A Taste of Herb brings the Tijuana Brass back to Dan's Silverleaf

Denton's own Herb Alpert tribute, dreamed up by a Brave Combo alum, plays Industrial Street on Sunday, Dec. 6.

A Taste of Herb (Tribute Band) plays Dan's Silverleaf on Sunday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. The show was announced Oct. 19, and tickets are on sale now through Prekindle. Dan's holds 245, so this is a tribute night at close range rather than a casino ballroom show.

The band is about as Denton as a tribute act gets. A Taste of Herb plays the music of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and the name is a nod to Alpert's hit "A Taste of Honey." The idea came from Joe Cripps, the former percussionist with Brave Combo, Denton's self-styled "nuclear polka" band. John Wier fronts the group. When D Magazine wrote about the band in 2019, it called A Taste of Herb the only known tribute band devoted specifically to the music Alpert recorded.

That's why the room makes sense. Dan's Silverleaf has been part of the town's musical identity for more than twenty years. Dan Mojica opened the original Dan's Bar with Harold Loy in 1995, in the building that now houses Dusty's. After that first place closed in 2001, he started over on Industrial Street, back when the neighbors were feed stores and farm fields. Mojica has said that becoming a music venue was a natural result of running a business in a town this full of musicians. Nationally touring names like Leon Russell and Johnny Winter have played Dan's. But Mojica credits local bands, Brave Combo first among them, with putting the room on the map.

A Brave Combo alum's Alpert tribute, on the stage Brave Combo helped put on the map.

So the Dec. 6 date closes a small loop: a Brave Combo alum's brass-and-percussion project on the stage that Brave Combo helped make. It's also a good fit for a Sunday in early December. Alpert's records were party music for a whole generation of living rooms, all bright horns, light percussion and melodies everyone half-knows. A tribute done right isn't about impersonation. It's an excuse to hear those arrangements played live by people who obviously love them.

Practical notes: the 7 p.m. start gets you home at a reasonable hour on a Sunday. With 245 capacity, it's worth buying ahead through the Prekindle link on our listing rather than counting on the door. Make an evening of it with dinner nearby first.

Bring the person who still has the Whipped Cream & Other Delights LP from their parents' house. They'll know every horn line.

Sources: A Double Dose of Herb Alpert — D Magazine (Oct. 2019) (dmagazine.com); Dan's Silverleaf: a live music staple and home for artists in Denton — Denton Record-Chronicle / Denton County Magazine (dentonrc.com); Dan's Silverleaf — Denton County Magazine, May–June 2024 (dentoncounty.mydigitalpublication.com); Sense of Place: Step inside Dan's Silverleaf Bar in Denton, Texas — WXPN (xpn.org); A Taste of Herb at Dan's Silverleaf — Prekindle tickets (prekindle.com); Whipped Cream & Other Delights - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)