Herb Alpert Songbook Is Out

[Captain Bacardi]

I have a lot of the Jamey Aebersold play-along stuff, which is a rhythm section playing on the albums. There's lots of variety of styles in that series. I enjoy using those to learn many of the old standard tunes.

http://www.aebersold.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

I always thought a TJB and/or solo Alpert set would work, assuming they get a rhythm section that can actually play those songs well.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[4haverstocks]

Hi everybody.

I just got my copy from Amazon.com.

Basically it's a collection of exact transcriptions of Herb's trumpet part, plus chord changes. I'm not sure how you're supposed to use it. I think the main use for books in this format is to see how jazz artists improvise over particular chord progressions, but most of Herb's parts were not improvised like jazz solos are. Still, it's fun to see the stuff in print, and anything that helps promote Herb and his sound is a good thing.

Since the transctiptions are so precise, maybe the best thing is just to play along with the TJB recordings... after all, Herb overdubbed himself a lot in the recording process... you'd just be one more overdub.

BTW, for any trumpet geeks out there... the cover photo is of Herb playing his Benge trumpet... I notice that his horn is missing the locknuts that keep the third valve slide from falling off (which is funny, because I have an old horn with the same problem), so he's got to be careful...he has to remember to hold onto the slide or it could fall off.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Any other photos within the book?



Capt. Bacardi

 

[4haverstocks]

No, no other pictures or any text (aside from titles) anywhere, unfortunately.

 

[Captaindave]

I'd like to see a "reissue", so to speak, of the old Hansen and Key Pops books that were available for brass and rhythm accompaniment. However, there is probably no market for such a thing since the TJB is no longer producing Top 40 hits for radio airplay, which I suppose created a demand way back in that day...

They were pretty good as to content up through the Sounds Like album. The exceptions were songs with copyright limitations that supposedly prevented them from being included. I never understood what that meant, but I seem to remember some kind of disclaimer in the front of the book where the discography was found.

It didn't matter anyway. If we wanted to do a song that wasn't arranged with all the parts the books, we simply made our own arrangement by listening to the album. It isn't hard to do.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

copyright limitations that supposedly prevented them from being included. I never understood what that meant,

Could be that the song's owner wanted too much money to grant the publishing rights. The same thing is happening now with old songs from TV shows -- they're too expensive to license, so DVDs get their original music removed and/or replaced with generic songs.