Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Shout! Factory Reissues and "Lost Treasures"

How does "Mexican Shuffle" sound? Mono? Fake Stereo? True Stereo?

 

I thought it was Mulva who dated Jerry Seinfeld!

 

I'm glad someone got it.

 

Are these in the stores today?

 

Supposed to be. I won't be able to go out for them until the weekend.

Amazon has them listed as available.

 

I'm heading out today to get mine. And yes, they're officially available from Amazon today.

I may only get "Lost Treasures" today depending on local price. I really want to hear the remastering on "Lonely Bull" and "South Of The Border", compared to the original CDs and LPs, but with Amazon having a good price, I'm not that impatient that I can't wait a week or so to hear them.

Since others have asked about upcoming reissues, I'll post what I've put on the tijuanabrass.com page:

Whipped Cream is coming out April 6 in a deluxe 40th anniversary edition (a couple of extra tracks).

In June, the albums Going Places, What Now My Love and S.R.O. will be reissued, and the Christmas album is tentatively scheduled for October, along with reissues of Sounds Like, Herb Alpert's Ninth and Beat Of The Brass later this year. The remix project is slated for July. (Randy "Badazz" Alpert is doing something like a "megamix" of the TJB hits, which they're using to get younger listeners familiar with the music, which may help with sales of the reissue albums.)

 

I want to get some of these.... Hey, they should sign HA & the Brass to do the Super Bowl next year. Lots of young people watch it, plus another safe choice for the Networks.

 

CD Universe has the album reissues for $9.79 and Lost Treasures for $13.29. Still waiting for my copies to come in the mail.

The thing is, with Detroit hosting next year, wouldn't it make more sense to utilize a Detroit-based act? Let 'em bring out the TJB next time it goes to SoCal.

Herb did perform the national anthem prior to SB XXII (San Diego, 1988).

 

I couldn't find anything for sale by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass at a local music store today.

 

If my first listen is any indication...buy "Lost Treasures" for the music. The other two? Don't bother. And I can't say much more without catching a lot of flack...

 

Hmmm, doesn't sound too promising, Rood...

 

Rich (and everyone): if you have the originals, hang onto 'em. The new ones are a "smash" to listen to, if you catch my drift...

 

Oh no...

At least there is some good news to come out of this: With reissues available, the original CDs should depreciate to a reasonable amount of money. No more $100 Lonely Bulls!

 

Neil,

Who were these discs mastered by?

Bob

 

Time to reach for the Maalox.....

A dejected

 

Man, and I've been waiting for several years to get hold of some of these CD's without the rip-off ebay prices and only to find out about the quality of the new ones.

Geez..... I give up.

 

Do ya think Dolores Erickson the "Whipped Cream" gal would be interested in making a special appearance?

 

Ted Jensen I think.

 

Considering how well Ted Jensen did with the Fab's Capitol box, this is especially disappointing. I guess that's how Herb wanted them to sound.

Actually, I don't recall exactly when, but I think Steve warned us about this a long time ago.

 

Ted Jensen did the reissues; Bernie Grundman did Lost Treasures. And yes, the order to make them louder could very well have come "from the top".

I wouldn't say these are terrible by any stretch of the imagination--I am hearing steady tape hiss throughout the South Of The Border CD right now, and while I am not able to do a direct comparison over speakers right now, the high and low ends don't seem "jacked up" compared to vinyl or 1988 CD versions. Just disappointing that there's some clamping down of the dynamics when the music gets louder.

Lost Treasures seems the same, limiting-wise. Fine during most of the program, but when a musical peak comes along, smasheroonie.

I will say this: get Lost Treasures for the music, and enjoy it! There are a lot of goodies on that disc, and it's like finding a long-lost TJB treasure.

The remasters certainly aren't bad (I have heard far worse), but they are mastered louder than the original CDs, and there is some shaving off of the peaks when the music gets louder. Disappointing, but this may be the last time we'll see these titles released on CD for quite awhile. They're priced right (list $13.99), and if you can grab one or two on sale, you could still enjoy the music.

Finally, the booklets are nice. Skimpy on details (STILL no musician credits), but there are pictures from Herb Alpert's own collection that I've never seen before, and a bit of background behind the release.

 

IIRC, Steve may have said Universal would smash 'em. And they're on Shout!Factory, since Alpert has severed all ties with Universal at this point. (I think Universal is allowed to sell "Definitive Hits" in the U.S., and that's the end of the deal.) Ironically though, Verve has reissued the three Brasil '66 albums Equinox, Look Around and Fool On The Hill, and they are fantastic. Levels are down where they should be, there's tape hiss, and they sound just about like the LPs I grew up with. Very nice sounding discs!

 

I mentioned this when the news first arrived about these reissues that Larry Levine should have persuaded Herb to let Steve Hoffman behind the "remastering" wheel on this project, but hey, what do I know, right?

I bought all three, even though I already have the original U.S. CD pressings of "South" and "Lonely". I plan to listen to them this morning. That little piece of paper that said that "Herb Alpert's Ninth" ("CARMEN" FINALLY ON CD!!!), "Sounds Like" and "S.R.O." were all coming before years end was the BEST news, if any! I STILL think that these Herb reissues could have been two-fers and release his entire "TJB" and "solo" A&M catalog!

By the way, Rudy, I love the Verve reissue's of "Brasil '66's" "Look Around" and "Equinox", but that "Fool On The Hill" is horrible, IMO! The song "Fool On The Hill" is lifeless on there. Wasn't that the first album to be recorded at the infamous Charlie Chaplin/A&M studios? I think that they used some goofy recording system on those early recordings (Haeco-CSG, I think?)

Chris C

 

I am getting a press release from Herb's PR man today...short version, ALL of the TJB and solo recordings are planned to be released in the signature series, although it will take a few years to get through them all. (He must have in excess of 35 recordings, total.)

Yep, it's a CSG album. The CD is a great, straight transfer of a CSG-ed tape (Bob Irwin remastered this one at Sundazed). Thing is, this is the best CD version that's ever been released. The recent Japan version was louder and had a bit of NR on it, and the Rebound had so much NR that I couldn't listen to it very often.

 

I did an a/b comparison on THE LONELY BULL this morning to compare the new SHOUT! Factory disc with the older A&M CD release.

My first observation is that the new disc is not all that much 'louder' than the A&M CD from 1988, if at all. I used my Phillips CD recorder to play the old disc, and my Sony single-disc CD player to play the new disc. The Sony has a "fade" feature that will lower the output in increments of 1db, so I use that to make the two signals sound just as loud as each other, intuitively, and then make my comparisons. On some new re-issues in the past I've had to lower that Sony by as much as 8-10db to sound like the older one - not so on THE LONELY BULL. At most it's 2 or 3db difference.

The biggest difference I hear in the new mastering is the stereo separation. If you recall, THE LONELY BULL was an early stereo creation, with a lot of hard left, and hard right sounds on virtually every track. This mastering preserves that - in fact, so much so, that listening with headphones is not the best way to hear this album.

The old A&M album had some kind of processing on it to minimize the two-room stereo effect somewhat, whereas the new one seems to be a straightforward pressing from the way I remember my LP to be - without any vinyl distortion.

If anything, the new disc sounds cleaner in many places. Listen to the isolated "Ya-ya-ya-ya" vocal track the first time through on "Tijuana Sauerkraut." At the end of the singing, one guy says something, which is almost buried in the mix on the A&M CD. Here it jumps out at you.

Now, is this a good thing or a bad thing? My personal opinion is that it's good - just not with headphones. If I planned to listen to THE LONELY BULL with headphones, I'd probably choose the A&M disc. But if I'm listening on a boombox or a full-blown stereo system, the new disc really shines, showing off the separation.

One other thing I noticed is the increased time between tracks. The old A&M disc seemed rushed to get from track to track. This new one has longer pauses between tracks, resulting in a disc that's at least 30 seconds longer than the old one.

Dropouts that I noticed on the new disc are largely evident on the old disc too - just not as pronounced. The new separated stereo masternig seems to bring out the existing flaws more.

I noticed no attempt at noise reduction. Hiss, hum, and other tape noise anomalies are all there. Listen to the opening of "A Quiet Tear" and hear all of that muck in the left channel while the music begins on the right.

If I could be granted a wish, it would be that this album also got a mono treatment as well, since so many of these tracks sound more 'together' in mono.

Harry
...with his two cents on LONELY BULL, online...

 

35 recordings...YIKES! Maybe I was asking for too much! I guess since I have MOST of his previously released stuff, I was hoping for what hasn't been released on CD yet!

As for the "Fool On The Hill" Verve reissue, no doubt that your right that out of all CD reissues, the "VERVE" is the best! I had that "Rebound" version and sold it, because it was so awful sounding. I guess that it's just a crappy sounding recording in general and I find it hard to enjoy because of that.

Gotta go spin those new Herb discs now...wish me luck!

Chris C