Herb Alpert

Though trumpet legend Herb Alpert and wife Lani Hall have been together for more than three decades, it's hard to believe that Anything Goes is their very first album together. A musician and entrepreneur, Alpert is best known for his work in the 1960s with his Tijuana Brass, five number one hits, eight Grammy Awards and fifteen gold albums. As co-founder of A&M Records, Alpert's impact on music has been even greater. ~ AllAboutJazz

Since his 2009 return to regular recording after a ten-year hiatus, trumpeter Herb Alpert has stayed busy releasing albums, some with his wife, vocalist Lani Hall, and others, like 2015's Come Fly with Me, on his own. 80 years old at the time of this release, Alpert has gone from instrumental pop icon of the '60s and '70s to journeyman performer with decades of experience to draw from. Working with a bevy of longtime collaborators including his nephew, programmer Randy "Badazz" Alpert, bassist/guitarist/producer Hussain Jiffry, keyboardist/producer Bill Cantos, keyboardist/guitarist Jeff Lorber, Alpert has crafted a breezy, low-key collection of originals and cover tunes, that nonetheless retains all of the melodic, jazz-inflected style of his classic recordings…

Pop trumpet icon Herb Alpert returned to regular activity after an extended hiatus with 2009's Anything Goes. Since then, he has averaged an album a year, even picking up his eighth Grammy award for 2013's Steppin' Out and a Grammy nomination for 2016's Human Nature. 2019's warmly produced Over the Rainbow keeps this latter-career streak moving as Alpert offers another set of beloved pop standards reworked in his distinctive contemporary style. Once again joining Alpert is Grammy-winning producer Jochem van der Saag, who previously helmed the trumpeter's 2017 album, Music, Vol. 1, and 2018 effort Music, Vol. 3: Herb Alpert Reimagines the Tijuana Brass. As with those productions, Over the Rainbow finds Alpert putting his bright instrumental stamp on some of his favorite songs.

The Lonely Bull, released in 1962, is the debut album by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Most of the tracks on the album were geared toward the TJB's Mariachi sound. There were also a few cover versions of popular songs, a trend which would grow in their next two albums, Volume 2 and South of the Border. "Limbo Rock" covered a novelty dance song that had been a calypso-style hit by Chubby Checker. "Struttin' With Maria" was later used as the theme for a TV game show called Personality, hosted by Larry Blyden. The tune "Acapulco 1922" uses the old song "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (by Seymour Brown and Nat D. Ayer, 1911) as a starting point, with a mariachi spin. The album was remastered from the original analog tape mixes by Grammy-winning mastering engineer Bernie Grundman, who was the mastering engineer on many of the Tijuana Brass and Alpert albums.