Customer Reviews

Keep Your Eye on Me

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was Herb Alpert's last platinum album. Four of the songs were produced by the hit producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. "Diamonds" features Janet Jackson's vocals. "Making Love In The Rain" also features Janet along with Lisa Keith. Herb's wife - Lani Hall - sings a duet with Herb on the beautiful "Pillow". The other tunes were produced by Herb and friends. Herb does some hot trumpet playing on "Traffic Jam" (evoking memories of Miles Davis), "Cat Man Do", and the gorgeous "Our Song". Contemporary music from a contemporary artist! Good stuff!

This was Alpert's project that reached the dance floor in clubs more than any other of his previous works. Why ? Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson, and Lisa Keith were at the height of the Minneapolis "trademark" sound for their Flyte Tyme production company. No longer were Jam and Lewis under Prince's shadow or a part of his protegee menagerie. By the mid-eighties these top producers were also professional businessmen who knew how to back up or produce for true talent when they heard it ! Without the four tracks they contributed, Keep Your Eye On Me would not have faired as well in reaching the younger audience (such as myself) at the time. This is not by any means meant to insult Mr. Alpert. On the contrary, his gifted talent is one of great admiration and inspiration ! In addition, this was the first time female vocalist extraordinaire Lisa Keith fronted vocals for the track Making Love in the Rain ( it took awhile to realize that the person singing the main vocals were Ms. Keith and not Ms. Jackson). Keith proved that she was not only a sensational r & b background vocalist for the FlytTyme camp ( S.O.S. Band, Cherelle, Alex O'Neal) but a remarkable solo artist as well; Unfortunatley, her debut album Walking In The Sun ended up on the extinction list...

Keep Your Eye On Me demonstrated that the campy and grocery supermarket background music of the sixties from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band had been retired ! I strongly recommend Keep Your Eye to those who have never owned a Herb Alpert album; You'll be amazed how different and up-to-date his music became in '87 (although it may sound slightly dated by the new millennium standards)...

On this lp is when he hooked up with the dynamic duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis(and we know their track record).Three of the best cuts by the Jam&Lewis duo is the title cut, Keep your eye on me,Diamonds(featuring Janet Jackson),and Making love in the rain(featuring Janet Jackson).The other songs on the lp are nice as well.
Overall,the entire lp is slammin' and worth buying for your music collection.Trust me, i know good music when i hear it.

The Music Lover

I bought this album for two reasons; songs "Diamonds" an early huge smash hit by Mr.Herb Alpert protegee Miss Janet Jackson and "Makin love in the rain" vocalized by Lisa Keith and backing vocals by Miss.Jackson,are not found in any other recordings by Miss Janet Jackson. "Diamonds" came precisely in the in the middle of Janet's inmensely succesful album "Control", being an important spotlight for her in the music industry as in her video catalog exposure. But besides Miss Jackson's performance in this album, there are a few songs that really worths this album to be in anyone's collection. An instrumental called "Our Song" a sexy,erotic,seductive,hipnotic and intoxicating melody played with lust and passion (for me the best song in this album); very moody, very jazzy. "Pillow" sung by Herb Alpert and wife Lani Hall is smooth and delicate; a delightful romantic tune for people in love; and another instrumental called "Stranger on the Shore" is a melodious,fresh,relaxed and drowsy tune played with heart and soul. "Rise" was Mr.Alpert's biggest smash from the 70's. "Keep Your Eye On Me" was his greatest from the 80's. Beautifully recorded.

This album brought Herb Alpert into a new sound and was a great success for him. Keep Your Eye on Me is such a great track, you can't help but dance. The same goes for the fun yet campy Diamonds featuring Janet Jackson. Making Love in the Rain is a gorgeous love song and is great to listen to when the lights are low. Pillow features Herb and his wife on vocals and is also beautiful. Our song is gorgeous as well as an amazing cover of Stranger on the Shore. This album has all great tracks and no filler. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

I like Herb Alpert he has some nice songs and this album includes some songs by one of my favorite artists and tha perosn is Janet Jackson and those songs are "Making Love in the Rain" and "Diamonds". those are rare songs that you hardly ever hear I love those songs it reminds me of my days as a youth and I just enjoyed those songs ; also, may I add that herb's jazz and instrumental touch did a nice thing for Janet's vocals and it just shows that this woman it just talented !!!!!

Being a big fan of Herb and the TJB since the mid sixties, I have been waiting patiently for an album that brings back that great sound Herb had with the TJB. Unfortunately it has not arrived, yet. I have to admit that in my opinion this is the best of his solo album attempts. By far the best song on this album is 'The Stranger on the Shore'. That song alone makes the album worth buying.

This is an excellant disc.Rocket to the moon is really fantastic. Our Song, is the best one on this recording.He keep's up the great trumpet skills as alway's.

Herb Alpert really never stopped recording in the years between his Tijuana Brass and his late 70's comeback album Rise. And he never stopped recording between that album and this either. Yes both of albums have two important things in common. They both bridged different areas of his career. They also allowed him to reinvent his music for different generations. The Herb Alpert that made this album was not the relatively new record label mogul developing very individual artists like Gino Vannelli and recording albums with people like Hugh Masekela. THIS Herb Alpert is a well oiled record mogul pressed into service to developing careers of videogenic megastars such as Janet Jackson. So he didn't have to go far to find the right producer for this project. Jam/Lewis,even though really only four years into their career as producers were at this point already establishing what 80's funk would sound like with Janet's Control. So it was no surprise what so ever that their rhythmic but highly stylized dance/funk style would have the effect it did on Alpert as well. So here we have it: Herb Alpert's Jam & Lewis album!

Starting off with the title cut,we're instantly dealing with a bassy,deeply funky number where the sound of Alpert's horn is used more as a percussive effect than anything,pushing out the melody in spurts rather than extended notes. "Diamonds" and "Making Love In The Rain",the two Janet Jackson songs here were seen as the real draw on this album and really have more of Janet's sound with Alpert more as a guest musician. And they are strong numbers for sure. But there's much more here than that. "Hot Shot" and "Traffic Jam" are two more heavy instrumental funk grooves where "Cat Man Do","Our Song","Rocket To The Moon" and especially the closing "Stranger On The Shore" really bring Alpert back as the star of the show as the primary instrumental soloist. And his distinctive,hyper melodic,vibrato heavy "bull fighting" trumpet style hasn't changed one iota for this occasion either. On "Pillow" Herb takes over on vocals himself with Lani Hall so,in any spot where he may be vocally weak she can take over a little bit more. This dual lead harmony effect also serves to bring out the moody melodicism of the composition.

I've only really listen to this album once but I can already say from listen to it that this is the sort album that you will tend to get more out of each time you listen to it. It owes as much to the artist as it does to the producers. They both know how to keep the songs musically and melodically filled with just enough surprises to keep the music fresh and interesting with each listen. Again as with most things from this era a lot of people are bound to give this album some less than stellar commentary simply because it's based in the production of the late 80's. And that's not an era seen as very potent in pop music. All the same there was still enough of the kind of arrangement and melodicism that made music of the previous couple decades what it was. And in the era before the beat heavy hip-hop beats took over both R&B and jazz-pop even as the dominant rhythmic pattern that's,along with Herb Alpert's musical potency is part of what helps this to be a stand out album all the way.

Keep Your Eye On Me was released in 1987 as Herb Alpert's huge comeback music. He teamed with Jam and Lewis who shaped Janet Jackson Control earlier in her career. This CD was given the jazz a brand new direction with Keep Your Eye On Me, Diamonds, and Making Love In The Rain were smash dance grooves. The CD was bought at Amazon was amazing rare because not many CD copies were around at that time either sold or out of print as this moment. If you ever find a copy of Keep Your Eye On Me on CD; remember, come and get it before it will extinct.