Greatest Hits

Herb Alpert | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Original Release Date: 1985
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: A & M
• ASIN: B0006UZ9QE
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,014 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #30 in Music > Jazz > European Jazz

Editorial Reviews

Tracks: 1. Lonely Bull 2. Spanish Flea 3. Getting Sentimental Over You 4. Love Potion #9 5. Never On Sunday 6. Mexican Shuffle 7. Taste Of Honey 8. Tijuana Taxi 9. South Of The Border 10. America 11. Whipped Cream 12. Zorba The Greek

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Spanish Trumpet Music Ever Made, November 20, 2005

By 

kone "kone" (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

If you remember back to the mid 60's and early 70's, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass music was on AM Top-40 radio stations, with hits like "A Taste of Honey", "The Lonely Bull", and "Tijuana Taxi". The sound was distinctively Herb's, with a his solo trumpet backed up by a solid brass unit and marimba band. The sound was definitely pleasing, catchy, and non-threatening (a real trick in the mid-60's!) The Tijuana Brass' records sold better than almost anything on the market. Its first sixth albums, released in rapid succession, racked up over 11 million copies sold in just three years. This Greatest Hits album was a huge success as well. Alpert's music was heard daily on the TV show "The Dating Game". I absolutely love this record album. The music is light and easy to listen to. I also love the sound of spanish influenced trumpet backed by the marimba band; music to my ears!

Herb Alpert released 15 albums in all, including several compilations, with the group before disbanding it in 1972 to concentrate on running A&M Music (Alpert is the "A" in A&M - the "M" is for Moss). Alpert married singer Lani Hall, who'd been the original lead singer with one of A&M's hottest groups, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, in 1973. Alpert continued to record on his own intermittently, and eventually expanded his entertainment enterprise to include radio and television productions. He also hit the charts again in 1979 with his single, "Rise." "Rise" is not on this album. Alpert and Moss of A&M records launched the music career of many groups, including the Carpenters.

There is nothing like Alpert's music on the radio today. If you long for excellent instrumental brass with heavy spanish flavor, this is the album you have been waiting for. It makes for great background music! I recommend it without reservation!

Jim "Konedog" Koenig

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some of the best of Herb Alpert's Americachi music from the first half of his career, June 14, 2006

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

Once upon a time Herb Alpert and his partner Jerry Moss created A&M, which was run out of Alpert's garage. Eventually the artist owned label would be producing the records of Joe Cocker, the Carpenters, Cat Stevens, and Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, but the signature sound remained that of Herp Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. In 1965 they had hit singles with "A Taste of Honey" and "Spanish Flea," off of the hit albums "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" and "Going Places." Alpert's most popular album, "What's Now My Love," came out the following year, along with "S.R.O." as his Latin-influenced "Ameriachi" music showed significant longevity with 1968's "Beat of the Brash" being the fifth album to reach the top of the charts. The great irony was that when it came to hit singles, the first one to hit #1 on the Billboard was Burt Bacharach's "This Guy's in Love With You" in which Alpert actually did a vocal.

The Americachi formula is fairly simple: Alpert's trumpet defines the melody over a Latin rhythm section, sometimes with airy wordless vocals by nameless singers. The twelve collected on "Definitive Hits" date from Herb Alpert's first chart success, 1962's "The Lonely Bull (El Solo Torro)" (#6) to "Zorba the Greek" (#11) in 1966. In between we have "The Mexican Shuffle" (#85), "Taste of Honey" (#7), "Whipped Cream" (#68), "Spanish Flea" (#27), and "Tijuana Taxi" (#38). The only complaint is that this album was put out in 1970, so that really is about the half way point in terms of Alpert's career and only accounts for the first five albums he released with the Tijuana Brass. That means you are missing out on songs like "Casino Royale" (#27) and their only #1 hit, "This Guy's in Love With You," with the delicious irony that Alpert sings on it. For that you have to wait until Volume 2, which was released in 1973. Consequently, while this is a decent collection of early hit, this is not a comprehensive collection and the fact is that you are not going to get that when you limit yourself to one CD and only a dozen tracks. This is to be expected with an artist who had five #1 albums. So you might have several Tijuana Brass albums at home, but a collection like one would be a decent one for the car (I think this is really good music to listen to in a traffic jam), but you can certainly do better.

Historically, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass are the most successful instrumental artists between the end of the Big Band era and today. When you look at their competition you are usually talking piano players like Roger Williams and Richard Clayderman, along with orchestras led by the likes of Henry Mancini, Montavani, and Lawrence Welk. But with most of those artists you are talking about elegant and sophisticated covers of songs associated with others (Mancini being the exception that proves the rule here). Alpert did write a few of the songs that made the charts, but none of them are included here. However, with most of these songs these are the versions you hear when you think of "A Taste of Honey" or "Spanish Flea." Of course, those songs will make you think of "The Dating Game," because that was the intro music for the bachelor, while "Whipped Cream" was the intro music for the bachelorette (remember the album cover and the connection is obvious), and the intro music for the date was "Lollipops and Roses."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Herb Alpert & The TJB Greatest Hits, March 3, 2007

By 

Chris Covais - See all my reviews

This review is from: Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

Herb Alpert stared in the television special The Brass Are Comin, and recorded the soundtrack album to go along with it, and then got bored and tired of playing the same shows and staying in the same hotels, so he disbanded the popular Tijuana Brass, which was still popular at the time of the breakup in 1969. It was time for a Greatest Hits record, a series for A&M artists which included The Baja Marimba Band, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66, The Sandpipers, and Wes Montgomery.
This collection features many of his early hits when the Tijuana Brass was just a bunch of studio musicians. The Lonely Bull, Tijuana Taxi, Spanish Flea, Zorba the Greek, Mexican Shuffle. They're all there. It's a fairly nice collection. But after you get this one, look into Greatest Hits Volume 2.