Herb Alpert is a living legend. Born in 1935, and (at the time of writing) still going strong, he is the man who put the 'A' in A & M records and can look back on a recording career in which his trumpet-based easy listening tunes have clocked up an astonishing 72 million worldwide album sales.
Decca Records have resisted the temptation to do a Herb makeover or market him as a Godfather of lounge. This compilation of his greatest hits doesn't seem designed to win over a new audience. On the contrary, it offers a bait for long-standing Herb fans who may already have most of these tracks by including a reissue of a live album - Anything Goes - recorded by Herb and his wife , Lani Hall, in 2008 and never before released in the UK.
The first disc is all you really need though. This is a chronological presentation of all his big hits from 1962 to 1987 (with The Tijuana Brass up to the 1970s).
Many of these now have more of a novelty value and are the kind of songs that you are likely to have come across as incidental music rather than doing heavy rotation of the radio (at least not the stations I listen to).
It's surprising how familiar many of these sound and the titles alone - Mexican Shuffle, Spanish Flea, Tijuana Taxi etc - should tell you that they are tunes that make perfect soundtrack material for movie and TV bloopers. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that some will also get a kind of second life in a yet to be made cult movie (Tarantino could surely do something interesting with the Spanish themes of The Lonely Bull).
The best of the best of are the instrumentals that made Herb famous like Gorba The Greek, Casino Royale and The Work Song.
The one timeless classic here is a rare occasion when he turned vocalist for a superb version of Bacharach/David's This Guy's In Love With You. This was his and A&M's first number one single in 1968.
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Things get particular sticky toward the end of disc one, however, with a run of tacky 80s disco-pop. Of these Rise can at least be justified as it was (unfathomably) a huge hit. But the compilation also includes a cameo appearance by Janet Jackson for the perfectly hideous 'Diamonds' and it turns from bad to worse with the closing track Making Love In The Rain (a title which suggests a pastime liable to cause pneumonia until you realise that the woman is singing about having sex while it is raining outside) .
The Anything Goes concert recordings for disc two marks the first complete project by husband and wife. Hopefully, it will also be the last. It consists of covers of standards and a systematic massacre of some great songs - a kind of slow death by lounge-ification.
Among those slaughtered are Let's Face The Music And Dance, It's Only A Paper Moon. I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face and I've Got You Under My Skin. Each is mercilessly subjected to the slow-jazz treatment and/or bland vocal rearrangements that show no respect for the originals.
As a document of a recording phenomenon, disc one is a worthwhile release. Disc 2 could be used as a coaster for your glass of sherry while you lie back and listen to these hits of yesteryear.
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