TjB Albums, and their singles

[Michael Hagerty]

I seem to have started something by my use of the word "solo", which I used inelegantly.

What I mean is the point at which the band Herb put together for touring in 1965 stopped being the musicians on the recordings. Some of them may have played, but for the most part, Herb was returning to session players.

Yes, Herb and studio musicians pre-1965 were also "the Tijuana Brass", but that was marketing. The Brass as a unit needed to be created in order to tour.

When they disbanded (and they did), "The Brass" couldn't still exist, and despite the marketing, the more honest way to view the records (in my opinion) is as solo projects. On some of those tracks, Herb wanted to re-create the Brass' sound, so he'd arrange, produce and record them like Brass records, occasionally with some (but not all) of the same personnel.

 

[Harry]

I seem to have started something by my use of the word "solo", which I used inelegantly.

Well, you certainly helped steer the conversation toward SUMMERTIME.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Well, you certainly helped steer the conversation toward SUMMERTIME.

Yeah, and I still suspect WARM is a transition album. While "Ob-La-Di", "Sandbox", "Zazueira", "The Continental" and some others would have fit on THE BEAT OF THE BRASS, "The Sea Is My Soil", "Pretty World" and "Girl Talk" sound like a step away from that, and the vocals, of course, were Herb and studio musicians.

THE BRASS ARE COMIN' would have made more sense following THE BEAT OF THE BRASS and WARM would have made more sense leading up to SUMMERTIME, but I suspect it was the contractual commitment to and the long lead time for production of THE BRASS ARE COMIN' (the TV special) that resulted in the back-and-forth stylistically.

 

[Harry]

THE BRASS ARE COMIN' would have made more sense following THE BEAT OF THE BRASS and WARM would have made more sense leading up to SUMMERTIME, but I suspect it was the contractual commitment to and the long lead time for production of THE BRASS ARE COMIN' (the TV special) that resulted in the back-and-forth stylistically.

And, if you'll remember, THE BRASS ARE COMIN' TV special starts with "The Sea Is My Soil" with Herb, the horse, the beach.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

And, if you'll remember, THE BRASS ARE COMIN' TV special starts with "The Sea Is My Soil" with Herb, the horse, the beach.

Yeah.

My thought is the songs featured in the BRASS ARE COMIN' TV special had to be recorded in advance of filming, for the lip-synching and miming to work. And for the set-ups to be written coherently, the songs themselves had to be selected well in advance.

Including "The Sea is My Soil" in the TV special months after the release of WARM seemed odd at the time, but given timelines for the TV special, maybe the sessions for WARM and THE BRASS ARE COMIN' were fairly close together or even overlapped.

 

[abstract_fan]

I recall acquiring the "Jerusalem"/"Strike Up The Band" single a fairly long while before I got SUMMERTIME. One of

I recall acquiring the "Jerusalem"/"Strike Up The Band" single a fairly long while before I got SUMMERTIME. One of the Discogs entries has a radio station date stamp of October, 1970.

I also see one that is labeled 1225 and one with 1225 Stereo (without the -S). My 45 was a stock label with the 1225-S designation. This may have been the first time I'd encountered a Herb Alpert Tijuana Brass single in stereo, and with two full stereo tracks, I wasn't really desperate to get a new album, and didn't think there'd be one.

One day, sometime in 1971, my dad said he heard Herb's "new" record called "Summertime" but that it sounded nothing like the Gershwin tune he'd remembered. And he was disappointed that it was another vocal. But it sent me on a task to find the new single or album.

the Discogs entries has a radio station date stamp of October, 1970.

I also see one that is labeled 1225 and one with 1225 Stereo (without the -S). My 45 was a stock label with the 1225-S designation. This may have been the first time I'd encountered a Herb Alpert Tijuana Brass single in stereo, and with two full stereo tracks, I wasn't really desperate to get a new album, and didn't think there'd be one.

One day, sometime in 1971, my dad said he heard Herb's "new" record called "Summertime" but that it sounded nothing like the Gershwin tune he'd remembered. And he was disappointed that it was another vocal. But it sent me on a task to find the new single or album.

And to further cloud this thread, the cover from Summertime single Strike Up The Band looks like it is from the Brass Are Comin's Good Morning Mr. Sunshine. Lots of bits and pieces at the end.

 

[Harry]

And to further cloud this thread, the cover from Summertime single Strike Up The Band looks like it is from the Brass Are Comin's Good Morning Mr. Sunshine.

This one?

 

[Pru]

I was always under the impression that the TJB disbanded in 1969. The 1971 Summertime is a release of previously shelved arrangements. Am I getting that wrong? TJB ran its highly successful course through the sixties and the shift was happening by 1970 to a newer fusion rock leaning sound by Carlos Santana (love him). Also, Herb was assuredly moving on after The Brass are Comin'. I am also a big fan of Herb's later ventures, although for the purpose of TJB I thought 1969 was the end.

IMO Herb’s had his best timbre with TJB is on Whipped Cream and Other Delights. My favorite singles are from the vital and classic mariachi middle years ’65 and ’66:

"Tijuana Taxi"
"The Lonely Bull"
"Ladyfingers"
“Spanish Flea”
“A Taste of Honey”
“What Now My Love”
“Memories of Madrid”
“So What’s New”
“Tangerine”
“Freckles”
"The Shadow of Your Smile"

I tend to agree and I would go a bit earlier and add "South of the Border" (the song) to that list when it comes to timbre.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

And to further cloud this thread, the cover from Summertime single Strike Up The Band looks like it is from the Brass Are Comin's Good Morning Mr. Sunshine.

Given Herb's struggles at the time, pulling a still from the TV special was probably more appealing than scheduling a photo shoot.

A Herb/TJB sessionography would be enormously helpful, but I'm guessing if that information was accessible, it would have been done by now.

 

[martin]

I really appreciate Harry's start of the TJB singles discussion, however, I have observed that the singles released in Europe and Scandinavia were quite different from what happened in the US. They also vary from country to country. The "London" label that strangely enough were based in Germany, released different singles than PYE (EMI) that were based in England. After a while D.G. took over A & M distribution in Europe from Germany, and they seemed to be more in line with the U.S. (A & M) single releases. So when "Spanish Flea" became the TJB's biggest hit in U.K. I suppose it was due to some "flip side" from the EMI people back there in 1965/66 before A & M had their own short lived A & M affiliation in London.
Anyway I sometimes think that to distinguish the Herb solo and the Herb and the Tijuana Brass releases is not always really correct. In a 1992 interview with Billboard Magazine related to the release of the "Midnight Sun" album, Herb states that "I have always been surrounded by this Tijuana Brass sound, now it is only me"... I think that all of Herb Alpert's output is really him, his arrangements, his ideas and so forth. The Tijuana Brass was not a band, in the way we think of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Police etc, it was Herb's ideas and then made real in a group of musicians that he somewhat reluctantly brought together, much because of the encouragement from A & M's Gil Friesen who saw the enormous benefit of live performances for record sales . After a while some of the musicians in the Tijuana Brass certainly contributed to the recorded output, especially John Pisano, but it was still totally under Herb's control.
My view is supported for instance by the "Bullish" album in 1984, which is one of Herb's most programmed albums. There is hardly one instrument, apart from the trumpet, that is not synthesized (quite in sync with the vogue in pop music of the mid-eighties) but it is still credited to "Herb Alpert Tijuana Brass".

- greetings from the north -
Martin

 

[Harry]

I gave up years ago trying to differentiate in my computer whether an album was credited to Tijuana Brass or to consider it solo. I find it's much easier to find what I'm looking for if everything is just "Herb Alpert" as the artist. Same with Sergio Mendes and his 66 77 88's

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I have my Herb tunes in three groups: The Tijuana Brass, "the T.J.B.," and the solo era. There are of course two distinct sections of the solo era though, so I really should create a fourth group for when Herb started playing again after his long layoff. "Renaissance," maybe.

Each song on Summertime would be at home on Warm. I don't hear them fitting on any solo album.

Might be fun to create a playlist of just the tunes on those two albums. It'd be fun to try to arrange them into a new appealing play order and leave out the couple of tunes that aren't favorites. It could be called "Warm Summertime!"

 

[Rudy]

One nice thing about Roon Player is that for a TJB album, for instance, I can have both Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (and other variations), and Herb Alpert, listed as the primary artist for an album. If I want to see all of Herb's albums, I get everything if I click on just his name. Otherwise, if I click just the Tijuana Brass entry, or Herb/Hugh, I get only those albums.



That is set here:



If I find an album is missing in a discography list, I just need to locate it and make the appropriate edit.

 

[martin]

I was curious as to the strategy and numbers of singles from the various TjB albums. For the purposes of this post, I'm only considering actual 45s released in the USA and at the time that the TjB was active, so no Memories or Forget-Me-Nots releases. And I'm only considering the "classic 12" albums from THE LONELY BULL through THE BRASS ARE COMIN'. By my count, there are 57 single sides, A and B, of tracks lifted from albums. I'm not counting anything from the Christmas album, or the Spanish versions or non-album tracks.

From THE LONELY BULL, there was only 1 A side and 4 B sides.
- A: The Lonely Bull
- B: Acapulco 1922, Struttin' With Maria, Let It Be Me, A Quiet Tear

From VOLUME 2, there were 3 A sides and 2 B sides
- A: Spanish Harlem, Marching Through Madrid, Mexican Corn
- B: The Great Manolete, A-me-ri-ca

From SOUTH OF THE BORDER, there were 2 A sides and 4 B sides
- A: South Of The Border, Mexican Shuffle
- B: Up Cherry Street, El Presidente, All My Loving, Numero Cinco

From WHIPPED CREAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS there was 1 A side and 2 B sides
- A: Whipped Cream
- B: A Taste Of Honey*, El Garbanzo
* A Taste Of Honey was popularly flipped to an A-side hit.

From GOING PLACES there were 3 A sides and 2 B sides*
- A: Zorba The Greek, Mae, Third Man Theme
- B: Tijuana Taxi, Spanish Flea
* Zorba and Taxi were in reality a double-A side release, Third Man Theme was relegated to a B-side by A Taste Of Honey, and Spanish Flea became a hit in its own right.

From WHAT NOW MY LOVE there was 1 A side and 2 B sides
- A: What Now My Love
- B: So What's New, Plucky

From S.R.O. there 3 A sides and 3 B sides
- A: The Work Song, Mame, Flamingo
- B: Our Day Will Come, Mexican Road Race, Wall Street Rag

From SOUNDS LIKE there were 2 A sides and 3 B sides
- A: Wade In The Water, Casino Royale
- B: Town Without Pity, Treasure Of San Miguel, Miss Frenchy Brown

From HERB ALPERT'S NINTH there were 3 A sides and 2 B sides
- A: A Banda, The Happening, Carmen
- B: Bud, Love So Fine

From THE BEAT OF THE BRASS there were 2 A sides and 2 B sides
- A: Slick, This Guy's In Love With You
- B: Cabaret, She Touched Me

From WARM there were 4 A sides and 2 B sides
- A: Without Her, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Zazueira, To Wait For Love
- B: Marjorine, Sandbox

From THE BRASS ARE COMIN' there were 2 A sides and 2 B sides
- A: You Are My Life, The Maltese Melody
- B: Good Morning Mr. Sunshine, Country Lake

Notes: there were two releases scheduled for release that were given catalog numbers but were never actually were pressed. These included Monday Monday from THE BEAT OF THE BRASS and Girl Talk from WARM. Several tracks were released as single sides more than once, like Without Her, Zazueira and She Touched Me.

One of my first TJB singles was actually Winter Wonderland/Jingle Bell Rock from the Christmas Album that I picked up at 11 at a shop in Oslo in early 1970....

 

[Rudy]

One of my first TJB singles was actually Winter Wonderland/Jingle Bell Rock from the Christmas Album that I picked up at 11 at a shop in Oslo in early 1970....

My first "adult" 45 RPM record, at age three, was the "Xmas Song"/"My Favorite Things" single, which came with the little GE record player that was one of my holiday gifts that year.

 

[Harry]

My first record player was this:




... and it was long before the Tijuana Brass.

That player used to get so hot that vinyl 45 records left on the platter too long could - and did - warp.

 

[Rudy]

That player used to get so hot that vinyl 45 records left on the platter too long could - and did - warp.

Good to know as I have a 45-EY-3 that I need to restore when I get some free time...