Fans at SPAC endorse Alpert’s ‘Tijuana’ sounds over his jazz

by Kurt Wachenheim, The Knickerbocker News, July 23, 1974

The Big Dipper hung over the chilly Sunday night, its starry arrangement as constant as ever. Down below the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Herb Alpert and his musicmen, not as constant, were trying some new arrangements for 7,500 fans.

Alpert has regrouped his Tijuana Brass, the rage of the mid and late 1960s, but he’s admittedly heading in jazzier directions. Half his program, the familiar clipped, distinctive Tijuana sound, was met with resounding cheers. The rest was experimental music (for Alpert), and if he’s smart enough to take a hint from his fans, he’ll drop it.

At one point he described his new ambitions and played “Goin’ Places” in his old way, then in new form. Then he took a voice poll, something that any non-musical politician would have warned him against. Scattered applause greeted the jazzed-up version; wild enthusiasm made it a landslide ballot for the Mexican tang. “That’s interesting,” Alpert mused openly.

It was back in 1962 that Alpert began popularizing Tijuana style, and by 1967, when he was mobbed at SPAC, he was at the top of the national charts, and his TV specials were the triumphs of the year. Shortly thereafter he disbanded. And now he’s back, probably uncertain whether the country wants more of Tijuana, but still clinging to past success by retaining the name of Tijuana Brass.

On Sunday the crowd tried to tell him something. When his trumpet backed by the marimba and the other brass and guitars and piano (nine instruments in all) combined for “Tijuana Taxi” and “Lonely Bull” and “Spanish Flea,” there was no misjudging the response.

When he asked for requests, they were exclusively for his time-tested arrangements, but none for those he’s pushing with his new album, “You Smile, the Song Begins.” He brushed the requests aside.

But when he moved into other rhythms, when he sought what he described as his new “musical freedom”, the audience applauded politely. When trumpeter Bob Findley launched into progressive jazz, the audience was polite. And when a gal named Lani Hall, whom he introduced as “the lady in my life”, sang a few ballads far removed from the old Alpert style, the audience was polite. The SPAC audience is always polite.

Alpert must have sensed what was wanted. He concluded with 15 minutes of all Tijuana—”Taste of Honey” and best of all, “Zorba, the Greek”. But he was obviously unhappy with the response to his overall program. After a second half in which he didn’t utter a word (he spoke at length between numbers during the first half), he concluded with a perfunctory bow, left the stage, with no curtain call and no encore. Perhaps on his way out of town he saw the Big Dipper, which doesn’t tamper with a proven format.

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