The cover art of
Herb Alpert's Ninth
is hilarious -- a bust of grim old
Beethoven
wearing a
Herb Alpert
sweatshirt, a parody of the pop icon fad going around at the time and maybe a comment on the
rock
world's newfound pretensions in the wake of
the Beatles
'
Sgt. Pepper
. In any case,
does introduce some highbrow pretensions of sorts to
Alpert
's Ameriachi sound -- some very subtly applied strands of strings on several numbers and a madcap, multi-sectioned fantasy of tunes from
Bizet
's
Carmen
that is full of in-jokes from the
opera
and
the TJB
's hits.
is also quite aware of the brave new world around him; he does a spare, lazy, yet entirely novel-sounding cover version of
"With a Little Help from My Friends"
and gives
the Supremes
"The Happening"
a bouncy workout. There is also a touching memorial to the late
Ervan Coleman
(
"Bud"
) and another underrated contribution from the
songwriting team,
Sol Lake
's swinging
"Cowboys and Indians."
The TJB
still churns out the Latin American rhythms, but sometimes with a shade less exuberance. ~ Richard S. Ginell