Herb Alpert: Instrumental To The Arts

Herb Alpert is….

“Herb Alpert is….“ a documentary by John Scheinfeld, tells the story of Herb Alpert, an artist whose records at one time outsold the Beatles; whose record company A&M released some of the iconic music our time by such artists as Carole King, Cat Stevens, The Police, Janet Jackson, Joe Cocker, The Carpenters, Peter Frampton, Supertramp, Joe Jackson, Suzanne Vega, and Sheryl Crow’s debut, “The Tuesday Night Music Club”; who has also found success as a painter and a sculptor; and whose philanthropy has supported countless artists, musicians and students.

Scheinfeld is a great documentarian who has made significant and wonderful films about John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and John Coltrane. The documentary features a cast of luminaries completing the sentence, “Herb Alpert is…” that includes the late Sir Ken Robinson, Quincy Jones, Terry Lewis, Jimmy Jam, Lou Adler, Lani Hall, Jerry Moss, Burt Bacharach, Sergio Mendes, Questlove, Sting, Richard Carpenter, and Chloe Flower among others.

Alpert’s story begins not in Tijuana with a brass band but in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights, as the son of Eastern European immigrants who were themselves musicians. In the telling of his upbringing there is a dismissive Second Grade teacher who turned him into an introvert and a later music teacher who gave him the medium and the trumpet by which to express himself.

After serving in the army where he was part of a band that played at military ceremonies, and attending USC where he was a member of the USC Trojan Marching band, he met another Boyle Heights boy, Lou Adler, while on a double date. Although the women were the ones who were friends, it was Alpert and Adler who decided to go into business together first as songwriters and later as managers. Together with Adler, Alpert wrote songs for Sam Cooke as well as Jan and Dean.

In the early 1960s, Alpert wanted to pursue a performing career so the two went their separate ways but remained close friends.

As legend has it, a short trip to Tijuana and a visit to the bullring there was the inspiration that led to his finding his sound – the distinctive tone Alpert brings to his trumpet playing. The song he wrote after that visit, “The Lonely Bull,” would go on to launch his recording and performing career, and was one of the few instrumental songs to reach the Top Ten.

Alpert had not liked how the record labels he dealt with treated artists. So Alpert formed A&M Records with Jerry Moss, with “The Lonely Bull” as one of their first singles. His album “Whipped Cream and other Delights” became a smash hit beyond anyone’s expectations.

Herb Alpert is…. Gives a good sense of the full throttle impact of Alpert’s success as a performing artist. His albums with the Tijuana Brass as well as his career as a solo artist would earn him fifteen gold discs and fourteen platinum albums.  Alpert produced one hit after another: “A Taste of Honey,” “Tijuana Taxi” “The Mexican Shuffle” (also known as “The Teaberry Shuffle” when used in a popular ad for Teaberry Gum), “Zorba The Greek.” Between 1965 and 1967 Alpert had songs in the top ten for a consecutive 81 weeks. During one 18 month period Alpert performed at the White House three times. An animated short called “A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature” even won an Oscar in 1966.  

Alpert appeared in several TV specials and made many well-produced films to his music (before music videos and MTV).  In these appearances which are featured generously in the documentary, one can see how irresistible Herb Alpert was. Tall, dark and handsome, a man with a trumpet, and possessed of a Jazzman’s swing, he exuded cool.  Alpert was an instrumentalist, for the most part. However, when he did perform as vocalist, like for the Burt Bacharach composed “This Guy’s In Love with You,” he had a #1 Hit.

At the height of his fame in the late Sixties, Alpert experienced a crisis: An idiopathic affliction rendered him unable to produce sound from his trumpet. And Alpert confessed that despite all his success he was miserable.

In the film, Alpert explains that a teacher in New York gave him lessons that allowed his trumpet ability to return. And on the personal front, Alpert divorced his first wife and married Lani Hall, a singer for Sergio Mendes that he had toured with and had known for several years who is a ray of light in the film and continues to be so in his life.

If the film has a weakness, it is that Alpert’s unhappiness seems unexplored. For all I know, it may be the case that his issues resolved themselves easily with the right teacher and the right partner. I have interviewed Herb Alpert several times over the years and he is sincere and thoughtful in every answer.

However, there is something in the tone of Alpert’s trumpet that is present even in his first songs that speaks of melancholy, that is hinted at in his being traumatized by a second grade teacher, and in the crisis he faced at the height of his fame. If there is nothing more there to say on the subject, then I will say the film left me feeling there was. If there is, I hope Alpert will share it in some future work of autobiography.

In the years since Alpert returned to playing the trumpet, he also conquered the charts again with “Rise,” a 1979 # 1 Hit, and in 1987 with the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced hit album, “Keep Your Eye on Me.” At A&M Records, housed in the former Chaplin studios on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles, Alpert and Moss continued to produce hit albums, and eventually sold the company for some $700 Million.  He has exhibited his paintings and sculptures and he continues to make music, and to tour and perform with Lani Hall at such venues as the Café Carlyle in New York. And he still plays the trumpet remarkably well with that distinctive tone that still tugs at the heart.

Alpert’s philanthropy could be a documentary unto itself. He has provided seed funding for a number of progressive schools in Los Angeles, become a benefactor of the Harlem School of the Arts, endowed UCLA’s Music department, provided free tuition for music students at Los Angeles City College. For the last 26 years, the Herb Alpert Foundation has administered the Herb Alpert Awards in the Arts, which provides unrestricted awards of $75,000 to mid-career artists in Film/Video, Visual Arts, Dance, Theater and Music. And that’s just what I know about.

Once you have the full measure of who “Herb Alpert is…” you will agree with the luminaries that Herb Alpert is someone you will enjoy spending time with.