HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS: "Warm"

Original released on LP A&M SP 4190

(US, June 1969)

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass shed almost all of the dust of Tijuana on this mellow, richly textured album; one reviewer at the time wrote that Alpert seemed to have exchanged bullrings for wedding rings. Lest one think that the TJB came down with a terminal case of the warm fuzzies, though, there are some selections here that sizzle - particularly the old standard "The Continental" - and in terms of arrangements and song selection, the accent falls on Brazil more than on any other TJB album. Shorty Rogers again was called in to provide voices and orchestrations, but he is more tasteful here than on the "Christmas Album", the extreme dynamic range on Harry Nilsson's "Without Her" notwithstanding. A different take of "To Wait for Love" - the lovely, Bacharach-penned, Alpert-sung follow-up to "This Guy's in Love with You" from 1968 - is included here, as is the fine single "Zazueira." Yet "Warm" was the first non-seasonal TJB album in some time that couldn't crack the Top 20, for the Brass' cross-generational appeal was fading fast. (Richard Ginell in AllMusic)

HERB ALPERT'S NINTH

Original released as A&M LP 134/SP 4134

(US, December 1967)

«Introducing the first Brasil '66 record, I became aware of the incredible music coming out of that country. A handful of Brazilian artists were pushing the envelope. "A Banda" was one of the songs that lent itself to the TJB sound. That was our first but certainly not our last attempt at recording the extraordinary and innovative music of Brazil» (Herb Alpert)

This was the very first album that in the late sixties has introduced me to the swingin' Herb Alpert and to the excitement of the Tijuana Brass sounds. Since then I've bought all the great albums of the band, but this was my first one. And the sentence «there's no love like the first one» applies here too: I felt wonderfully happy when I received a couple of days ago this special deluxe packaging cd with a meticulously remastered sound. Issued in December 1967, Herb Alpert's "Ninth" reached the #4 spot on the Pop Albums chart, spending a total of 18 weeks in the Top 40. "A Banda" (a track written by brasilian Chico Buarque de Hollanda), was a Top 40 Pop hit, and "Carmen" and "The Happening" both made the AC Top 5. The cover art of Herb Alpert's "Ninth" is hilarious - a bust of grim old Beethoven wearing a Herb Alpert sweatshirt, a parody of the pop icon fad going around at the time and maybe a comment on the rock world's newfound pretensions in the wake of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper". In any case, Herb Alpert's "Ninth" does introduce some highbrow pretensions of sorts to Alpert's Ameriachi sound - some very subtly applied strands of strings on several numbers and a madcap, multi-sectioned fantasy of tunes from Bizet's "Carmen" that is full of in-jokes from the opera and the TJB's hits. Alpert is also quite aware of the brave new world around him; he does a spare, lazy, yet entirely novel-sounding cover version of Sgt. Pepper's "With a Little Help from My Friends" and gives the Supremes' "The Happening" a bouncy workout. 

Going Places With The Brass

Original released on LP A&M SP-4112

(US, September 1965)

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass were rolling right down the middle of the American pop scene like a locomotive in 1966 - and this album captures them at the peak of their exuberance. By now, there really was a live, touring edition of the Tijuana Brass, and there was an easily identifiable TJB sound, with its strummed Latin American guitars, twin trumpet leads, delicate marimba or vibes (played by Julius Wechter of Baja Marimba Band fame in the studio), and strong grooves rooted in Latin American music, jazz, and rock. Alpert's family of sidemen and composers were busy generating their own catchy hits, like Wechter's deadly, infectious "Spanish Flea," and the tragically short-lived Ervan Coleman's wonderfully goofy "Tijuana Taxi." The bossman's trumpet could be joyous, mocking, and melancholy in turns, and his choices of tunes totally unpredictable; who else would dare juxtapose "The 3rd Man Theme," "Walk, Don't Run," "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," and "Zorba the Greek" on one record? No other TJB record has as much unbuttoned fun and humor as this one - and not surprisingly, it spent six weeks at number one in 1966. (Richard Ginell in AllMusic)

The Beat Of The Brass

Original Release on LP A&M 146 / SP 4146

(US 1968, May 18)

The Brass give us more trademark arrangements on this album, and this is the first album by Herb Alpert to spawn a Billboard number one single! "This Guy's In Love With You" was a first Number One for Herb Alpert, composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and the record label A&M. The single itself was credited only to Herb Alpert, due to his vocals and lack of TJB contribution; Pete Jolly provides the electric piano opening to this classic tune. This album coincided with a television special which featured the songs from this album, and reaction to the show's vocal opening tune was enough to convince A&M to release it as a single. The Pisano/Alpert song "Slick" is a great big band jazz workout tune, and one of the late Julius Wechter's best tunes, "Panama", can be found on this album. This would be the final A&M album commercially available in both stereo (SP 4146) and monaural (LP 146) versions.

Original Liner Notes:

The beat of America is more than a musical experience. It finds its pulse and rhythms in the very life of the country: the crack of a bat against a baseball, the spinning wheels and pounding machinery of a modern factory, a swinging crowd in New Orleans at Mardu Gras, a saddle brone twisting desperately against his rider – a young girl walking. Add the shimmering lights of Times Square, State Street and the Las Vegas Strip, the rhythmic churning of a Mississippi paddlewheel, and a man in love with a woman. All these form a small part of the American beat – and the American beat itself merely reflects the life of people from any and everywhere. The tempo of life – as varied and moody, sad and capricious, driving and smooth as the tempo of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. Listen to the beat of people alive – listen to "The Beat of the Brass". (Tom Mankiewicz)

HERB ALPERT & TJB: The 2nd Album

Original released on LP A&M 103

(US, December 1963)

The follow-up LP to "The Lonely Bull", in the great tradition of follow-ups, tries to duplicate its appeal right off the bat with another leadoff track featuring bullfight sounds and an authentic bullring tune, "The Great Manolete." Alpert is beginning to expand his reach beyond Baja, California without losing the ambience of "The Lonely Bull," sharpening his skills as a producer and exploring other moods and rhythms. In doing so, he comes up with the greatest stripper record this side of David Rose, "Swinger from Seville," a mocking version of Leonard Bernstein's "America" to a lively guajira beat in a wild simulated nightclub, and covers of '60s standards like "More" and "Spanish Harlem." He also receives some more haunting contributions from Sol Lake, including the wistful "Winds of Barcelona" (later recorded by Wes Montgomery) and a marvelously produced, Spanish-tinged tone poem, "Marching Through Madrid." Though released in 1963, this record didn't really start selling until 1966, when TJB albums were monopolizing the upper reaches of the charts en masse. (Richard Ginell in AllMusic)

HA&TJ: "South Of The Border"

Originally Released on LP A&M 108 
(US, December 1964)

Produced by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss

Arranged by Herb Alpert

Engineered by Larry Levine

Recorded at Gold Star Studios, LA

Album Designed by Apple Graphics
Billboard peak album chart position: 6 (debuted 12/18/65)
Weeks in Top 40 album chart: 52
RIAA certified Gold (5/9/66)

South of the Border is not a place. It’s a state of mind, a mythical landscape that everyone North of the Border needs in order to know who we are. It’s a region populated by outlaws and criminals, romantics and bohemians, military men and frat boys, dreamers and travelers, dropouts and writers. It’s a destination never actually reached; people don’t live there, they “head” there or “run” there or hide there, or look for love there, with no guarantee of ever finfing it. When it was time for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to head back into Gold Star Recording Studios to record their third album in 1964, they moved the song from the Texas border to the California border and turned it into an entire album. The song’s ay yay yay tale of falling in love under a Mexican sky full of stars had a new leading man. On the cover Alpert wore a burnt orange mariachi jacket and clutched a trumpet, with a beautiful woman by his side, while three mariachis in big sombreros waited in the shadows under and old Spanish arch.

This Tijuana’s third album begins to highlight more of Alpert's fine arranging talents. From standards ("South Of The Border"), to Bossa Nova ("The Girl From Ipanema") or to The Beatles ("All My Lovin'") and Broadway ("Hello Dolly!"), all bases are covered. The clincher is the hit that brought more attention to the Tijuana Brass: "Mexican Shuffle", first heard on a Teaberry commercial, started to get more airplay and the public then knew that the Brass had not faded away. Says Herb: «I asked songwriter Sol Lake to try and compose a song that would fit into a shuffle rhythm, and he came up with “Mexican Shuffle”. It opened a new door for me. At that point I felt that I just needed to find songs with strong melodies and put them in an interesting and honest setting. “Hello Dolly!” was a tongue-in-cheek version sung by me and some of the maintenance people at Gold Star Recording Studios, where I did most of the Tijuana Brass recordings. I worked with Larry Levine, a great sound engineer who also had a wonderful perspective on the songs I chose to record from an audience point of view. And I also listened to my partner, Jerry Moss, who had and still has wonderful musical instincts. Here again composer Sol Lake contributed “El Presidente”, “Salud, Amor Y Dinero” and “Adios, Mi Corazon”. When recording recognizable songs, my goal has always been to do them in a way that is different than the original recording and to always try and express the song through the trumpet as if I were singing the lyric.» This is the album that would crack the ice for the phenomenal breakthrough that would follow. It jumped into the Top 10, and by February of 1965 it reached #6. This was the biggest of Alpert’s successes yet and when “Mexican Shuffle” was showed up on a TV commercial for Clark’s Teaberry Gum The Tijuana Brass gained mass audiences the size Alpert had never dreamed of. Soon The Tijuana Brass turned on a permanent lineup of musicians who would go on to become one of the top live draws in the world, selling millions of albums to a remarkable generation-spanning fan base that included teenagers as much as their 50-something parents.

HERB ALPERT & TJB: "Summertime"

Original released on LP A&M SP-4314

(US, January 1971)

Though Herb Alpert was technically taking a sabbatical from music in the early 1970s, he wasn't entirely inactive, recording in dribs and drabs. So A&M assembled this brief collection of singles and stray cuts in 1971; it went nowhere on the charts but added some pleasing entries to the Alpert discography. The two best cuts, taken from a 1970 single, are as good as anything from the Tijuana Brass' heyday, with Alpert's own haunting tone poem "Jerusalem" and a great, strutting arrangement of "Strike Up the Band." The title track, with a dual vocal by Alpert and his wife Lani Hall, is also intriguing, drawing inspiration from the famous Miles Davis/Gil Evans version, while Alpert pulls off a really good jazz trumpet solo on "The Nicest Things Happen." Otherwise, most of the tracks on this LP lack energy, and even vigorous arrangements like that of the Beach Boys' "Darlin'" drift off distractedly into the ozone. Clearly, Alpert wasn't quite ready to re-emerge full-blown into the performing world. (Richard Ginell in AllMusic)

HERB ALPERT & TJB: "The Brass Are Comin´"

Original released on LP A&M SP-4228

(US, 1969)

The Western motif on the double-fold album jacket - with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in costume - signals this as another companion album to a TV special. But there is a deeper significance to this LP, for shortly after its release, a burned-out, personally troubled Alpert disbanded the Brass and retired from music for awhile. Indeed, stretches of this record reveal a tired group and a leader whose trumpet has lost much of its old zip. Even so, as on all TJB albums, there are several gems - the stunning shifts in texture and tempo that enliven the worn-out "Moon River," the chugging bluegrass-tinged arrangement of Villa-Lobos' "The Little Train of the Caipira" that masquerades under the name of the title track, a haunting rendition of the Beatles' "I'll Be Back," the fast samba treatment of "Anna." Dave Grusin and Shorty Rogers contribute an occasional orchestration, and Alpert does a modest vocal turn on the lush "You Are My Life." But this time, the old sales magic was gone; the Tijuana Brass had suddenly become unhip in polarized 1969. (Richard Ginell in AllMusic)

HERB ALPERT & TIJUANA BRASS Debut Album

Original released on LP A&M SP-101

(US, December 1962)

The colossus that is A&M Records starts right here with the first album by the 1960s instrumental juggernaut known as the Tijuana Brass. True, there was no "Tijuana Brass" per se at this time; just Herb Alpert and a coterie of Los Angeles sessionmen, with Alpert overdubbing himself on trumpet to get that bullring effect. Also, Alpert was just getting the TJB concept underway; the textures are leaner, the productions less polished, and the accent is more consciously on a Mexican mariachi ambience - the relatively square rhythms, the mandolins, the mournful, wistful siesta feeling - than the records down the road. The hit title track (originally a tune called "Twinkle Star"!) is a cleverly structured, exciting and haunting piece of record-making - and its composer, Sol Lake, becomes the charter member of Alpert's team of TJB tunesmiths with several more ethnic-flavored numbers. In accordance with the newly emerging bossa nova movement, Alpert does a nice, straightforward, authentic cover of "Desafinado," even departing a bit from the tune with some spare jazz-inspired licks, and "Crawfish" pleasingly adapts the mariachi horn sound to a bossa beat. (Richard S. Ginell in AllMusic)

OST: "CASINO ROYALE"

Original released on LP Colgems COSO-5005

(US, 1967)

Burt Bacharach appropriately comes up with a rambunctious soundtrack for the 1967 James Bond spoof, "Casino Royale". Things get underway with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' performance of the fast-paced main title, which features the usual Bacharach mix of pop phrasing and complex arrangements; this theme is subsequently augmented with a lush string arrangement and marching band rhythms on "Sir James' Trip to Find Mata" and turns into a mod rock jam during "Flying Saucer First Stop Berlin." Bacharach excelled at these kinds of musical cut-ups, but thankfully he used liberal doses of humor and melody to keep the proceedings from turning too rarefied or messy.

At times, the humor even turns to camp, as it does with the manic hodgepodge of circus themes, gypsy music, and lounge grind on "Home James, Don't Spare the Horses.". Being a parody to the James Bond films, with Peter Sellers playing the role of double agent 007, it was truly one of the genuine kitsch movies that emerged in the 60s: so bad, weird and inchoerent that it quickly turned into a cult-movie. How such a film got a magnificent music score like this? I really don't know, but I still consider this soundtrack one of the very best ever! Burt Bacharach's music, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass playing the main title and Dusty Springfield's sweet interpretation of "The Look of Love" are indeed too much for one James Bond!

"Standing Room Only"

Original released on LP A&M LP-119

(US, October 1966)

By late 1966, it seemed as if every TV commercial and every pop arranger had latched onto the Herb Alpert "Ameriachi" sound - at which point the resourceful originator of that sound began to pare it down and loosen it up a bit. "S.R.O." (Standing Room Only), referring to the Tijuana Brass' string of sold-out concerts, is an accurate title, for this LP is about a seven-piece band loaded with experienced jazzers who groove and swing together to a greater degree than on their previous albums. Sure, the arrangements are very tightly knit and don't allow much room for spontaneity, but they still sound fresh and uninhibited, and Alpert often allows the flavor of jazz to come through more clearly. Indeed, two of the album's three hit singles, "The Work Song" and "Flamingo," are jazz tunes - the former nervous and driving, the latter joyously kicking - and the third, "Mame," gets a nifty Dixieland treatment a la Louis Armstrong, with Alpert singing one verse. The sleeping gem of the record is guitarist John Pisano's "Freight Train Joe," a wistfully evocative tune that won't quit the memory, and the mournful Alpert/Pisano/Nick Ceroli tune "For Carlos" later became Wes Montgomery's "Wind Song." Though "S.R.O." only went to number two on the LP charts, Alpert's creativity and popularity were still peaking. (Richard S. Ginell in AllMusic)

V.A. - "Surfin' Senorita" - A Tribute to HATB

Original released on CD Wildebeest WBST 003

(US, 1999)

A blueprint of how to make a tribute album if the artists are going to stick close to the originals. Everything on "Surfin' Senorita" is good to great. It's all about tasty "Whipped Cream". These underdogs collectively can play. This is a collectors album to have because it is a variety of good surf bands covering songs of Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass. That in itself makes this worth having and raises the unique factor way, way, high. I have a feeling Herb Alpert is pleased with the results. I like this tribute. (in Amazon)

"SOUNDS LIKE..."

Original Released on LP A&M 

124 (mono) / SP 4124 (stereo)

(US 1967, May 1)

«I received a call from Burt Bacharach who was in London recording the music for the movie "Casino Royale". He was unhappy with the lead performance of the title song and asked if I would consider adding the Tijuana Brass sound. When he played the song over the phone and sang the melody to me with the inflections he wanted, I was struck by the unusual composition and was inspired to play it. The multitrack tapes of the recording were quickly sent, minus the lead instrument. We added two trumpets, some percussion, made a stereo mix and rushed the tapes back to London. That all happened within one week. The movie came out in 1967, and to this day people still tell me how much they liked our recording... thanks again to Burt. My choices of songs on this album were all over the map. Here again I was choosing songs that just popped into my head, with suggestions from my partner Jerry Moss (whose ideas I always listened to), along with tunes written by our staff of writers. Another Sol Lake melody that I really liked was "Bo-Bo". The first time I heard it, it felt like travelling music to me. As a result, we played "Bo-Bo" on one of our TV specials while floating down the Mississippi River on the Delta Queen. We performed "In A Little Spanish Town" with the Muppets and the brilliant Jim Hensen for a show we filmed in London, which also marked the public debut of Miss Piggy. It was a delightful experience.» (Herb Alpert)

For one week in June 1967, "Sounds Like" was able to break the Monkees' 31-week hammerlock on the number one slot on the charts - just two weeks before the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper took over and changed the world. This shows, lest you forget - and many have - just how popular Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass were, still spanning the generations during the Summer of Love, still putting out records as fresh and musical and downright joyous as this one. Though not as jazz-flavored as "S.R.O.", "Sounds Like" does preserve the feeling, particularly in the extended vamps on an updated slave song, "Wade in the Water" (a hit single). "Gotta Lotta Livin' to Do" settles you into the record with nothing but a long vamp - a daring production decision. Yet Alpert was on a roll; everything he tried in the TJB's heyday seemed to work. The lesser-known tunes back-loaded on side two are a string of pearls - John Pisano's appropriately titled bossa nova "The Charmer," Roger Nichols' tense "Treasure of San Miguel," Ervan Coleman's catchy "Miss Frenchy Brown." Finally, Alpert takes a flyer and concludes the LP with an extravagant Burt Bacharach orchestration of his theme from the film "Casino Royale" - an artifact of '60s pop culture, to be sure, but still a perfectly structured record. (Richard S. Ginell in AllMusic)

TIJUANA'S 6TH ALBUM

Original Released on LP A&M 114/SP 4114 
(US, May 1966)

Produced by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss
Arranged by Herb Alpert
Engineered by Larry Levine
Recorded at Gold Star Recording Studios
Album designed by Peter Whorf Graphics
Billboard peak album chart position: 1, 9 weeks (debuted 5/21/66)
Weeks in Top 40 album chart: 141

...«On a personal note, my father's favorite Tijuana Brass song was If I Were A Rich Man from Fiddler On The Roof. My father left Russia alone at the age of 16. His dream was to make enough money so that he could bring his entire family to the United States. He didn't speak english when the ship docked at Ellis Island in 1916, but he found a way to survive and worked hard to finally realize his dream of helping bring his entire family to America. I will always remember him as a gentle, generous and loving man.» - Herb Alpert

With this album, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass settle into their hitmaking groove, the once strikingly eclectic elements of Dixieland, pop, rock, and mariachi becoming more smoothly integrated within Alpert's infectious "Ameriachi" blend. They sound more like a band now; along with Alpert's now-indelibly stamped trumpet sound, we can recognize jazzman John Pisano's distinctive rhythm guitar, Lou Pagani's piano, the droll Bob Edmondson's dulcet trombone, etc. Pisano, who debuted as a composer on Going Places, comes up with a memorably whistleable song "So What's New," and the rest of Alpert's songwriting brigade (Ervan Coleman, Julius Wechter and Sol Lake) chime in with some lively, catchy tunes. There is also an assortment of pop, film, and Broadway standards of the day, all impeccably arranged by Alpert, whose production instincts grew sharper and surer with every release. Result: another hugely entertaining hit LP, one that stayed at number one longer than any other TJB album (nine weeks).