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

Any rechanneled stuff, new stereo or restored to mono we need to know about?

 

I hope that's the case, I was wondering about the status of You Smile, The Song Begins, since there seem to be a bunch of tracks from it on Lost Treasures. Just hearing the song samples on Amazon reminded me of how much I liked that album. Haven't heard it in at least 25 years. I need a copy of "Fox Hunt."

Still waiting to hear what "Mexican Shuffle" sounds like on the remastered CD.

 

Brightened up - and dead stone mono! None of that fake stereo stuff this time around!

 

Well, at least that makes me feel better. All I had was the fake stereo version on the old Greatest Hits CD.

 

Well, I may be in the minority about these, just as I was with that 5.1 CARPENTERS SACD, but I think that "South Of The Border", while much louder than the original CD, is far better sonically. I can feel the lows and the highs don't scream too loud. After doing an A/B to the old CD, I will easily stick with the new one!

I haven't opened "The Lonely Bull" yet, I was waiting to hear more input from you guys, since that album is NOT one of my TJB favs!

The "Lost Treasures" disc was good, but not great IMO. No earth shaking TJB obscurities here. Naturally MOST of these tracks are from the early to mid 70's, and I have found that I personally most enjoy the CLASSIC early years and then I jump to "Rise" through "Under A Spanish Moon".

Am I hearing this correctly on "Treasures"...Is Herb humming what he wanted to play on the trumpet as sort of a "GUIDE VOCAL" on the song "I Might Frighten Her Away"? It seems like they didn't erase it completely, since it's barely audible? Herb couldn't have been more "off the mark" with his version of "Close To You". Thank GOD that Larry Levine stepped in to tell Herb that it wasn't working or he may have never had passed it on to The Carpenters! I, for one reason or another, keep going back to that Harry Nilsson song called "Wailing Of The Willow", it's interesting!

Chris C

 

The newly-remastered Herb Alpert CD's (South Of The Border & Lonely Bull) sound superior to my old A&M Herb Alpert CD's.
I heard subtleties that I haven't heard before listening to the old A&M CD's.
These Shout CD's are one of the best reissues that have ever been released in terms of sound improvement and packaging. They just sound warm like my TJB vinyl records.
I can't wait to get the Ted Jansen-remastered "Whipped Cream & Other Delights", "Vol. 2", "!Going Places!", "What Now My Love", "S.R.O.", "Sounds Like", "Ninth", "The Beat Of The Brass", "Christmas Album", "Warm", "Summertime", "You Smile-The Song Begins", "Coney Island" and "Greatest Hits (Vol.1)".

A Job well done by Mr.Ted Jensen!

and don't forget "The Lost Treasures" remastered by Bernie Grundman.

 

This morning I did a three-way comparison on SOUTH OF THE BORDER, comparing the new SHOUT! CD with the older A&M CD and the original A&M LP.

Overall, the sound levels were between 2 and 4 db louder than the A&M CD, and musically, the new disc has more in common with the LP than the A&M CD.

I should mention here that I've done comparisons between the A&M CD and the old LP before and noticed many differences. A couple of common general differences between those two should be noted here: one, that the A&M CD seems faster overall - speeded up from the way the LP sounded; and two, that the LP seemed to have a bit more reverb than the drier CD. The new SHOUT! CD tends toward the LP in sound in that it has a bit more reverb in spots and is at the slower pitch, like the LP. It is that dryness on the A&M CD that at times makes it sound like a cleaner recording overall than the new SHOUT! counterpart. It's as if the reverb is somehow adding a bit of grittiness to recordings.

South Of The Border - The stereo somehow got reversed on the A&M CD - it's restored to it's proper placing on the SHOUT! disc.

The Girl From Ipanema - obvious more reverb on the SHOUT! disc.

Hello, Dolly! - the opening of this track sounds more 'hard right channel' than the A&M CD does.

I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face - like the LP, the opening mandolin starts and stays in the right channel. On the A&M CD it travels from left to right. The SHOUT! CD sounds cleaner here.

Up Cherry Street - When the opening guitar riff stops, the old A&M CD had a fair amount of print-through of the next trumpet line. This seems minimized on the new SHOUT! CD, though the overall sound of the track is grittier than its A&M counterpart.

Mexican Shuffle - The new SHOUT! CD shines on this track. No longer attempting to fake any kind of stereo, this new disc presents the recording in rock solid mono. The track pops with the enhanced bass and just sounds great here.

El Presidente - I have to give the nod to the A&M CD here. The SHOUT! track sounds duller and grittier, though it's presented at the LP speed. The A&M track, though clean, is noticeably faster. The new SHOUT! disc has the end crowd noises placed in the left of the stereo, whereas the A&M disc has them more centered. I prefer the new disc in this regard as the crowd noise is less distracting coming from one of the channels rather than both.

All My Loving - Again, a nod to the A&M disc. Though there's more reverb on the SHOUT! disc, like the LP, it unfortunately also seems to suffer from dropouts, and has an overall grittier feel to it than does the A&M CD.

Angelito - The two recordings are about the same with the SHOUT! having a tiny bit more reverb. Other than that, they're very similar.

Salud, Amor y Dinero - Another case of the SHOUT! disc being grittier. The A&M sounds cleaner to me.

Numero Cinco - the A&M CD surprised many of us with the 'Mexican Recording Engineer' opening the track. That's gone on the new SHOUT! CD, just as it was on many copies of the LP. The A&M disc is noticeably faster on this track, while the SHOUT! disc has a bit more reverb.

Adios, Mi Corazon - Again the A&M disc is faster, with the sonics between the two discs about the same.

Though I didn't note it in the above track-by-track descriptions, there are a number of times when the new SHOUT! disc presents just a little bit more music as the fade-outs on some of the tracks are slightly longer.

When one considers that this disc is closer to the feel and intent of the original vinyl, but improves the overall sound immensely, one can see the value in this new release. Yeah, some of the A&M tracks sound a bit cleaner, but I wonder if the dryer sound is really what was originally intended. Hard to say...

 

Harry,

How about dynamic range?

Bob

 

I didn't notice much difference in the dynamic range - it sounded the same to me, but that's just using the 'ears.' I can say that there was no attempt at noise reduction at all, with all of the hiss and hum right where it's always been.

 

Thanks for the review, Harry! Interesting stuff....and it seems as if the original A&M CD was mastered from a different source tape than was used for the vinyl edition. And one must wonder, given slightly longer tracks here in some instances, if any remixing had been done(one would guess, yes, there is--on the old AND new discs, perhaps?)

Well, looks like I'm gonna wind up picking these up anyway.

 

If it's any indication, I think Jensen may have goosed the EQ on the new CD slightly. How can I tell? On my car system, of all places. If the bass is boosted up, my subwoofer gets all boomy...which it did. I have the sub set in a sweet spot for most of my CDs where it sounds seamless and blends in with the other speakers; if the bass is "nutty" (like on a couple of recent "pop-ish" recordings, like the first Bebel Gilberto CD "Tanto Tempo"), the sub is almost annoying. "South Of The Border" makes it boom a bit. Thing is, the "South Of The Border" album probably has the "fattest" bass of all of the Tijuana Brass albums.

Something also stuck out at me when I listened to the "South Of The Border" through headphones--there was a strange kind of "fuzzy" (spitty?) distortion on the very top end of the trumpets. Listening in the car, I heard the tape hiss clearly enough, BUT, the very top end of the hiss seemed to be a bit elevated as well. I had to cut the treble a bit, where normally my earlier A&M CDs need to get a treble boost in the car to cut through the noise.

Now, Harry did mention to me privately that on the "Lonely Bull" CD, the separation between the tracks is better than on the original A&M CD. So, I could say that perhaps a better generation of tape is responsible for a little added clarity in the bass and treble in these titles. But going back to something Steve mentioned here many months ago--the tape hiss on the new "South Of The Border" CD doesn't sound quite like it should. Where tape hiss normally has a "soft" texture to it, this seems to be tilted up a bit on the extreme high end (maybe 8-10,000Hz or so). I will have to compare it to the 1988 CD in the car today to see if it's my ears, the speakers, or the disc itself. (The close proximity of the car speakers to the listener makes this kind of thing easier to hear.) This makes me think a wee bit of EQ was done in the mastering stage of this particular CD, which also accentuates that little bit of fuzzy distortion I'm hearing.

This stuff is actually quite minor, and I still say 99% of the buyers of these CDs won't even notice it, or care. One of these days, I'd like to find someone who's heard the actual masters who could compare both CDs to them, just out of curiosity. I'll be the first to admit A&M's original CDs are a bit soft and noisy, but in a way they also sound a little more "open". And in reality, these new CDs really aren't that bad either--yeah, there's some brick-wall limiting, and maybe the EQ IS goosed a bit, but I've heard far worse out there for sure!!

 

This may be a guess, but I wonder, if they used a better generation of tape for the Shout! Factory CD, would the reduced tape hiss accentuate that reverb more? It may not be louder, but instead, easier to hear, especially during the decay when the trailing end of the reverb fades off into tape hiss.

Another thought, too: weren't there also stereo LPs with the spoken intro to "Numero Cinco"? (My stereo LP does not have it, but the CD does.) I wonder if the old theory of two different mixes for east- and west-coast pressing plants came into play here. Could be that one was mixed with a little more reverb. (Look at how different the two versions of the "What Now My Love" album sound.)

 

Reading Harry and Rudy's reports here, I wish that I had hung onto my original stereo copy of SOTB and mono copy of The Lonely Bull. I got rid of them when I picked up the original A&M CDs.

 

The mono "Lonely Bull" LP is a keeper due to it having (IMHO) superior mono mixes compared to the stereo. Some of the tracks were "faked" into stereo--for the title track, as an example, Herb recorded a new trumpet part in one channel, playing along with the mono track in the other. For "Acapulco 1922", the added percussion to make it stereo is IMHO distracting compared to the mono. "Crawfish" has a different trumpet solo.

I have the feeling (although I can't confirm it) that the tapes used to make the stereo LPs were the same ones they put on CD. On "Beat Of The Brass", the same tape dropouts exist on the CD that were present on the original stereo album. (During the opening of "Monday, Monday".)

 

Good news is, the TJB albums are common flea market and used items, and can be had very cheaply and in very nice shape. I've found many in their original shrinks.

Once again, it's regrettable that the mono is being forgotten on CD. At the very least, the first two albums in mono I would consider essential if only for the alterations heard on some of the stereo mixes, and the fact that, due to limitations of the recording equipment, the stereo mixes are not always well balanced, and certainly not very elaborate. The mono just plays better.

 

I really appreciate the fact that they didn't try to fix the weird stereo on the early mixes. This says to me that a lot of thought, love, and care went into this project. And it sounds great to these admittedly untrained ears. I'd say run out and get these in a heartbeat!

I find the sound of every track to be preferable to the old Classics Vol. 1 cd versions.

I'm bummed, though, that Vol. 2 is apparently being skipped over. I love that album. Herb makes a point of dissing it in the liners.

 

Well, if the press release is correct, ALL of Herb's albums will eventually make it out. Perhaps he doesn't see Volume 2 as a priority, and it'll just get put out there without any fanfare at some point during the reissue campaign.

It also makes sense to get the more "hit-laden" albums out there first to created interest in the whole reissue series. Volume 2's lack of hits probably got it shoved aside for the moment.

Neat version of "America" on that one, though.

 

I really love the sound effects on that album. It gets slagged a lot for this very reason, but I feel that there weren't enough sfx on the later lp's.

Maybe Herb doesn't like it because it does not feature a beautiful babe on the cover, *or* his own handsome mug. I quite like the art, though.

Here's hoping it comes out down the road (with Mexican Drummer Man as a bonus!).

 

We still desperately need a TJB singles collection with those original mixes, though; too many differences in mix and(at times)edit to not put it out. Hope this reissue campaign goes well enough to make them lean that way...

 

Rudy, I heard the same exact thing in my car system this afternoon....the bass was hyped compared to almost anything else in my collection. I haven't played around with it yet, but if I dial it down a tiny bit, this might sound REALLY good anyway. Overall, SOTB sounded really good.

 

The increased bass seems to be pretty much confined to LONELY BULL and SOUTH OF THE BORDER. LOST TREASURES doesn't sound all that "boomy" to me.

 

You're right. It sounds pretty balanced to me too compared to SOTB. When is "Whipped Cream..." due to release?

 

WHIPPED CREAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS is currently scheduled for April 5th. Two bonus tracks will be included: "Rosemary" and "Blueberry Park".

 

Wow...I just finally listened to the new "Lonely Bull" CD. Talk about night and day difference in sound from "South Of The Border". I forgot just how strange "The Lonely Bull" album was recorded. Weird heavy right or left channel usage that makes a lot of the Duophonic Beatles stuff, now sound great. Not really, but I think that you understand what I'm getting at? "Lonely Bull" just doesn't sit well with me. The songs on that album AND "Volume 2" just aren't up to sitting on the same shelf as anything from "South Of The Border" thru "Beat Of The Brass" IMO. I realize that Herb hadn't quite yet found that classic TJB "sound", but this stuff is pretty weak in comparison.

The CD booklets and comments by Herb and others in this reissue campaign are very interesting, although it would have been nice to finally find out the name of the girl that sings on "The Lonely Bull", even if she never became anything!

For me, "South Of The Border" cooks on SHOUT! "Lost Treasures" is worthy if you're a die-hard TJB fan (I am) and "The Lonely Bull" ends up dusty on my shelf, but I still like his rockin' version of "Limbo Rock" over Chubby Checker's!

Herb, bring on the NEXT batch...and don't forget in the meantime, to find those "UN-creamed" photos from the "Whipped Cream" sessions!

Chris C

 

A minor thing I noticed: Every existing cover of Whipped Cream and Other Delights I've seen has the words "A Taste of Honey" in yellow on the front cover, but the "Shout! Factory" reissue appears to have these words in the same color as all the rest of the song titles. I wonder why.

In any case, it sounds like these reissues may be worth picking up after all. The sound may indeed be compressed a tad, but are the discs fatiguing to listen to? If not, I definately look forward to Whipped Cream and other upcoming titles.