🎵 AotW AOTW: Herb Alpert - JUST YOU AND ME (SP-4591)

What Is Your Favorite Song?

  • Promenade

    Votes: 5 20.0%
  • Musique

    Votes: 12 48.0%
  • Just You And Me

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Grandpa Lou

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Aria

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Yankee Doodle

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Spanish Nights

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • One Night Lover

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The Lady Needs Romance

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • The Day Will Come

    Votes: 2 8.0%

  • Total voters
    25
It's a little distorted, but somewhat functional, I suppose.
Functional is about all I'll give it. 😁

That sounds terrible! Ratty LP, played over cheap equipment (I hear a lot of breakup/splattering throughout), run through some cheap software noise reduction (the boxy, muffled sound)...
 
I'd love to be over there someday and hear a track from JUST YOU AND ME on the radio! Put that in as a request!
If I'm still doing my show when that happens I will certainly fulfill that request even so I try to play a track or more from it as I play rarities often ( kind of gives me a sense of exclusivity like the MOR/Easy stations of old who received custom music programming that until recent years was never available publicly)
 
The album was almost experimental - the kind of thing one can do when one owns a record company.
This would then suggest the LP was Herb's most honest LP in that apparently there were no concessions to commercialize the music. I've never heard the LP -- (though I do recall seeing it under his divider back in the mid-70s) but now I definitely want to hear it.

(I'm probably wrong here, but I always felt that the whole Rise thing was a left-turn of sorts and that, for the most part, from that point onward, he definitively focused his music to what was trendy -- whereas his pre-Rise '70s LPs were simply the music he wanted to make...)
 
This would then suggest the LP was Herb's most honest LP in that apparently there were no concessions to commercialize the music. I've never heard the LP -- (though I do recall seeing it under his divider back in the mid-70s) but now I definitely want to hear it.

(I'm probably wrong here, but I always felt that the whole Rise thing was a left-turn of sorts and that, for the most part, from that point onward, he definitively focused his music to what was trendy -- whereas his pre-Rise '70s LPs were simply the music he wanted to make...)
You Might have a Point about His pre Rise Lps nevertheless I enjoy Everything Herb Made regardless of how different they may be being that I wanted to play trumpet in school band Because of him I knew he was always "Musically Adventurous" meaning he took chances and arrange songs in ways that were not common and try different things and I think JYAM is A Unique album unto itself Harry is correct in saying the songs on it would never fit on any other Herb Alpert Album.
 
This would then suggest the LP was Herb's most honest LP in that apparently there were no concessions to commercialize the music. I've never heard the LP -- (though I do recall seeing it under his divider back in the mid-70s) but now I definitely want to hear it.

You might do yourself a favor by just skipping it, as you'll probably be disappointed based on your reviews of his past work. (I remember you saying you didn't like the Summertime album, long ago...and his playing on JYAM is more like it is on Summertime than it was in the TJB glory days. Not bad, necessarily, just different.)

I always thought of this album as one where Herb wanted to do as much as he could with minimal outside help, and just see where his muse took him. It was experimental. He learned a lesson from the album and the lesson was that he NEEDS other people to make his very best music - and that includes writers as well as instrumentalists. That's why he branched out after this album, bringing in outside producers and writers -- some of whom got kind of overbearing (I'm looking at you, Jam and Lewis) but his music definitely had wider appeal once he got more ingredients into the stew. The same reason the TJB sound worked so well after the band got together -- he was relying on the other guys for their input as well as on himself.

If you really want to jump in, try just listening to the first two songs -- they are the two best on the album in most people's opinion. That'll give you an idea if you want to check out the rest or not. If you decide to listen it'll be interesting to see what you think.
 
Thanks, Mike. Well you know my musical tastes here quite well: Your past recommendations of Pisano and Ruff, and the two '70s TJB albums were 100% spot-on and to this day I thank you in my mind every time I spin these -- particularly the Pisano album. As for Summertime, I've had it since late High School. It took a long time to warm up (pardon the pun) to the LP. Nevertheless, I've always liked the first two selections on both sides (Hurt So Bad, Jerusalem, Summertime, The Nicest Things Happen) along with If You Could Read My Mind. Would've made a stellar 5-song EP.
 
Welp, I took the plunge and listened to the LP as presented on YouTube. The two things that strike me were: (1) although Herb's trumpet playing exhibited occasional '60s attributes, he's clearly heading stylistically in a new direction more so than the previous two TJB LPs; (2) Herb's piano playing was quite disappointing: for someone who created such imagintaive arrangments I expected Herb to have a much wider musical palette on piano. At minimum, I was expecting "arranger's piano", which minimally fills the ears with unique voicing and counterpoint, and can easily be accomplished devoid of Van Cliburn-level ability; yet, for the most part, his voicings appeared to be rhythmically repetitive, simple triad-sounding inversions. The songs themselves seemed to exhibit an overall understated feel. In short, it's hard to imagine that this was the work of the same trumpeter who gave us S.R.O.

Mike was right.
 
JUST YOU AND ME has historically been one of those albums that creeps up on a fan after several listens, at least that's the way it seems from reports here and my own experience. I remember grabbing the album when it was new. We were coming off of CONEY ISLAND, so it really sounded different. I'm pretty sure I played it through once and filed it away, and didn't dig it out again for probably twenty years. Then discussion on this forum got me to dig it out again - and it sounded better to me. Another few plays and it became a familiar friend.

Regarding Herb's piano playing, no he's not a virtuoso on that instrument, but it's clear he can noodle around on it to form chords that enhance where he wants a song to go. And on this album, it really sounds to me like he use two pianos, one slightly detuned, perhaps in an effort to mimic or enhance his detuned horn on a second pass. It tends to give these songs almost a "tack piano" feel at times. Another reason I see the album as not only a tribute to his dad, but an experimental album too.
 
The playlist leaves out "The Lady Needs Romance." (Possibly removed?)

I can't say the album ever bothered me--at that age, it was "another Herb Alpert record" and I played the snot out of it after getting it shortly after release. Later in life, I heard a lot more going on either in the arrangement or in the recording itself. He was no Ashkenazy on the piano but it worked well enough to convey his own tunes, and we should probably be lucky he even played it at all--so many musicians can't play it. The only remaining TJB member on the record is Bob Edmondson; vibes and marimba were Emil Richards this time around, with the rest also being studio musicians.
 
JUST YOU AND ME has historically been one of those albums that creeps up on a fan after several listens, at least that's the way it seems from reports here and my own experience. I remember grabbing the album when it was new. We were coming off of CONEY ISLAND, so it really sounded different. I'm pretty sure I played it through once and filed it away, and didn't dig it out again for probably twenty years. Then discussion on this forum got me to dig it out again - and it sounded better to me. Another few plays and it became a familiar friend.

Regarding Herb's piano playing, no he's not a virtuoso on that instrument, but it's clear he can noodle around on it to form chords that enhance where he wants a song to go. And on this album, it really sounds to me like he use two pianos, one slightly detuned, perhaps in an effort to mimic or enhance his detuned horn on a second pass. It tends to give these songs almost a "tack piano" feel at times. Another reason I see the album as not only a tribute to his dad, but an experimental album too.
I totally concur and I thought it was a Great experiment
 
Well, the one thing we all appear to agree on: Herb is 100% muse so to speak...and to that end what he creates is typically an interesting listen. It may not always be my brand of whipped cream, but it's typically intriguing to hear what he creates.
 
Gave it a 2nd, closer, listening earlier today. I do like it better. Given that Herb was a career recording artist, it's good to have such a sonic document. For those of us who are not attracted to his Rise-and-after music, this LP is all the more engaging; and for the casual '60s TjB "fan" it's a nice musical response to that what-ever-happened-to-Herb-Albert question that surely popped up around many dinner table conversations in the mid'70s.
 
Gave it a 2nd, closer, listening earlier today. I do like it better. Given that Herb was a career recording artist, it's good to have such a sonic document. For those of us who are not attracted to his Rise-and-after music, this LP is all the more engaging; and for the casual '60s TjB "fan" it's a nice musical response to that what-ever-happened-to-Herb-Albert question that surely popped up around many dinner table conversations in the mid'70s.
It does grow on you over time but for me being a completist this was a necessity and long before I was able to find the Lp I only had the 45 single of Promenade and Musique which I wore out by playing too much
 
I only paid $20 for my copy I don't remember ever paying over $50 for one album, CD, etc. But these days you never know what you will actually get for your money.
 
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