Captain Bacardi
Well-Known Member
Howdy folks! I'm back from my vacation and I met with Randy (Badazz) Alpert this past Wednesday, so here's the news you've all been waiting for:
All of the Tijuana Brass albums are being remastered and all will be released - every one of 'em! From The Lonely Bull to Coney Island, plus some rarities! (I now have images of Mike jumping up and down knowing that "Sea Is My Soil" will finally be on CD. )
Before I go on, I just want to give a big "Thank You" to Randy for taking time from his busy schedule to meet with me. He's a super nice guy and was a gracious host. We hooked up last Wednesday morning and talked for about two hours about a variety of things. He's become a master mixer these days and has a great little setup in his studio. Very high-tech studio and he's kept it pretty quiet the past 16 years or so. He still works with Andy Armer. As a matter of fact you'll be able to hear their new music on the 2004 Summer Olympics next week! They've written the opening theme song as well as three other tunes for the Olympics. Randy told me a lot of stories, much of which I won't be posting about.
Back to the TJB: This whole thing started after the lawsuit that Herb & Jerry settled with Universal. Randy said they found tons of tapes in the vaults and Randy told Herb he needed to put these all in a digital format before the tapes deteriorate. So Herb and Larry Levine have been working on these ever since. Herb originally wanted to reissue the albums with bonus tracks on them, but Randy talked him out of that. So the albums will be reissued as they originally were, with original art work, notes, etc. Then there will be a separate disc(s) of the rarities.
So what are these rarities, I hear you ask? For starters Randy said there was "a whole bunch of Sol Lake tunes that were never released". He even asked Herb why these never made it to albums, and he said Herb just shrugged and said he didn't recall. Added to this, I also saw John Pisano the night before, and he said that there were "a few of my tunes that never got released", so this will probably be included as well. (I'll have a different thread about meeting John in the jazz forum tomorrow.) There will also be the 45s that never made it to an album - "Mexican Drummer Man", "Fire & Rain", "El Bimbo", "Whistle Song". Randy didn't know everything that would be on the rarities disc outside of these. It's possible that the rarities would be a multi-disc set, but that's still up in the air. I asked Randy if there would be a 2 album on 1 disc concept, since most of the LPs were only 30 minutes long. He thought about it and said it was an interesting idea and would pass it on to Herb. Randy would like to have some of the albums done in a SACD format, and they may do that afterwards. But that's still up in the air.
The next question is what label will it be on? Randy couldn't remember the name of the label, but said it was similar to what Rhino does. It's not Rhino nor Hip-O Select, but similar. Universal will have nothing to do with this at all. Herb is done with Uni. As to the time frame of the release, he's not sure. They're still working on this so it's unlikely to be this year, with the possible exception to The Christmas Album. He's also not sure whether the albums will all be released at once or whether they'll spread them out over a period of time.
Now for the promotion part of it. Both Randy and Herb agreed that if they would just release the albums as is, then the most likely buyers would be the over-35 crowd. Randy wants to do something to spark some interest to the younger folks. Sooooooo, Randy is about to start work on a "Stars on 45" concept, and have some of the TJB tunes done with a more modern drum beat, something that could be played in dance clubs and on radio. The only tunes he knows that he wants on it for now is "Lonely Bull", "Mexican Shuffle" and "A Banda" (a favorite tune of Randy's), plus there will probably be a few more. He said he hopes to start working on this in the next few weeks.
I then asked him about the Dore Alpert and pre-A&M sessions, and he said that wasn't going to happen. First of all Herb doesn't own the tapes to most of that stuff and he doesn't really care about that stuff being released since that's not what he was about. I argued a bit with this, saying that from a historical perspective it may be useful. But Herb has no interest in any of that.
As far as a tour to promote these releases, there's no plan at this time for that. Maybe if it sells well and there's some interest in it. But for now there's no touring plan.
I asked about Herb's solo works, but he doesn't know about anything at this point. It's taken a couple of years just to do the TJB stuff, so it may be a while before the solo works get done.
There's probably a couple of things that I'm forgetting about, but it's been a long day on airplanes and I am in dire need of a beer. Maybe a good night's sleep will jar a couple of other goodies.
Capt. Bacardi
All of the Tijuana Brass albums are being remastered and all will be released - every one of 'em! From The Lonely Bull to Coney Island, plus some rarities! (I now have images of Mike jumping up and down knowing that "Sea Is My Soil" will finally be on CD. )
Before I go on, I just want to give a big "Thank You" to Randy for taking time from his busy schedule to meet with me. He's a super nice guy and was a gracious host. We hooked up last Wednesday morning and talked for about two hours about a variety of things. He's become a master mixer these days and has a great little setup in his studio. Very high-tech studio and he's kept it pretty quiet the past 16 years or so. He still works with Andy Armer. As a matter of fact you'll be able to hear their new music on the 2004 Summer Olympics next week! They've written the opening theme song as well as three other tunes for the Olympics. Randy told me a lot of stories, much of which I won't be posting about.
Back to the TJB: This whole thing started after the lawsuit that Herb & Jerry settled with Universal. Randy said they found tons of tapes in the vaults and Randy told Herb he needed to put these all in a digital format before the tapes deteriorate. So Herb and Larry Levine have been working on these ever since. Herb originally wanted to reissue the albums with bonus tracks on them, but Randy talked him out of that. So the albums will be reissued as they originally were, with original art work, notes, etc. Then there will be a separate disc(s) of the rarities.
So what are these rarities, I hear you ask? For starters Randy said there was "a whole bunch of Sol Lake tunes that were never released". He even asked Herb why these never made it to albums, and he said Herb just shrugged and said he didn't recall. Added to this, I also saw John Pisano the night before, and he said that there were "a few of my tunes that never got released", so this will probably be included as well. (I'll have a different thread about meeting John in the jazz forum tomorrow.) There will also be the 45s that never made it to an album - "Mexican Drummer Man", "Fire & Rain", "El Bimbo", "Whistle Song". Randy didn't know everything that would be on the rarities disc outside of these. It's possible that the rarities would be a multi-disc set, but that's still up in the air. I asked Randy if there would be a 2 album on 1 disc concept, since most of the LPs were only 30 minutes long. He thought about it and said it was an interesting idea and would pass it on to Herb. Randy would like to have some of the albums done in a SACD format, and they may do that afterwards. But that's still up in the air.
The next question is what label will it be on? Randy couldn't remember the name of the label, but said it was similar to what Rhino does. It's not Rhino nor Hip-O Select, but similar. Universal will have nothing to do with this at all. Herb is done with Uni. As to the time frame of the release, he's not sure. They're still working on this so it's unlikely to be this year, with the possible exception to The Christmas Album. He's also not sure whether the albums will all be released at once or whether they'll spread them out over a period of time.
Now for the promotion part of it. Both Randy and Herb agreed that if they would just release the albums as is, then the most likely buyers would be the over-35 crowd. Randy wants to do something to spark some interest to the younger folks. Sooooooo, Randy is about to start work on a "Stars on 45" concept, and have some of the TJB tunes done with a more modern drum beat, something that could be played in dance clubs and on radio. The only tunes he knows that he wants on it for now is "Lonely Bull", "Mexican Shuffle" and "A Banda" (a favorite tune of Randy's), plus there will probably be a few more. He said he hopes to start working on this in the next few weeks.
I then asked him about the Dore Alpert and pre-A&M sessions, and he said that wasn't going to happen. First of all Herb doesn't own the tapes to most of that stuff and he doesn't really care about that stuff being released since that's not what he was about. I argued a bit with this, saying that from a historical perspective it may be useful. But Herb has no interest in any of that.
As far as a tour to promote these releases, there's no plan at this time for that. Maybe if it sells well and there's some interest in it. But for now there's no touring plan.
I asked about Herb's solo works, but he doesn't know about anything at this point. It's taken a couple of years just to do the TJB stuff, so it may be a while before the solo works get done.
There's probably a couple of things that I'm forgetting about, but it's been a long day on airplanes and I am in dire need of a beer. Maybe a good night's sleep will jar a couple of other goodies.
Capt. Bacardi