Recording legend Alpert now focusing on live performances
By JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer
North County Times
Not many folks have enjoyed as broad a range of professional experience in the music industry as Herb Alpert has. The famed trumpeter, who topped the album charts repeatedly throughout the late '60s with iconic instrumental releases such as "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" and "Going Places," also scored a No. 1 hit single as a singer with "This Guy's in Love With You" in 1968.
But before he became a hit-making machine as a recording artist, Alpert (appearing at Anthology in San Diego with his wife, singer Lani Hall, Friday and Saturday) had already been on the charts as a songwriter ---- having written, with writing partner Lou Adler, a major hit for soul singer Sam Cooke called "Wonderful World."
Beyond all his success as a performer and songwriter, though, Alpert's greatest contributions may have come as a record company executive. The "A" in A&M Records, Alpert built A&M with partner Jerry Moss into one of the most successful independent labels in history before selling it to Polygram in 1990 for about $500 million.
So if anyone knows what to make of the seismic changes gripping the music business right now, it might be Alpert.
"It's hard to predict," he said of the music business by phone from his Los Angeles-area home last week. "Things are going so extreme now with technology.
"But there are some opportunities for adventurous musicians who know how to work their way around the Internet for exposure."
As for himself, Alpert hasn't recorded an album since 1999's "Colors" on his and Moss' second label, Almo Sounds. (He also contributed several new trumpet tracks to the 2006 hip-hop remix album "Whipped Cream & Other Delights Rewhipped.") And he doesn't plan on recording anything more than a live album of his and his wife's Brazilian-flavored jazz shows.
"At the moment, I'm just satisfied with my little jazz group. My wife and I have been working on this for a good time now. I'm having fun doing this."
For a man who's done just about everything there is to do in the music business except give piano lessons to 6-year-olds, it's interesting to note that Alpert never planned on a career in music.
Growing up in the 1940s and early '50s in Los Angeles, Alpert was surrounded by music from childhood. His mother played piano, he said, and his father the mandolin. His older sister and brother picked that up, so when he began playing trumpet in elementary school, it was really no surprise.
In high school, he used to play shows around town, earning about $4 an hour ---- good money in those days. But even at that, he wasn't thinking of making a living, he said.
"I never thought in those terms. When I was in high school, when TV was starting to get going in L.A., there was a teen battle show on local TV ---- our team won eight weeks in a row. From that point on, I got some visibility. Because of that show, we started playing bigger situations, started making a little bit more money. I never thought of it as a career for the rest of my life, but I was having a wonderful time.
"When I was drafted in the Army, I was in the Army band, but prior to being in the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio (in San Francisco) they sent me to band school at Fort Knox, Ky., and that was the first time I heard trumpet players from different parts of the country ---- guys who played faster, higher, louder. I remember thinking, 'This is going to be rough competition if I'm going to be a professional musician.'"
What he also took away from his time in the Army was the need for an individual sound if he wanted to make a living with his music.
"After I was discharged, things started to point in that direction where I was earning a living playing weekends. Then I started working for a record company. One thing led to another, and I did an experimental record one afternoon with Johnny 'Guitar' Watson --- he was playing organ, I played trumpet; we played 'Sweet Georgia Brown.' I thought it definitely had a sound to it."
At about the same time, he and Adler became friends with Cooke and co-wrote "Wonderful World."
"I learned many good lessons from Sam in terms of how to approach recordings, and things just started to fall in place after that," he said. "At the same time, I was practicing every day and working on my sound. I had two tape machines in my little studio at home. I would record the trumpet on one machine and overdub the horn as many times as I could, kind of aping the sound of Les Paul when I heard that record 'How High the Moon.'
"By doing that, I came up with this unique sound and that sound later translated to the (Alpert-led) Tijuana Brass."
Herb Alpert and Lani Hall
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Anthology, 1337 India St., San Diego
Tickets: $15-$63
Info: (619) 595-0300 or www.anthologysd.com
Web: www.herbalpert.com
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/03/19/entertainment/music/35545c86454740ac88257408005bf81e.txt
By JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer
North County Times
Not many folks have enjoyed as broad a range of professional experience in the music industry as Herb Alpert has. The famed trumpeter, who topped the album charts repeatedly throughout the late '60s with iconic instrumental releases such as "Whipped Cream and Other Delights" and "Going Places," also scored a No. 1 hit single as a singer with "This Guy's in Love With You" in 1968.
But before he became a hit-making machine as a recording artist, Alpert (appearing at Anthology in San Diego with his wife, singer Lani Hall, Friday and Saturday) had already been on the charts as a songwriter ---- having written, with writing partner Lou Adler, a major hit for soul singer Sam Cooke called "Wonderful World."
Beyond all his success as a performer and songwriter, though, Alpert's greatest contributions may have come as a record company executive. The "A" in A&M Records, Alpert built A&M with partner Jerry Moss into one of the most successful independent labels in history before selling it to Polygram in 1990 for about $500 million.
So if anyone knows what to make of the seismic changes gripping the music business right now, it might be Alpert.
"It's hard to predict," he said of the music business by phone from his Los Angeles-area home last week. "Things are going so extreme now with technology.
"But there are some opportunities for adventurous musicians who know how to work their way around the Internet for exposure."
As for himself, Alpert hasn't recorded an album since 1999's "Colors" on his and Moss' second label, Almo Sounds. (He also contributed several new trumpet tracks to the 2006 hip-hop remix album "Whipped Cream & Other Delights Rewhipped.") And he doesn't plan on recording anything more than a live album of his and his wife's Brazilian-flavored jazz shows.
"At the moment, I'm just satisfied with my little jazz group. My wife and I have been working on this for a good time now. I'm having fun doing this."
For a man who's done just about everything there is to do in the music business except give piano lessons to 6-year-olds, it's interesting to note that Alpert never planned on a career in music.
Growing up in the 1940s and early '50s in Los Angeles, Alpert was surrounded by music from childhood. His mother played piano, he said, and his father the mandolin. His older sister and brother picked that up, so when he began playing trumpet in elementary school, it was really no surprise.
In high school, he used to play shows around town, earning about $4 an hour ---- good money in those days. But even at that, he wasn't thinking of making a living, he said.
"I never thought in those terms. When I was in high school, when TV was starting to get going in L.A., there was a teen battle show on local TV ---- our team won eight weeks in a row. From that point on, I got some visibility. Because of that show, we started playing bigger situations, started making a little bit more money. I never thought of it as a career for the rest of my life, but I was having a wonderful time.
"When I was drafted in the Army, I was in the Army band, but prior to being in the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio (in San Francisco) they sent me to band school at Fort Knox, Ky., and that was the first time I heard trumpet players from different parts of the country ---- guys who played faster, higher, louder. I remember thinking, 'This is going to be rough competition if I'm going to be a professional musician.'"
What he also took away from his time in the Army was the need for an individual sound if he wanted to make a living with his music.
"After I was discharged, things started to point in that direction where I was earning a living playing weekends. Then I started working for a record company. One thing led to another, and I did an experimental record one afternoon with Johnny 'Guitar' Watson --- he was playing organ, I played trumpet; we played 'Sweet Georgia Brown.' I thought it definitely had a sound to it."
At about the same time, he and Adler became friends with Cooke and co-wrote "Wonderful World."
"I learned many good lessons from Sam in terms of how to approach recordings, and things just started to fall in place after that," he said. "At the same time, I was practicing every day and working on my sound. I had two tape machines in my little studio at home. I would record the trumpet on one machine and overdub the horn as many times as I could, kind of aping the sound of Les Paul when I heard that record 'How High the Moon.'
"By doing that, I came up with this unique sound and that sound later translated to the (Alpert-led) Tijuana Brass."
Herb Alpert and Lani Hall
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Anthology, 1337 India St., San Diego
Tickets: $15-$63
Info: (619) 595-0300 or www.anthologysd.com
Web: www.herbalpert.com
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/03/19/entertainment/music/35545c86454740ac88257408005bf81e.txt
