Herb's First 6 Remasters and Me.....

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Timeframe

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Well Folks, I've humbly completed my selective editing. I've added "air" 'tween the three mono channels with an "Impulse" from, believe it or not, the Masonic Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. An unusual venue to say the least, but it's consistent across all 6 CD's. This process added no additional reverb, but may have increased the perception of increased delay.

I cleaned up the beginning and ending of all tracks. Did you know that on the first 3 remasters, there was a about a second lead and on some tracks almost 4 seconds of trailing silence. On the next 3, most of these remasters start pretty hot, with the furthest being out a ¼ second from the beginning, and several actually have of the original fade-outs accelerated quite a bit to the point of missing some music, but not enough to worry about. I also removed quite a few mic bumps, some miscellaneous thuds, and killed the hum on a couple of tracks like 3rd Man Theme and some others, I don't remember. This is fun.

This is my list of FAVS from the first 6 CDs, compiled to 2, and are permanently inserted into the car CD player. I'm curious how my list compares with others.

CD 1

1 The Lonely Bull (El Solo Toro)
2 El Lobo (The Wolf)
3 Struttin' With Maria
4 Acapulco 1922
5 Limbo Rock
6 Crawfish
7 A Quiet Tear (Lagrima Quieta)
8 Marching Through Madrid
9 South Of The Border
10 The Girl From Ipanema
11 Hello, Dolly!
12 I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face
13 Up Cherry Street
14 Mexican Shuffle
15 El Presidente
16 All My Loving
17 Angelito
18 Salud, Amor Y Dinero
19 Numero Cinco
20 Adios, Mi Corazon
21 A Taste Of Honey
22 Green Peppers
23 Tangerine
24 Bittersweet Samba
25 Lemon Tree
26 Whipped Cream
27 Love Potion No. 9
28 Lollipops And Roses
29 Rosemary
30 I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
31 Spanish Flea

CD 2

1 Mae
2 3rd Man Theme
3 Walk, Don't Run
4 Felicia
5 And the Angels Sing
6 A Walk In the Black Forest
7 Zorba the Greek
8 What Now My Love
9 Freckles
10 Memories Of Madrid
11 It Was A Very Good Year
12 So What's New
13 Plucky
14 Magic Trumpet
15 Cantina Blue
16 Brasillia
17 If I Were A Rich Man
18 Five Minutes More
19 The Shadow Of Your Smile
20 Our Day Will Come
21 Mexican Road Race
22 I Will Wait For You
23 The Wall Street Rag
24 The Work Song
25 Mame
26 Blue Sunday
27 Don't Go Breaking My Heart
28 For Carlos
29 Flamingo
30 Casino Royale
31 Abanda

Steve
 
I guess you're using the original running order, but I'd open Volume 2 with "Third Man Theme" instead of "Mae." Opening a TJB album (even a homemade comp) with a slow tune just doesn't seem right! :)

I can't believe you left out "Taxi." But I guess there has to be some people around the globe who are tired of it.
 
That's true. OK, I've changed my mind. Instead of opening Disk 2 with "Mae," he should take those two extra tunes off (for purity's sake) and move "Spanish Flea" and "Getting Sentimental" onto disk 2, and open it with "Sentimental." There's no law that says you have to pack a CD completely full. Some of my favorite homemade comps contain shorter programs.

And, as Dennis Miller says, "That's just my opinion, I could be wrong."
 
I tried to make a list of the 62 tracks I would use, but only using my very favorites, could only come up with 49. I added "Five Minutes More" to make it an even 50.
Disc 1
Lonely Bull
El Lobo
Tijuana Sauerkraut
Never On Sunday
Struttin' With Maria
Let It Be Me
Acapulco 1922
Limbo Rock
Crawfish
Quiet Tear
Spanish Harlem
Swinger From Seville
Winds Of Barcelona
America
Surfin' Senorita
Marching Thru Madrid
South Of The Border
Girl From Ipanema
Up Cherry Street
Mexican Shuffle
Numero Cinco
Taste Of Honey
Green Peppers
Tangerine
Bittersweet Samba

Disc 2
Whipped Cream
Love Potion #9
Butterball
Peanuts
Lollipops And Roses
Tijuana Taxi
Getting Sentimental Over You
More And More Amor
Spanish Flea
Mae
3rd Man Theme
Walk Don't Run
Cinco De Mayo
Zorba The Greek
What Now My Love
Freckles
Plucky
Brasila
Five Minutes More
Shadow Of Your Smile
Mexican Road Race
Wall Street Rag
Work Song
Mame
Flamingo

It's interesting to see what tracks you left off, Timeframe. I'm sure some of the forum will find some of my deletions sacriligious!
 
I actually made my own TJB 3-disk "Box Set" in 2002. Here's my track list from that set:

Disc 1:
The Mexican Shuffle / A-Me-Ri-Ca / The Lonely Bull / Marching Through Madrid / The Girl from Ipanema / A Quiet Tear / Whipped Cream / Lollipops and Roses / Bittersweet Samba / Green Peppers / A Taste of Honey / Love Potion #9 / Spanish Flea / Tijuana Taxi / I'm Getting Sentimental Over You / More and More Amor / A Walk in the Black Forest / Walk, Don't Run / Felicia / The Third Man Theme / Zorba the Greek / What Now My Love / Cantina Blue / Brasilia / Five Minutes More / It Was a Very Good Year / Freckles / Memories of Madrid / So What's New? / Blue Sunday / Don't Go Breaking My Heart / The Shadow of your Smile

Disc 2:
Mexican Road Race / The Work Song / Flamingo / Our Day Will Come / Bo-Bo / Casino Royale / Town Without Pity / Shades of Blue / Treasure of San Miguel / Wade in the Water / Bud / My Heart Belongs to Daddy / Love So Fine / The Happening / Monday, Monday / She Touched Me / Cabaret / Slick / A Beautiful Friend / Panama / The Sea Is My Soil / Marjorine / Girl Talk / Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / Zazueira / The Continental / To Wait For Love / Sandbox

Disc 3:
Anna / Robbers and Cops / The Maltese Melody / I'm An Old Cowhand / Moments / Good Morning Mr. Sunshine / Hurt So Bad / Summertime / If You Could Read My Mind / Jerusalem / The Robin / This Guy's In Love With You / Fox Hunt / Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor / Promises, Promises / Save the Sunlight / Catfish / Last Tango In Paris / Vento Bravo / I Belong / Mexican Drummer Man / Zorba the Greek (single version) / Plucky (bump'n'grind version) / Fire and Rain / El Bimbo / This Whistle Song / Carmen

A couple of the tracks from #3 really should be on #2 ("The Robin" and "This Guy's In Love.") Ideally, I would have put "This Guy" on disk 2 -- but it was too long. "To Wait For Love" fit perfectly, so I moved "This Guy" to #3.
 
I'd love to hear ANY compilation that doesn't start with "The Lonely Bull". :wink: I'd stick it in the middle, or even at the end. Going chronologically though, putting the "Bull" first does make sense.
 
Hmmm. Thanks for the comments. I thought about altering the order, but the easiest way I remember them is in the original album order (from age 8-14). It's weird - a song will finish, and the next will start playing in my head before it actually begins.

The sound in the car is great - the depth is enhanced significantly, almost three-dimensional. Running the tracks through the "impulse" really opens them up.

The "Marching Through Madrid", "Casino Royale", and "Abanda" I stuck in there strictly because I HAD them from some IMPORT master disk CD. All other songs from the IMPORT are DUPES with the exception of "The Happening".

I think I figured out why "Rosemary" is SOOOOO quiet and crisp. I think this is one of the selections Herb had to add accompaniment to and this one was remastered completely in the digital domain.

For awhile, I felt kind of blasphemous messing around with these original recordings, but then in the REMASTERED album notes, I read where SOUND was the most important thing to Herb when touring at different locations. I felt better that I was making my favorite music (beside hardcore classical) sound better.

Steve
 
Hey, if it sounds good to you, then it sounds good! Some people like more bass than others, or whatever floats your boat.

And remember, you haven't "messed around with the original recordings"....they're locked away in a climate controlled vault somewhere. So the remaster police will not be breaking down your door.
 
I've been experimenting. I have 15 different MIDI trombones including some from Quantum Leap Brass, Garritan Personal Orchestra, and several others. There are several that can be made wonderfully "blatty" (if that's a word). I'm hoping that within the next week or so, I will return a nice "blatty" 'bone to my (Herb's) recording of Brasila. Alas, it won't be my buddy Bob, but I'll sure think of him when I listen.

Steve
 
I've thought about using a WHAT NOW LP, and trying to just drop that trombone bit in using Sound Forge. Might be a fun experiment but trying to get it to sound "correct" would probably be a challenge.
 
I think I'm just gonna do a needle-drop to CD-R from a WHAT NOW MY LOVE LP of the whole album, just to preserve the one I remember. I've been threatening to do that for ages, but thought I'd wait to see what the Shout! release was like.

I already have the mono "What Now My Love" song with the more echoey mix (in mono) on a CD-R of that BEST OF (DEE JAY SAMPLER) vinyl, and the "Brasilia" track with the bone is on the MUSIC BOX CD-R I did (though that one has HAECO-CSG processing on it).

Harry
 
My WNML album is pretty beat up...it's the first TJB album I bought "for myself" and our "phonograph" in those days was one of those heavy tonearm Sears specials. Probably doesn't have much high frequency left. Might be worth searching out a good copy sometime, but it's not something I'm desperate for.
 
Mike Blakesley put on his own-made box set on "disc 3" among others the songs Mexican Drummer Man, El Bimbo, This Wistle Song. Were these songs released as singles or did they appear on some album? I unfortunately don't know these songs. And I guess the "Fire and Rain"-version is another one than the "Lost Treasures"-version.
 
"Mexican Drummer Man" was an early single credited to Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. It was experimental in nature, featuring a Phil Spector-type wall-of-sound and even a girl-group on lead vocals. Though the record charted in Billboard (and reached number 77 on the singles chart), it was not a huge hit and these days is looked on as a bit of a curiosity by both fans and Herb himself.

"El Bimbo" was a mid-'70s single release by Herb Alpert And The T.J.B. It's a short instrumental with a '70s tell-tale wah-wah guitar sound in the backing. Portions of the record are almost a throwback to the LONELY BULL era with a chorus of males performing the melody with an "ah-ahh-ah..."-style vocal.

The above two are curiously missing from the LOST TREASURES album.

"The Whistle Song" was another mid-'70s single. Fans have assumed that it and "El Bimbo" were to eventually be featured on the next T.J.B. album after CONEY ISLAND, perhaps along with two other unreleased songs that Herb performed on TV in that era, "Desert Dance" and "Somewhere" (the song from WEST SIDE STORY). The recording on LOST TREASURES (using the original Cat Stevens title of "Whistlestar") is a bit different from the old 45 version.

"Fire And Rain" appeared as a b-side to the 45 of "Last Tango In Paris", an early-'70s release, and then didn't appear on an official album until it was put on a British compilation currently being discussed here. Again, the LOST TREASURES version is different.

Harry
 
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