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MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN What sparked the new album? whoas.” Sam simply said, “Hey, you can’t just TOOLSTOOLS OF THETHE TRADE The simple answer: I enjoy playing. Lani and I put a ‘Whoa-whoa’ in whenever you want. have a group, and we’ve been doing concerts You got to feel it!” (laughs) for the last three years. We made a live album Here are just a few of the many and diverse about two years ago called Anything Goes What inspired “The Lonely Bull”? gems in Alpert’s ricrichh bacbackk catalog. and we had a great response to that, so we It was the spring of 1962, and I saw a thought we’d do a studio album as well. matador named Carlos Arruza at a bullfi ght WHIPPEWHIPPEDD in Tijuana. I came home to L.A. and started CRCREAMEAM & OTHEOTHERR What was your approach? experimenting in my little garage studio, DDELIGHTSELIGHTS My parameter for everyone I record with trying to capture the excitement and visual (1965) is “Don’t think.” That’s the key, man. When power of Arruza. I played the tune for a few BeneathBeneath the racy we started recording, I told the drummer, people but didn’t get a terrifi c reaction. I’d sleevesleeve that launched a Michael Shapiro, “I don’t want to hear any overdubbed my horns, but the song needed million male fantasies backbeats on this record.” He looked at an extra hook. So I came up with the idea in the mid-’60s, Alpert’s me like a deer in the headlights. (laughs) of adding in the yells from a bullfi ght. An breakthrough album also featured some of I just didn’t want that incessant two-and- engineer friend of mine had a tape of 20,000 his feistiest arrangements, from the breezy four bang you hear on most fusion records. people at a bullfi ght, recorded live in Mexico. title tractrackk to the polka-fl avored “Peanuts.“Peanuts.”” Sometimes you can do more interesting, The record got some local radio play and creative work when you set parameters like really took off from there. With “The Lonely THTHEE BEATBEAT OF that at the outset. Bull,” I realized the power of making visual THTHEE BRASSBRASS instrumental music. (19(1968)68) Alpert’s 10th record Why do you believe Whipped Cream & with the Tijuana Brass ‘I’m from the old Other Delights was such a hit? found him expanding It was a lucky stroke. Our distributor in New his mariachi pop to Orleans played the song “Whipped Cream” include vaudeville, school. I want for me over the phone. It was written by Allen samba and the expressive vocal balladry of Toussaint for Al Hirt, but Hirt turned it down. “T“Thishis Guy’s in Love With You.You.”” somebody to There was something unique about it—and that song was the catalyst to a concept RISE stand at a mic album. Jerry always liked continuity in an (19(1979)79) album, a theme. So it was his idea to have all Alpert’s horn reachedreached Andreas Neumann food titles: “Peanuts,” “Tangerine” and so on. majesticmajestic heights atop and play.’ “A Taste of Honey” was the song that really these funky synth took us to another dimension. workouts, most notably HERB ALPERT What do you feel are the pluses and on the chart-topping minuses of digital recording? How did you come to sing “This Guy’s title track. The groove A master of the trumpet and music business alike refl ects and looks ahead You have to be careful, because you can in Love With You”? returnedreturned to No. 1 when sampled on the oversanitize a recording very easily. Suddenly There’s a question I like to ask songwriters: Notorious B.I.G.’sB.I.G.’s 1996 hit “Hypnotize.”“Hypnotize.” By Bill DeMain you fi nd that you’ve got umpteen tracks to “Is there one magical song you have in your fi ddle with and all sorts of gadgets to keep drawer that you have a special feeling about KKEEPEEP YOUYOURR EYE WITH A CAREER OF NEARLY FIVE DECADES BEHIND HIM, several Grammys and been cited in the Guinness World Records you in tune and to replace parts. I’m totally but has never had its day?” I was looking ON ME legendary trumpeter Herb Alpert still takes the same approach for placing fi ve albums in the Top 20 simultaneously. aware of the spontaneity of music, and I’m for a song for a television special I was (19(1987)87) to reinterpretation that he always has. “I like to do songs that are Alpert extended his unique philosophy into the music business OK with minor mistakes that happen within doing [The Beat of the Brass, 1968]. So Alpert modernized familiar, then put my own little twist on them,” he says. “There’s no when he and partner Jerry Moss founded A&M Records in 1962, a song. A song has to breathe organically to I asked Burt Bacharach that question, and and expanded his fun in doing them the way they’ve been done before.” He takes just the same year Alpert released his classic debut single, “The Lonely touch me—and if it can touch me, then it can he sent me “This Girl’s in Love With You,” sound with the help of that approach on his fi rst studio album in a dozen years: I Feel You, Bull.” Home to superstar acts such as the Carpenters, Cat Stevens touch others as well. I’m from the old school. with Dionne Warwick singing. She had cut R&B producers Jimmy a jazzy collaboration with his wife, former Brasil ’66 vocalist Lani Hall. and the Police, A&M was known for its artist-friendly environment. I want somebody to stand at a mic and sing it, but it wasn’t a hit. I fell in love with the Jam and Terry Lewis,Lewis, Together the duo reinvents classics from the Beatles (“Here Comes “Jerry and I were not greedy guys,” Alpert says. “We loved to treat and play. Let’s hear what they have to say. melody and asked [Bacharach’s co-writer] enjoying a major comeback in the process. the Sun”) to bossa nova (“Berimbau”) to Broadway (“’Til There Was artists fairly.” Alpert and Moss sold the company in 1989 and formed That’s something I learned from working with Hal David if he’d make some modifi cations A&M artist Janet Jackson sang on two songs, You”), bending them into delightfully unexpected shapes. a new label, Almo Sounds, fi ve years later. More recently Alpert has Sam Cooke back in the early ’60s. on the lyric—change the gender and adapt including the TopTop 5 hit “Diamonds.”“Diamonds.” Alpert’s familiarity-with-a-twist style has served him well. In the helped found Artists House Music, an interactive education site for it to the TV show. He agreed. And it wasn’t 1960s, he and his group the Tijuana Brass turned everything from “A musicians. He also continues to pursue his passions for painting, What was Sam like? my idea to sing. Honestly, I was reluctant ANYTHING GOEGOESS Taste of Honey” to “Zorba the Greek” into crossover hits and sold sculpting and, of course, the trumpet. “I’m looking for the same Sam was always listening for the feel. at fi rst. It was Jack Haley Jr., the director of (2009) more than 6 million copies of their landmark 1965 album Whipped thing in everything I do,” he says. “That lyrical feeling, that thing that He wanted his records to have honesty. the show, who convinced me. I just had to ThisThis intimate live Cream & Other Delights. By the time Alpert hit No. 1 in 1969 with touches the soul.” We caught up with the Chicago native to discuss I remember when he was cutting “For fi nd the right song. ssetet fi nds Alpert and his vocal debut, “This Guy’s in Love With You,” he’d racked up music, business and the bullfi ght that changed his life. Sentimental Reasons” and the owner of the Lani Hall in a mellow record company was in the control room. Why did you sign the Carpenters? BrazilianBrazilian groove, After a playback, he said to Sam, “Listen, I got their demo tape and used the Sam covering American ‘Sometimes you can do more interesting, creative you’ve got all these opportunities to put in Cooke method, which was to close my eyes songbsongbookook treasures a bunch of ‘Whoa-whoas.’” Sam’s previous and listen. The speakers were in front of me, like “Fascinating Rhythm” and “I’ve Got YouYou work when you set parameters.’ hit, “You Send Me,” had a bunch of “Whoa- about 10 feet from the couch, but Karen Under My Skin.” 626262 63 M mag 11.indd 62 6/2/11 9:23:13 AM M mag 11.indd 63 5/31/11 8:35:27 PM MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Alpert and Hall on stage at Vibrato, Andreas Neumann Alpert’s jazz club in Los Angeles, 2011 ‘I’m looking for the same thing UNDER THE CREAM in everything I do: that thing that The sexy cover of Alpert’s classic touches the soul.’ Whipped Cream & Other Delights caused a sensation upon its release Carpenter’s voice seemed to be sitting right And the Police? in 1965, thanks next to me. I was intrigued. It wasn’t the type They were signed out of London.

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