"Fantasy" from Herb's upcoming "Over the Rainbow" now live

(Sorry, y'all — I posted a link to Billboard's new article about Herb without realizing it was already up here. I can't figure out how to delete my post and I can't edit it because it has been over 15 minutes since it was posted, so I'll take this time to post some random thoughts about the Universal fire.)

I KNEW at the time it was a big loss. Now the legal battles are bubbling. In asking for the judge to pause the lawsuits against the company, Universal says many of the artists (including the estates of Tom Petty, Tupac, plus Soundgarden and others) now suing the company for negligence are doing so recklessly because it still isn't clear what masters have or have not been lost.

Hole, originally part of the suit, dropped out because their masters have been found. Universal claims that under standard recording contracts, the label owned any masters that were destroyed; therefore, the musicians are not entitled to any insurance payments that may have been received.

The bummer to me is that there were so many cuts that show up in the musician's union logs that never made it to albums or downloads, particularly the A&M/CTI series. Doug Payne's listing of tracks from the Val Gelder sessions includes titles in nearly every release. Tamba 4 was my favorite. From the "Samba Blim" sessions, we'll never get to hear "Got to Get You into My Life," nor 10 cuts from the unreleased third album.
 
It's mind boggling how much was lost in that fire. And honestly, while the artists can't really determine if their masters are lost or not, I have a feeling that they still deserve some sort of compensation for possible future losses. There's no telling what quality any backup master might be, if any exists, and could prevent future releases (which relates to a loss of income). It'll take years to sort it all out.

I'm also figuring many of the Verve artists could have lost masters in the fire. I'm thinking of Cal Tjader for one...
 
Just listened to it. Rather like it, in spite of the drum programming. It’s like the man says, it really is about the melody.

I always liked his EWF take from Beyond, “That’s the Way of the World”. So I was somewhat confident I would enjoy his take on “Fantasy”. Makes you wonder what might have been if Maurice White and Mr Alpert had comproduced a Herb Alpert solo album.
 
It's mind boggling how much was lost in that fire. And honestly, while the artists can't really determine if their masters are lost or not, I have a feeling that they still deserve some sort of compensation for possible future losses. There's no telling what quality any backup master might be, if any exists, and could prevent future releases (which relates to a loss of income). It'll take years to sort it all out.

I'm also figuring many of the Verve artists could have lost masters in the fire. I'm thinking of Cal Tjader for one...
There ought to be some lawsuits for negligence to say nothing of covering it up, and the need for clarity on what is lost. But of course lawsuits cannot bring back the music.
 
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Just listened to it. Rather like it, in spite of the drum programming. It’s like the man says, it really is about the melody.

I always liked his EWF take from Beyond, “That’s the Way of the World”. So I was somewhat confident I would enjoy his take on “Fantasy”. Makes you wonder what might have been if Maurice White and Mr Alpert had comproduced a Herb Alpert solo album.
It probably would have fared better than something like Wild Romance. He was not big on production outside of EW&F, so it would have been quite an exception to produce one of Herb's albums. He usually had collaborators for the songwriting, and I can't recall him doing much in the way of instrumentals. But he always found collaborators who brought something interesting to the mix.

I also would liked to have heard a project with George Duke. That also could have been interesting since he had many different "sides" to his musical talents. He could do anything from funk to easygoing R&B to straightahead jazz and Brazilian.
 
It probably would have fared better than something like Wild Romance. He was not big on production outside of EW&F, so it would have been quite an exception to produce one of Herb's albums. He usually had collaborators for the songwriting, and I can't recall him doing much in the way of instrumentals. But he always found collaborators who brought something interesting to the mix.

I also would liked to have heard a project with George Duke. That also could have been interesting since he had many different "sides" to his musical talents. He could do anything from funk to easygoing R&B to straightahead jazz and Brazilian.
White produced Neil Diamond on several tracks on his Headed To the Future album, an album I have always liked.
 
Makes you wonder what might have been if Maurice White and Mr Alpert had comproduced a Herb Alpert solo album

I'm fine with him using co-producers, but sometimes he is over-influenced by the co-producers' "sound" in the studio. I'm thinking of when he worked with Jam and Lewis on the Keep Your Eye On Me album.... those co-produced songs sounded like Jam and Lewis with Herb guesting on trumpet, rather than Herb Alpert songs.
 
I'm fine with him using co-producers, but sometimes he is over-influenced by the co-producers' "sound" in the studio. I'm thinking of when he worked with Jam and Lewis on the Keep Your Eye On Me album.... those co-produced songs sounded like Jam and Lewis with Herb guesting on trumpet, rather than Herb Alpert songs.
Not all of them on KYEOM. Stranger On The Shore, Cat Man Do...But you are right that when there is a co producer that person has tended to dominate. In the most recent set of albums, that has been to detriment imho.
 
I'm fine with him using co-producers, but sometimes he is over-influenced by the co-producers' "sound" in the studio. I'm thinking of when he worked with Jam and Lewis on the Keep Your Eye On Me album.... those co-produced songs sounded like Jam and Lewis with Herb guesting on trumpet, rather than Herb Alpert songs.
That made sense to me, though--if you want the "Minneapolis sound," that is how you do it. You get one of the best teams in the business and let them work their magic. 😁 (Short of getting Prince to produce it, getting Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis/Flyte Tyme Productions is as authentic as it gets, as all of those guys came up through the same bunch of musicians who hung out together.) The two vocal tracks do sound kind of like an offshoot to Janet Jackson's work, but the other two (especially "Pillow") take on a lot more of Herb's personality and are my favorites of the four Flyte Time tracks on the album. And it sounds like Herb had a lot of fun working with them!

Just thinking about it a little more, having a producer's "sound" be more prominent in the production could actually be the better idea. Otherwise, a record could sound like "generic" funk rather than have the imprint of a known producer on it. I think that is what Wild Romance ended up sounding like--it was definitely an "urban" sound, but just kind of laid there since it didn't jump out as being unique from other, similar recordings. (Then again, I'm not all that familiar with the other work of the producer on that one either.)
 
That made sense to me, though--if you want the "Minneapolis sound," that is how you do it. You get one of the best teams in the business and let them work their magic.

I kind of figured that's what Herb was going for....to appropriate that sound. It was kind of disappointing to me though because up to that point, there had always been "the Herb Alpert sound" and now here he was, jumping on some other "bandwagon" when he had always maintained he was never looking for the "beat of the week."

It also kind of flew in the face of his own production style when he produced other artists. His own "production style" never really showed itself on other albums...such as, Lani's albums didn't sound at all like Herb's own albums.
 
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