An earlier version of this was posted on the #ctproduced Instagram account. In this 1974 Tampa Tribune clip, we see the newly reformed Herb Alpert Tijuana Brass, including singer Lani Hall, who married Herb in December that year.
To the right of Herb and Lani in the back row is Dave Frishberg. Frishberg wrote “Wheelers and Dealers”, a song sung by Lani Hall, in the first episode of the new TV series when Herb went back on TV on October 10th, 1974 after a 4-year sabbatical. Here is song, with Dave on piano.
The track was discovered by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’s A&M from a publishing demo 7″ by Frishberg and publisher Swiftwater music. Swiftwater was run by David Rosner and Margo Guryan.
Margo was a one time assistant to Creed Taylor, she’d written some tracks and was hoping to get the tracks published, Creed sent Margo to April-Blackwood as publishers, where Margo met her husband to be, David Rosner. Entirely coincidentally I suspect, Dave Frishberg’s wife is April.
About the same time, 1967, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss A&M records became the first home of Creed Taylor’s CTI Records, after Creed took CTI independent in 1970. One of the first albums released was Dave Frishberg’s “Oklahoma Toad“.[1]https://www.ctproduced.com/oklahoma-toad-dave-frishberg/
In discussing the album, I quoted Herb Alpert
Masters used to be floating around in the Sixties, someone would record a group, they’d play it for you and if you liked it, you could bring it into the company for distribution.
Conversations with Herb Alpert and Lani Hall – May 6, 2015.[2]https://youtu.be/2cPQirn_f3A
The Herb Alpert Foundation is sponsoring the Snapshots Foundation documentary about Creed Taylor![3]http://snapshotsfoundation.com/index.php/articles/154-creed-taylor-documentary
Here is the publishing demo discovered by Andy Meyer, who sent me the details when I published the story of the Dave Frishberg album “Oklahoma Toad” and the discogs listing I created from that.[4]https://www.discogs.com/release/18533395
And there we have it, a small, small, world. The only thing not linked here is Kevin (Six degrees of separation) Bacon[5]Six degrees of separation – Wikipedia, who is of course linked to the first episode of Alperts new TV series, which also featured Miss Piggy. (Bacon, geddit?)