The official S.R.O. comments thread and poll

[Rudy]

I wonder where we could slip "Happy Hour" in to the track lineup for this album. This song has to be from the S.R.O. era--the sound quality and performance sounds very much like it could have fit right into this album.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Personally I think "Happy Hour" would fit better on the NINTH album but if I were sticking it on here, I'd put it right after "I Will Wait For You." (Or possibly after "Freight Train Joe"...but it sounds like a side one track to me.)

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I think "Happy Hour" is from S.R.O. as well, but I'd put it with Sounds Like... just to fill that album up.


Capt. Bacardi

 

[DAN BOLTON]

I wonder if HAPPY HOUR lost out to DON'T GO BREAKING MY HEART...they sound similar to me...

Dan

 

[TJBMike]

"Happy Hour," my favorite track from "Treasures," struck me immediately as coming from '67 or '68, when the TJB reached its "mature" sound, with jazz and rock influences reaching their maximum and the Mariachi flavors having been almost completely left behind.

I would say it was a leftover from "Ninth," or even "BOTB." I feel its sound has more in common with "Cowboys and Indians" than anything on SRO.

 

[TonyCurrie]

Anyone else notice crackling - suspiciously sounding like surface noise - on the right hand channel at the start of "For Carlos"? There's a bit of digital distortion, too, which leads me to wonder if the track was lifted from vinyl and noise reduced?

 

[Harry]

Anyone else notice crackling - suspiciously sounding like surface noise - on the right hand channel at the start of "For Carlos"? There's a bit of digital distortion, too, which leads me to wonder if the track was lifted from vinyl and noise reduced?

It occurs about 12 seconds into the track and has always been there. It's a bit more muffled on the Japanese release, but it's there. I suspect it's more of the flaws that exist in the master, like some of the other anomalies we've been noticing.

Harry

 

[Larry]

"When I first popped this in I thought I was going to be disappointed since "Our Day Will Come" starts off sounding very muddy and/or distorted, but it only gets better after that rocky start.

I thought it sounded flat to me, no depth to "Our Day Will Come". I'll have to listen to it some more. The rest of album sounds ok.
When I got this album in late winter/early spring of 1967 I was disappointed. To me it wasn't as good as WNML. Although I enjoyed having "The Work Song" and "Flamingo" in stereo, it just didn't seem as good as the previous four albums. I guess at the time my musical tastes were changing. I enjoy it now as I do most of the early albums.
I voted for "Flamingo" as my favorite on this CD. "Mame" is probably my least favorite, but I don't mind listening to it.

Larry B.

 

[alpertfan]

I just picked up this disc yesterday, along with !!GOING PLACES!! and WHAT NOW MY LOVE. I enjoyed it very much, and my mind began to wander with thoughts of my father, God rest his soul. My two favorites, I can tell you right now, are "The Work Song" and "Freight Train Joe". I like the way the percussion gives the illusion of the "chuga-chuga-chuga" sound of an actual train. I agree with what seems to be the overall opinion of the liner notes. Too repetitive. Although, on these new releases, there is some insight into the band itself. Apparently, the six gentlemen people remember as the original Tijuana Brass were ONLY used on tour, but never actually played on any of the records at all, with the exception of Ceroli, Pisano, Edmondson and Wechter.

The remastered quality is exceptional. The distortion is probably due to the age of the tapes. Remember, these had been sitting around for goodness knows how long, until Steve Hoffman made archival copies, then Herb Alpert signed with Shout! Factory and went through them (no doubt meticulously and painstakingly) with Larry Levine, then with the help of the folks at Shout! Factory, tried as best he could, to make the tracks sound as if they were recorded today.

 

[Numero Cinco]

Of all the TJB albums, this is the one that, to date, has grown on me the most. I suspect that's because my young ears were tuned to a certain kind of sound from Herb, and, as others have thoughtfully observed, he was in musical transition with this album. It's hard for me to put my finger on quite what makes this one stand out and what kind of transition that was. For me, in comparison with its predecessors, S.R.O. is looser, jazzier, and more improvisational in overall feel. It's unmistakably Herb's TJB, yet it sounds more experimental. While grounded, he was growing and changing. The result is delightfully fresh. And, since my ears aren't as well as trained as others' on this site, I think that the sound quality is remarkably good for an album almost forty years old.

S.R.O. may present the toughest challenge for me to pick a favorite track. I was tempted to vote with many on "Flamingo"; yet, as much as I enjoy it, it sounds to me almost overproduced. Right now I'm listening to "Freight Train Joe," which is charming. Finally, I broke from the pack (again) and settled on "Bean Bag." For this album, it may be the most "retro" to the "old" or earlier TJB. If so, so be it. It's beautifully executed by all hands (especially those fingering the keys, holding the mallets, and even beating the bongos). It's simply a joyous song, and joy is what keeps drawing me back to the Brass.

 

[Rudy]

My two favorite tracks are "Blue Sunday" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", and I chose the latter which edges out "Blue Sunday" only by a hair.

 

[TallPaulInKy]

A person can learn a lot by reading his discussion. One thing that surprises me is the support for the song "Our Day Will Come" which was the B side (I believe of "Mame"). Mame has a happy sound to it, and I always wondered if the TJB recorded the song, because Louis Armstrong, who had a hit with Hello Dolly!, issued his version of this song about the same time on Mercury Records.
Not as good as "Going Places" but a welcome reissue none the less.

 

[mpkunz]

I just bought four of these CDs...."What Now My Love", "!!Going Places!!", "Whipped Cream, etc." and "S.R.O."....and this S.R.O. album is the first of the four where the group sounds like a band. What do I mean by that? They just seem to be more in synch with each other than on the other albums. Maybe it's because the style of music is more jazz than on the other albums.

I used to listen to these albums as a kid, and I think I gave this album short shrift at the time, because as a kid I was more easily amused by some of the quirky stuff of "Going Places" and "Whipped Cream"...but upon further review as an adult, this album is so together, especially with the rhythm section....the percussion is much more complex and musical on this album....and the dynamic builds at the end of "I Will Wait for You" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" are priceless....there's even a good dynamic build midway through "Our Day Will Come" that reflects somebody's great musicianship...whether it was Alpert or John Pisano or who, I don't know...

love this album

 

[AM Matt]

The song "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" at the end of the song reminds me of the closing theme to the Monty Hall ABC game show "Let's Make A Deal" used in the early 70's. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[kenny]

I think S.R.O. is the best TJB album of the reissues so far. Going Places has songs that rank higher in my all time favorites but S.R.O. is more consistent. The biggest surprise to me are songs I passed over before without much thought have become my favorites. One of those is I Will Wait For You which I voted for in the poll. When the whole band kicks in again at the end gives me goose bumps. It would interesting to have a poll ranking the albums up through Beat Of The Brass in a few months.

 

[Dore Adler]

I'm another who underestimated this album, but I'm really impressed by it. It's really consistant and the final song, Flamingo is just flat out one of my new favorites.

Obviously, I'm not the only one who voted for it!

 

[Steven J. Gross]

Just picked up SRO today. 5 Stars, sounds incredible. Beautiful package.
Really excited about this one.

The Work Song is my fave track- but I like them ALL!!!

 

[Ed Bishop]

Interesting album, but I think WHAT NOW MY LOVE was their last great effort; this is a notch below the lofty standards set by SOTB, WC, GP and WNML. Of course no one could sustain that quality level, and this is nevertheless a very strong entry. "The Work Song" is my choice for most memorable cut, but there are many other good ones.

 

[A&Mguyfromwayback]

Once I got into Miles, especially his modal period with his Coltrane band beginning in '59, it became stunningly clear to me that Herb's arrangement and overall sound on "I Will Wait For You" is the closest he has come to a Miles tribute.

That probably means you haven't heard Herb's version of "Summertime" from a couple of years later; it's a direct adaptation (credit given to Miles and Gil Evans in the notes, even) of Miles' arrangement from the PORGY AND BESS album, but done way sideways, with a minimal percussion groove underneath and vocals from Herb and Lani in place of the brass......it's unexpected and quite cool.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I think WHAT NOW MY LOVE was their last great effort

I'd hafta disagree with you there. I was listening again to THE BEAT OF THE BRASS the other day, and it's surprising how easily that album goes down. I predict that BEAT and NINTH will surprise a lot of people in how good they are after all these years...same way S.R.O. did.

Like others here, I've gotten more mileage out of the S.R.O. reissue than I'd thought I would. It's a better album than I remembered. My fave cuts from the "old days" are still my faves today though..."Don't Go Breaking My Heart" is awesome.

 

[martin]

I agree with Mike. S.R.O has grown on me with the reissue. Actually I think Herb and the TJB show a steady musical development up to the Warm album.

- greetings from the north -
Martin

 

[A&Mguyfromwayback]

When I was around sixteen, I gave away (the shame! the shame!) several of my Herb LPs - all the early stuff I had, two or three albums including SRO (I kept "Coney Island", "Solid Brass", "You Smile", and oddly enough, the truly bizarre "Just You And I"). Now I'm kicking myself, with all this dialogue about it - I guess it gives me a good reason to go out and buy these reissues......

 

[Captaindave]

Interesting album, but I think WHAT NOW MY LOVE was their last great effort; this is a notch below the lofty standards set by SOTB, WC, GP and WNML.

Here again, IMO, there was a "change" or some kind of transition in the overall sound and style, between What Now My Love and SRO.

I think we've had this discussion before; I have listened to all these 1960s TJB albums more times than I could ever count. They tend to fall into certain groupings for me in terms of overall style and sound.

Here's my "grouping" of albums regarding the transitions of sound and style:

1. Lonely Bull; Volume 2 - the beginning, the Mexican, Mariachi sound. The "Ole" and bull ring feeling - the "sound of Mexico," perhaps.

2. South Of the Border, Whipped Cream, Going Places, What Now My Love - the transition from purely Mariachi to "Ameriachi," mixed with some American rock and jazz influences. Especially Whipped Cream, which has, IMO, a little different sound and style than the other three, which have more similarity in sound. There has been a lot of distance here between the first two albums and this group. It is almost like a different artist is involved here.

3. SRO, Sounds Like - although I can still see the word "Tijuana" in the group name, I think the transition here has pretty much left anything "south of the border" behind and has pretty much entered the realm of American pop. By now, the name "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass" has established itself as one of the biggest names on the American pop music and entertainment landscape of the sixties.

4. Ninth - I think this one is by itself. To me, it isn't in the same vein as the previous two...I'm not sure how, but it is different. Less "pop" than the previous two albums; something different.

5. Beat of the Brass - well, this may be moving more than ever into a jazz realm...perhaps it would be smooth jazz by today's categories...I don't think of it as "jazz" in any kind of typical sense of the term, but it is very "groovy" when compared to the past albums. The album opens with Slick - a groovy song and sound. The sound has become very cool and contemporary; later sixties West Coast instrumental pop. A long way from Tijuana to LA, figuratively speaking...

6. Warm - IMHO, the final transformation to "smooth jazz," again using a term from today. The full circle, so to speak, from the sound of Mexico to American pop/jazz. If someone listened to Lonely Bull and Warm side by side, I could see how they might ask... "can these two albums be the same artist??"

What I am saying here is that I don't think SRO was in any way a "step down" or a lesser album at all. I like SRO very much; I am, however, very willing to acknowledge what I consider another new direction - just like the transition between Volume 2 and South of the Border. It is just a different album that represents a departure from the previous four albums.

In my opinion...FWIW.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Beat of the Brass ... The album opens with Slick

Check your record, dude.....the album opens with "Monday, Monday."

"Slick" is track 1 on side 2.

 

[Ed Bishop]

No denying that S.R.O. is a fine album; it's just that, in my estimation, the four which preceded it are superior. How superior? Well...on WNML, you have "Brasilia," a performance that could certainly have been issued as a single, it was so strong a choice...and on those four great albums, it has company: any number of strong tracks left on the albums could easily have been A-sides, some quality B's(as some, indeed, were).

While it is true that one can look upon Herb's TJB albums as progressive from start to finish, I felt, after WNML, that something was lost--even if I can't exactly articulatre what that 'lost' element might be. Recording artists can progress from start to finish, as the Beatles did. But, this is very rare. Most artistic careers of any kind have origins, progressions, peaks, and the inevitable decline, and sometimes, even a second wind of sorts.

These sort of debates make for the most fascinating discussions, I think...and Captaindave's analysis of Herb's output is pretty spot on, I would say...