📣 News Herb Alpert Is... Documentary Comments and Impressions

So far the video is still live on YouTube.

Burt was looking a bit healthier than I've seen him in recent years.
 
I though it was excellent.

Only wish the members of the Tijuana Brass along with Julius were acknowledged.
 
What a beautiful film. Herb and Lani still look great.

The post-1971 story seemed to move much quicker in the film. I looked up the running time of the film (111 minutes) when the Carpenters were being covered and wondered how they were going to move through the later years in the remaining time. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't any mention of "Diamonds" or "Making Love in the Rain", or Herb's performances at the Olympics and the Super Bowl.

I also didn't notice any mentions of Sol Lake (Lachoff) or Julius Wechter. Glad to see Burt Bacharach still looking well at 92.
 
2 hours is not enough to cover Mr. A's accomplishments. 3 CDs are not enough to cover Mr. A's accomplishments.

Some cool moments though. I enjoyed watching him improvise some cool jazz in the scene when he was rehearsing the Tijuana Brass (truly, as he said many years later, a closet jazz musician.)
 
I attempted to watch the documentary I got halfway through and my device decides to automatically update itself and by the time I got back online it was nowhere to be found nevertheless I enjoyed what I saw and I just ordered the DVD So I may have missed the after movie discussion but I will at least have the Full movie
 
I doubt a Herb Alpert documentary is going to get into other artists. If they started name-dropping, the doc would have been six hours long.
 
Would've liked to hear more about the recording of Rise, which I believe was one of the first fully digital recorded albums.

Also, it got me wondering if the Herb-Hugh “live” album was ever filmed/videotaped.

And yes, it would’ve been nice to see the Super Bowl national anthem perf.
 
The documentary leaned more into Herb's life and how he's gotten to where he is now, not so much getting into how the records were made. The doc did cover major albums, but only in a sense of how they shaped his musical career or acted as landmarks along the way.

Sure I'd like to see more of those details, but they are of such a narrow interest that it would not make financial sense to produce anything like that. Herb's appeal is very wide to where his life story is interesting, yet the small details are something only a forum like ours could ever be interested in.
 
I didn't have a chance to view the showing of this documentary. Did it emphasize the life of Herb over his music and A&M records? What was the ratio--for example, was it a 50 per cent his life and 50 per cent the music?

For me, the BBC documentary from years past would be hard to top. It had a large emphasis on the glory days of the 60s with the TJB and Brasil 66 and interesting stories by Lani Hall about those days. And most importantly, it had interviews with the surviving members of the TJB. Did this new documentary also have any of these attributes?
 
Many of the same stories were shared in the new documentary. It was about Herb, plain and simple, and of course it's intertwined with his career, A&M Records, and those around him. There was a lot of great unseen footage from the TjB days that had been filmed by a crew back then and never used. Mr. Scheinfeld, the director, found that footage and made some great use of it.

My one big take-away from the after-interview was when a question from a viewer asked about the TV specials and if they'd ever come out. Herb answered that he was very proud of those TV specials and answered in the affirmative and then said something like, "Aren't they already out?" which confirms that Herb is really forward thinking and doesn't dwell too much on the past.

It's possible that he was confusing the use of those specials in compiling THE VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT, the video program edited by Lani back in 1991, as opposed to the full release of the specials in the video format.

I hope that someone in the powers that be recognize that those specials are very much desirable by fans and should be made available in one format or another - streaming, Blu-ray, DVD, etc.
 
Many of the same stories were shared in the new documentary. It was about Herb, plain and simple, and of course it's intertwined with his career, A&M Records, and those around him. There was a lot of great unseen footage from the TjB days that had been filmed by a crew back then and never used. Mr. Scheinfeld, the director, found that footage and made some great use of it.

My one big take-away from the after-interview was when a question from a viewer asked about the TV specials and if they'd ever come out. Herb answered that he was very proud of those TV specials and answered in the affirmative and then said something like, "Aren't they already out?" which confirms that Herb is really forward thinking and doesn't dwell too much on the past.

It's possible that he was confusing the use of those specials in compiling THE VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT, the video program edited by Lani back in 1991, as opposed to the full release of the specials in the video format.

I hope that someone in the powers that be recognize that those specials are very much desirable by fans and should be made available in one format or another - streaming, Blu-ray, DVD, etc.
Thanks for the info Harry. It appears that this current doc can compete with the BBC doc, less the TJB member interviews I alluded to earlier.
 
Many of the same stories were shared in the new documentary. It was about Herb, plain and simple, and of course it's intertwined with his career, A&M Records, and those around him. There was a lot of great unseen footage from the TjB days that had been filmed by a crew back then and never used. Mr. Scheinfeld, the director, found that footage and made some great use of it.

My one big take-away from the after-interview was when a question from a viewer asked about the TV specials and if they'd ever come out. Herb answered that he was very proud of those TV specials and answered in the affirmative and then said something like, "Aren't they already out?" which confirms that Herb is really forward thinking and doesn't dwell too much on the past.

It's possible that he was confusing the use of those specials in compiling THE VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT, the video program edited by Lani back in 1991, as opposed to the full release of the specials in the video format.

I hope that someone in the powers that be recognize that those specials are very much desirable by fans and should be made available in one format or another - streaming, Blu-ray, DVD, etc.

I think Herb meant that they’re available on YouTube, not necessarily official dvd releases.
 
I just went to YouTube and I'm delighted that the 2010 BBC documentary: "BBC Legends, Herb Alpert, Tijuana Brass and Other Delights" is still available for viewing. So you guys can compare and contrast the two documentaries.

 
What a beautiful film. Herb and Lani still look great.

The post-1971 story seemed to move much quicker in the film. I looked up the running time of the film (111 minutes) when the Carpenters were being covered and wondered how they were going to move through the later years in the remaining time. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't any mention of "Diamonds" or "Making Love in the Rain", or Herb's performances at the Olympics and the Super Bowl.

I also didn't notice any mentions of Sol Lake (Lachoff) or Julius Wechter. Glad to see Burt Bacharach still looking well at 92.

I think that possible reasons for not including Julius and Sol's involvement and insights in the production might have been two-fold. If everyone that contributed to the TJB sound were interviewed, it would have made for a very long program...if you include Julius and Sol, you have to include Bud Coleman, Hal Blaine, Phil Spector(good luck with that one), Pete Jolly and a host of others. Snippets of interviews over time with these people are probably very hard to come by, if they even exist.

Bacharach was an obvious choice because he's still able to provide both a retrospective and current observation of Herb's career.


This production will most definitely revive interest in Herb's career and catalog. The relatives of the afore-mentioned artists and contributors to the Alpert legacy will without a doubt receive a great deal of recognition, gratitude and financial reward for their efforts and contributions.

Now if that soundtrack had only featured the "bone-in" version of Brasilia...
 
Bacharach was an obvious choice because he's still able to provide both a retrospective and current observation of Herb's career.
That and he played a major part in A&M's first two #1 hits, two big milestones for the label (and one for Herb). Now that I think of it, I find it interesting that despite all the great sides he cut with Dionne at Scepter, it took coming to A&M for Burt to get big #1 hits.
 
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