Fifty years is considered a golden anniversary. It’s a number that resonates for good reason with Herb Alpert.
A multi-platinum who has sold an estimated 72 million records worldwide, the California-born trumpeter released his 50th studio album, appropriately titled 50, in 2024.The prior year he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with Lani Hall, a former vocalist with Sergio Mendes’ Brasil ’66.
With so much going on, the 90-year-old Alpert hasn’t slowed down and is currently on the road with Hall in a tour that’s found the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer dusting off material he recorded with the Tijuana Brass and will be bringing to the Tilles Center. This particular era represents the most successful phase of a storied and lengthy career that started in 1958 when Alpert recorded a single called “The Trial” credited to Herb B. Lou and the Legal Eagles with Lou Adler. A restless creative spirit who has also been sculpting for nearly a half century, Alpert isn’t one to look back. He wasn’t initially interested in revisiting his Tijuana Brass days until he gave old hits like “The Lonely Bull” and “Spanish Flea” another listen.
“I had no idea I was going to do [this particular material for this tour] until my nephew, who is one of our managers, said he always gets requests for me to play these Tijuana Brass songs,” Alpert said. “I told him that was the past—I already did that. But he said so many people would like to hear it and it’s a time when people could use some positive music. I told him I’d think about it.”
He added, “I got the Whipped Cream and Other Delights album and the other things I did—What Now My Love and all those songs together, put them on a list and started playing them. I was smiling when I finished. It made me feel good. I said, ‘Man, I’m going to do this.’ This is the gift from me to the people that changed my life because of their appreciation of my music. I’m going to do it as a gift to them and as a gift to me. It’s a win-win. I’ve got some goosebumps just listening to that music and I’m going to put it out there for people to experience.”
With Alpert’s 91st birthday coming up on March 31, the Los Angeles native is still proving his mettle in the recording studio via 50. Recorded in his home studio, this 10-song collection of songs finds Alpert serving up an array of wide-ranging covers punctuated by his melodic horn playing. Highlights range from a lush reading of Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight” and a mellifluous take on Antonio Carlos Jobim’s bossa nova standard “Corcovado” to a dreamy version of the surf rock instrumental classic “Sleepwalk” and a modern electronica-kissed updating of Duke Pearson’s hard bop gem “Jeannine.” For Alpert, the creative process is something that’s more about processing feeling vs. chasing any kind of commercial success.
“It’s a joy to be able to make music,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I make music for myself—that’s what I do. I have to do it for myself because I’m the best audience for what I want to hear and play and what I feel. When I feel a record or feel a song qualifies to be put out, that’s when I do it. I don’t have this masterplan.”
Truly an artist’s artist, Alpert manifested that idea of how creative folks should be treated by co-founding A&M Records in 1962 with partner Jerry Moss. And while the duo stopped managing the imprint in 1993 following its acquisition by Polygram, he has fond memories of working with The Carpenters, Cat Stevens and Sting.
“Sincerity is why I signed The Carpenters in 1969,” he said. “That’s not the music that I listened to, but when I heard her voice (Karen’s) and Richard’s ability to put it together—it was real. As I heard it, it was sincere and man, did it ever translate after they got rolling. I love Sting. He’s brilliant, smart and sensitive to others. Cat Stevens for sure is very original. I heard him with just a guitar and his songs and he just knocked you out because it was all so intensely personal to him, but so honest.”
When you ask Alpert what’s kept him going for so long, it’s as simple as losing himself in being creative, be it playing his horn or sculpting.
“I like the whole process,” he said. “I have a system at home that keeps my brain alert and how to maneuver it. There’s something about it all that just gives me a thrill.”
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass & Other Delights will be appearing on March 25 at The Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, 720 Northern Blvd., Greenvale. For more information, visit www.tillescenter.org or call 516-299-3100.
