Through the remainder of the ’60s, Alpert enjoyed a string of Top 10 singles and best-selling albums, creating a following for his sound and a slew of imitative and similarly-attired groups. His explosive success and subsequent revenue formed the foundation of the most enduring independent record company of the modern era: A&M Records.
In instances when different artists released competing versions of the same song – “Whipped Cream,” “Taste of Honey,” “What Now My Love,” “Mame,” “The Work Song” – Alpert’s proved the most heard and often the biggest hit. His name grew to the renown of the Beatles and Elvis Presley, even as it became inseparable from that of his group. Yet, often as not, Tijuana Brass recordings were not Mariachi-flavored, and minimized the use of brass instruments. As a touring sextet, the TJB were equally amplified and acoustic and often enhanced in the studio with other players. They could – and did – conjure the soft seduction of cool jazz, and call forth the hard driving power of rock.
Alpert is the first to admit that the style of the Tijuana Brass defined not a consistent concept, but rather a flexible notion. “When you get right down to it the Tijuana Brass was a manipulated, loose sound. I was lucky to have [TJB guitarist] John Pisano with me, who’s a really fine jazz musician in his own right. When we were on the road we’d get together and I’d get an idea for a song and he’d come in with his guitar and play some chords that I wouldn’t have found myself. A lot of things were developed that way.
