The TjB compilation that never existed.

[Harry]

Herb Alpert & The TjB got entries in the GREATEST HITS series, the FOURSIDER series, and the CLASSICS series. But by the time of the split away from Universal, there was never a 20th Century Masters Millennium Collection entry.

Just for fun, a while ago, I assembled my own fantasy entry in the series. I decided on a series-standard 12-track disc, and I grabbed a good representative track, one each, from the first twelve albums (LONELY BULL through THE BRASS ARE COMIN', no Christmas). Then I looked for some seldom-used pictures and came up with this artwork:





Just a "what might have been" thought exercise.

 

[Bobberman]

WOW Excellent Job i think you got it Spot on 👏

 

[Harry]

Thanks, Bob. (By the way, if you look up the bar code, it belongs to the Sergio Mendes entry in the series.)

 

[Steven J. Gross]

Great choices. I'd buy it.

 

[DAN BOLTON]

I'll bet the cover shot photographer's fly was open...

 

[rockdoctor]

I looked at a lot of those 20Th Century Masters one day. They were all essentially just a reworking of greatest hits compilations and most had only ten songs.
I would have though that the series should have delved deep and put at least 20 songs on the cd's to showcase wider ranges of each artist.

 

[Harry]

Yeah, the merits of the 20th Century Masters compilations are few and far between. All of the ones I've acquired seem to have nice, bright mastering. Those who don't like bright mastering probably hate them for that reason. As a marketing concept, they often served as samplers of an artists work on a label, not very comprehensive ones at that, given the limited number of tracks. Some had an OK selection of tracks, but they also didn't give away the store for the inexpensive cost.

 

[A&M Retro]

Herb Alpert & The TjB got entries in the GREATEST HITS series, the FOURSIDER series, and the CLASSICS series. But by the time of the split away from Universal, there was never a 20th Century Masters Millennium Collection entry.

Just for fun, a while ago, I assembled my own fantasy entry in the series. I decided on a series-standard 12-track disc, and I grabbed a good representative track, one each, from the first twelve albums (LONELY BULL through THE BRASS ARE COMIN', no Christmas). Then I looked for some seldom-used pictures and came up with this artwork:





Just a "what might have been" thought exercise.

Damn! You are very creative, Harry. Great job.

 

[bob knack]

Herb always did a lot of Broadway and movie music. I thought a compilation of those might be nice. Hello Dolly, Mame, Cabaret, Gotta Lotta Livin' To Do, If I Were a Rich Man, Casino Royal, Green Leaves Of Summer, Talk To The Animals, I'm Grown Accustomed To Her Face etc. Titled: The Brass Tread The Boards?

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Great song selection, although I would have picked "The Sea is my Soil" (or possibly "Marjorine") over "Zazueira."

Going Places would be the toughest choice for me to pick a favorite from. I'd have to choose from at least five or six songs on that album!

 

[Harry]

When I compiled that track list, I went with what was arguably the biggest "hit" on WARM without adding another vocal. My personal preference would have been "The Sea Is My Soil" too, but these compilations always find a way to disappoint.

 

[Bobberman]

When I compiled that track list, I went with what was arguably the biggest "hit" on WARM without adding another vocal. My personal preference would have been "The Sea Is My Soil" too, but these compilations always find a way to disappoint.

its kind of fun to create these fantasy compilations it in a way it gives us the power of determining what we think are the best rather than what a company thinks I however agree most compilations tend to leave Much to be desired 99.99% of the time

 

[Moritat]

Most greatest hits compilations released by labels fall between so-so and lousy. The only way to have a compilation that you know you'll really like is to put it together yourself.

 

[Rudy]

Most greatest hits compilations released by labels fall between so-so and lousy. The only way to have a compilation that you know you'll really like is to put it together yourself.

And they often throw on one or two unreleased tracks or b-sides in order to sell it to those who already own all the music.

 

[JOv2]

And they often throw on one or two unreleased tracks or b-sides in order to sell it to those who already own all the music.

Am not sure where that marketing game started, but to this day I don't have Slip Slidin' Away -- the only Paul Simon song he released I don't have (aside from the Capeman rubbish). It, along with its B-side (Stranded In A Limousine) were the enticement to buy his Greatest hits, Etc. LP back in 1977. It was never subsequently issued as a CD bonus selection.

 

[Rudy]

The earliest Best Of I can think of with non-album tracks was The Best of Earth Wind & Fire Vol. 1. The hit "September" and the non-album "Love Music" appeared on that set, and the latter tune has surfaced only a couple of times as a B-side on some non-US singles, and maybe only in one or two other compilations. It was probably more a case of rounding up the stray tunes for the Best-Of than in the CD era, when it was standard practice every few years for artists to churn out compilation after compilation and throw new unreleased tracks or B-sides on them.

 

[rockdoctor]

Most greatest hits compilations released by labels fall between so-so and lousy. The only way to have a compilation that you know you'll really like is to put it together yourself.

I was going through some older threads and saw this line so I have to comment about "Your own compilation."
When I got my first car that had a cassette player, the first tape I recorded was 90 minutes of Sergio Mendes and Brasil'66. I made up a list and calculated total time for the songs I chose to get the maximum amount of music on each side of the tape.

 

[Harry]

Am not sure where that marketing game started, but to this day I don't have Slip Slidin' Away -- the only Paul Simon song he released I don't have (aside from the Capeman rubbish). It, along with its B-side (Stranded In A Limousine) were the enticement to buy his Greatest hits, Etc. LP back in 1977. It was never subsequently issued as a CD bonus selection.

Actually, "Slip Slidin' Away" was included on both the PAUL SIMON 1964-1993 box set, and the ESSENTIAL 2-disc collection. ESSENTIAL also managed to include "Stranded in a Limousine".

 

[abstract_fan]

With Definitive Hits as his last compilation which, as we know, includes songs from Tijuana Brass to solo songs up to around Keep Your Eye On Me, perhaps another exercise could be a single CD of Lonely Bull to Wish Upon A Star ... 15 songs maximum. I'll say up front, I don't know if I could easily do it. He is the premier instrumentalist hit maker of all time.

 

[Harry]

Heck, Herb himself couldn't manage that career-spanning task with the 3CD box set, HERB ALPERT IS... There were a number of absences on that set.

 

[Bobberman]

With Definitive Hits as his last compilation which, as we know, includes songs from Tijuana Brass to solo songs up to around Keep Your Eye On Me, perhaps another exercise could be a single CD of Lonely Bull to Wish Upon A Star ... 15 songs maximum. I'll say up front, I don't know if I could easily do it. He is the premier instrumentalist hit maker of all time.

I Agree when I tried making my own best of compilations on cassettes back in the day I could never easily capture the complete feel and flow that some of Herb's comps such as "Greatest hits volumes 1&2 Solid Brass etc. But I sure had a fun time trying at least listening to the music

 

[Mike Blakesley]

There are a few comps I've made that have become favorite listens of mine, usually because I'm not huge fans of the whole albums the comps are made from.

My most recent compilation is a playlist (on Amazon) from Herb's "Herb Alpert Presents" albums, which is really good.

Other favorites are one from Fleetwood Mac's warner Bros. albums in the pre-Nicks/Buckingham era, and a Sergio Mendes one that covers from Brasiliero forward.

I also made a killer Ambrosia comp, although I'm always glad to play any of their albums all the way through.

 

[Rudy]

Up until about 1986 I was making compilation cassettes but once I got a CD player in the car around 1986, I no longer had a need for cassettes. But discovering earlier versions of CD Architect was fun since I could make my own CD compilations. One of the good parts was being able to level the volume between tracks, so tracks from newer CDs wouldn't be louder than older ones. Towards the end, I was even doing CD compilations where tracks segued into one another via fade-outs. A few years back, I had dragged my reel deck out of the basement and made a compilation there as well, but it got to be too much of a hassle for what was mediocre sound--if I did it again, I would need a deck that ran at 15 IPS.

It's so much less hassle now to make a playlist, as there are no time constraints. It can be as long or short as it needs to be, and if something doesn't work, I can rearrange the track order, swap in different versions, or add/remove songs as needed.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

There are only 3 things I don't like about online playlists:

1. Not everything is available. I made a killer Santana list from their early albums, but.... nothing from Caravanserai on it. What is it about that album? (Amazon "Unlimited" my foot!)

2. My own stuff isn't there, of course. I have a number of good edits and segues that I like, but those are obviously stuck on my CDs (or on my iPod).

3. You can't rely on the signal. I've downloaded a number of my favorite playlists, but it never fails if we're traveling somewhere that there's no signal, I get a hankerin' to listen to something I haven't downloaded.

Well, and one other small irritation, but still important:

4. When you play something that segues into the next song in the original album, you get that rude cut-off. Especially awful on "live" recordings.

By the way, Rudy, I still use CD Architect to make edited versions. I've never found anything that works faster or easier. (Have you?) I've been working on a short version of Sergio's "Circle Game" for a long time. I tinker with it in my spare time.

 

[Rudy]

By the way, Rudy, I still use CD Architect to make edited versions. I've never found anything that works faster or easier. (Have you?)

It's the gold standard for burning CDs; in fact, it was developed for creating master CDs that could be "burned" to glass and used to press copies. (It has a lot of fine-grained controls for doing that.)

I don't think I've burned a CD in over a decade though, so I don't even know where I'd buy the latest version. (Sound Forge has changed hands many times--Sony owned it for a while and now Magix owns it, and I recall CD Architect used to be part of suite that came with Sound Forge.)

There are only 3 things I don't like about online playlists:

All good points.

I have two types of playlists.

My playlists in Roon Player contain music from my own server, plus they can contain tracks from Qobuz if I'm missing a song or version I need. This is more for various artist playlists that I make for background listening, so a missing track isn't going to upset the playlist at all.

Qobuz playlists automatically show up in Roon, plus I can listen to them via the app. The good part is that I can download those tracks as a playlist into a phone or tablet and have them with me, in any resolution from MP3 (320kbps) up to 24-bit/192kHz high-res. Since I have a data plan where I'm billed per GB, I only listen to offline music if I'm not near a WiFi signal.

BTW, checking Caravanserai at the moment:



It's available via Qobuz, so I would think all the streaming services would have it? 🤷‍♂️ Hard to tell since they all have their own negotiations. So I have the standard CD and Mobile Fidelity SACD versions, plus a high-res version from Qobuz.