HERB ALPERT Creator and innovator, musician and producer, artist, and philanthropist, Herb Alpert is a man with a profound passion. Born in Los Angeles, the future trumpeter came of age in a house filled with music. At the age of eight, he was drawn to the trumpet in a music appreciation class in his elementary school. “I was very fortunate that I had that exposure to music and was encouraged to stick with it. Years ago, when the arts programs were cut out of our public schools, so many kids stopped having that kind of opportunity.” A legendary trumpet player, Alpert’s extraordinary musicianship has earned him five #1 hits, nine GRAMMY® Awards, the latest from his 2014 album, “Steppin’ Out,” fifteen Gold albums, fourteen Platinum albums and has sold over 72 million records. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass propelled his sound into the pop music limelight, at one point outselling the Beatles two to one. In 1966, they achieved the since-unmatched feat of simultaneously having four albums in the Top 10– and five in the Top 20. Herb Alpert also has the distinction of being the only artist who has had a #1 instrumental and vocal single. THE LONELY BULL Original Release Date: 1962 Re-issue Date: 2015 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. VOLUME 2 Original Release Date: 1963 Re-issue Date: 2015 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. SOUTH OF THE BORDER Original Release Date: 1964 Re-issue Date: 2015 Herb Alpert was still using an array of SoCal studio all-stars as his Tijuana Brass when South of the Border (1964) began to restore the combo’s good name after the modest Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, Vol. 2 (1963) failed to ignite a fire in listener’s ears. Alpert later commented that the Sol Lake composition “Mexican Shuffle” “opened a new door for me.” That passageway meant the loss of the Tijuana Brass‘ practically forced mariachi style and the rise of Alpert‘s approach in arranging familiar melodies in fresh, creative settings. Nowhere would this stylistic progression be as pronounced as in the horn-driven updates of several then-concurrent chart hits. For instance, the mod sonic wrinkle in “Girl from Ipanema” emits a darkness veiled in mystery, directly contrasting the light buoyancy of “Hello! Dolly” or the footloose feel of the Beatles‘ “All My Loving.” They seamlessly fit in with Sol Lake‘s “Salud, Amor y Dinero” and a cover of Julius Wechter‘s playful, midtempo “Up Cherry Street” — which Wechter‘s own Baja Marimba Band had just recorded for their 1964 self-titled debut.
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