Herb Alpert - Definitive Hits

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Music reviews of Definitive Hits

Music Review: Did a great job at introducing Alpert's talents to me
Rating: 4 Stars

This CD does a great job at chronicling about 1/4 century of Herb Alpert's career - starting in 1962 and going out into 1987. The CD really covers three distinct phases of Alpert's career. The bulk of the CD (or first 13 songs), cover Herb when he was with his band, the Tijuana Brass. This really covers a period from 1962 to 1968. The second phase is Herb's "solo" period" from 1979-1982 (I assume he laid low while building A&M records in the 70s). The third phase is from the album "Keep Your Eye on Me" which was a phase in which Herb would embark on a collaborative period with established vocalist in a similar manner like Carlos Santana would do a decade later.

In Phase 1, the "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass" period; the CD presents 13 songs that Herb did with his band - The Tijuana Brass. These songs have a very distinct Mexican feel to it and have a lot of horns. This is where you will get to know Herb Alpert's roots. The guy is one heck of a horn player. One thing that did disappoint me is that Herb wasn't a big songwriter and that his songs were all written by others. However, its Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' great instrumentation that will give all of the songs a very three dimensional effect (I'm sure the remastering really helps here). In these songs, the name of the song is very reflective to how the song sounds. So "The Lonely Bull" will give you the feel of a bullfight. Whipped Cream will remind you of "Whipped Cream", "Zorba the Greek" reminds you of "Zorba the Greek". There isn't a song title that isn't backed up and described well by the music. Really good stuff. This is a testament to Herb Alpert being one of the outstanding producers. You'll probably recognize many of the instrumentals (I'm pretty sure I heard "Spanish Flea" from some 70s game show as background music for describing prizes and sponsors)

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the Burt Bacharach/Hal David written song called "This Guy's In Love With You". In this song we hear Herb Alpert on lead vocals - and he's terrific. Herb shows he has a very powerful voice in delivering a very powerful and emotional performance on this track. My question is why doesn't he sing more often? You'll hear some horns on this song, but you'll hear less horns by the Tijuana Brass than on the other songs.

On Phase 2, there are four recordings from solo albums Herb did without the Tijuana Brass. "Route 101" is a nice song it continues the theme of the song describing the title. You'll get a feel from driving down Highway 101 in California into Tijuana Mexico. "Fandago" has more of a Tijuana Brass recording (Alpert mentions this in the liner notes as well). "Fandago" has more of a modern Latin Jazz feel. "Rise" is possibly the most well known Herb Alpert instrumental. It has more of a seductive feel than anything else I heard. In fact, back in 1979, "Rise" was heard in many discos. "Rotation" while not as strong as "Rise" is from the same album shows the modern Latin Jazz feel (again mentioned by Alpert in the Liner Notes), but you'll hear what I call "soft strokes" of Rise in certain parts.

Phase 3 includes three songs from the album "Keep Your Eye on Me". This was a 1987 album which marked a radical direction for Herb Alpert. On this album, Herb would start combining his talents with other vocalists. The most noteable is Janet Jackson on the song "Diamonds". "Diamonds" is a perfect fusion between Janet's unique vocals and Herb's unique horn playing. An underrated song is "Making Love in the Rain" which features a vocalist named Lisa Keith who really does an incredible job with the vocals. The third song is the weakest of the three - the title track from "Keep Your Eye On Me" which also features some Lisa Keith vocals. These three songs were not produced by Alpert, but were produced by R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (who also penned the 3 songs). I think it shows great maturity on Alpert's part at this point of his career to put his trust in other producers. I only wish they would have included some more songs from the album.

This album contains some good liner notes. You'll see a lot of the production credits for each album. The best part of this is that Herb himself writes a few sentences describing his feelings on the song - this is invaluable stuff. There also is a nice intro and some words from Burt Bacharach. I only wish they also included the lyrics to the vocal songs that are included on here. The songs are almost in chronological order - I'm not sure why the decision was made to put some of them slightly out of order.

This is a great collection. It helped me learn a lot more about a sensational musician in Herb Alpert and gain a full appreciation for his talents. I highly recommend this collection.

Description of Definitive Hits

Jazz CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock