Meant as the companion album to a
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
television special of the same name and packaged in a fancy double-fold LP jacket,
The Beat of the Brass
came out amid signs that
Alpert
's hot streak was finally beginning to run out. Not quite. Viewer requests for a new
Burt Bacharach
song,
"This Guy's in Love with You"
-- featuring an
vocal -- were so strong that
A&M
released it as a single, which shot up to number one and took
with it to the top.
Herb
's vocal is touching in its strained naivete; he sounds sincere, and that overrides the lush, overbearing
Bacharach
orchestral arrangement. The rest of the album generated an often nostalgic quality then and now; the tunes by
John Pisano
and
Sol Lake
are exquisite, and
's arrangements of songs like
"Thanks for the Memory"
seem autumnal in quality, as if an era were about to close. The band still has the ability to groove; the vamp on
Julius Wechter
's
bossa nova
"Panama,"
with
Wechter
's jazzy vibes and
Pisano
's strong rhythm guitar, could have been stretched to half an hour. Yet
's trumpet sounds a bit withered at times, and the band vocals and cloying children's chorus on
"Talk to the Animals"
could be done without. ~ Richard S. Ginell