Debbie
Gibson’s Playboy shoot? When I told them I’d been waiting since five
that morning for the re-release of the Lonely Bull, they smiled politely
and gave me a wide berth next time around.

Hey, we’ve all got to be fanatical about something.

My history with the Brass goes way back. As an only child of older
parents, my 70s were a little bit different than the 70s celebrated
today. I mean, yeah – I knew people wore mood rings and bell-
bottoms and polyester shirts, but they were the folks you saw at
school or on the way to the Fotomat booth. I took my style cues from
the guys in my parent’s record collection, which, except for Herb
Alpert and Harry Belafonte, was heavy on white-bread crooners.
Consequently, I happened to think – and still do, as a matter of fact –
that cardigans are the epitome of cool.

You can laugh all you want, but dig out your class pictures, you
children of the 70s, and tell me who looks goofier now, me in my
cardigan or all those little Toni Tennilles?

Muskrat Love, anyone?

Seriously, it was my devotion to the Tijuana Brass that caused me to
take up the trumpet, not that it ever brought me any respect. At a
jazz clinic my junior year, all of us trumpets went around the room
talking about our influences. “Miles, baby. Miles,” was the standard
answer, though you couldn’t go wrong with Doc or Louis or Chet or
Maynard. Herb, however. It’s not easy to get guys capable of playing
high E flats to pee their pants, but I did a pretty good job of it with
that one.

Herb had a couple of things going against him, and both were spelled
s-u-c-c-e-s-s. First, there was the Brass. Only Elvis, the Beatles and
Sinatra sold more records during the 60s, and for a time in 1966 the
Brass had five albums in the Top 20, a feat unmatched in recording
history. Then, there was Rise, the disco-tinged charttopper from
1980. Easy listening and disco. That’s three strikes right there.

“But have you ever really listened?” I asked once the laughter died
down. “Do you even know what you’re talking about?”

To this day, I may be the only musician ever kicked out of practice
because his olé was showing.

Over the years I’ve shelved my trumpet, but not my dreams. Give me
a genie bottle right now, and it’s still a no-brainer – right after
switching Genie for Jeannie (could there really be anything better than
hearing Barbara Eden say “Yes, Master?”) I’d order up my tribute
band. My third wish? You know, famine relief, world peace – that sort
of thing.

Actually, this wouldn’t be a bad time to find that genie bottle,
especially following the release of Lost Treasures, the disk of rare and
unreleased Tijuana Brass recordings that came out the same day as
the Lonely Bull. Since I only had enough change in my measuring cup
for one, I opted for Lost Treasures, and am I ever glad I did. Now I’ve
got twenty-two new tunes to tap my foot to. Twenty-two new
soundtracks to score my daydreams.

Does John care about any of this? Absolutely not. Yet in spite of his
dismissal of my dream, I’m happy to give him his. The little checker is
cute, and there’s no denying the allure of that exposed midriff, that
little invitation of soft, bare skin. If that’s where his mind wants to
drift, I say fine. The Brass’ tent is large. I can still bring him into the
fold.

Whipped Cream and Other Delights, the seminal album of a generation,
hit the shelves last Tuesday. Whatever he thinks of the music, he’s
bound to appreciate the cover. Though he may not have lost his
innocence to it, plenty of us did.