Dewey Nicks
Herb Alpert performs 52 concerts a year with his wife, Lani Hall.
Herb Alpert picked up the trumpet at the age of eight. Nearly 80 years later, he’s still playing and making art “because it feels good.” He performs 52 concerts a year with his wife, Lani Hall. Alpert is represented by the Heather James Fine Art gallery in Palm Desert. His paintings and sculptures are also finding a home at a warehouse and art space he is developing in Palm Springs, set to open to the public later in 2023. Alpert says that art represents freedom and “artists are the heart and soul of our country.” The Herb Alpert Foundation supports 98 different organizations and provides access and opportunity to the next generation of students to explore creativity, appreciate their own uniqueness, and appreciate the uniqueness in others.
Desert Magazine:
You are performing at the McCallum Theatre with your wife, Lani Hall, on March 9.
Herb Alpert:
I love playing music. I like playing with live musicians and my wife, who's a world-class singer. So, we have a good time. I like it. I’ve performed there three or four times; it's a large, intimate place.
DM:
Share a little bit about your connection to the Palm Springs area.
Herb Alpert:
There's something about the desert I like a lot. I have a feeling for the way the mountains are so quiet [and] that there's nothing on them. There's just a kind of stillness that appeals to me in that environment. I'm in the process of having a warehouse built for my paintings. I have over a thousand paintings and hundreds of sculptures. We're going to have a little sculpture garden and a place to store the paintings in Palm Springs. Eventually, it'll be open to the public to view – not for sales. Hopefully, kids could get inspired by looking at these paintings and the sculpture garden.
DM:
Talk about your creative process and how it’s morphed over the years, and the synergies or interplay between music and fine art.
Herb Alpert:
I've been painting … about 50 years and sculpting about 40. I'm a right-brain guy. I'm an introvert, so I spend a great deal of time just making art, recording, painting, and sculpting. My daily routine consists of doing just that. It started when I was traveling around the world with the Tijuana Brass. I used to go to museums and gravitate towards the modern art section, just looking at different paintings. I saw several paintings and I thought, "Well, that's really simple." It doesn't mean it was bad. It was just something that I thought maybe I could try to do myself. So, I got a bunch of equipment and started moving paint around. First, I was kind of putting it on the canvas and then scrambling it around until I found something that made me feel good. I kept doing that and it started progressing. It evolved so naturally, and I was always having a good time doing it, so I just kept on it. I've always tried to be honest – just let my feelings come out on the canvas as I let my feelings come out when I play the trumpet, when I record. It's a pretty similar process.
DM:
When you were traveling, did you have favorite museums or artists that you gravitated to?
Herb Alpert:
I had several artists that made me feel good. Rodin, of course. There was a Mexican painter – Rufino Tamayo. After Tijuana Brass hit and I had some extra money, I went down to Mexico City to see if I could buy all the Tamayos I could find. I met the gallery owner and there were maybe 20 of his pieces lining this gallery and I was thinking, “Man, I'm going to go buy all these things.” Anyway, I went through this gallery and realized there was not one painting there that turned me on. I decided not to buy it and at that point decided not to buy any art 'til it really, really moves me. And I don't buy anything for an investment. I just buy it for pleasure. That's the way I've been approaching my own art as well.
DM:
That's lovely. That's a good way to live.
Herb Alpert:
Well, I feel very fortunate that I've been able to live this life, that when I wake up in the morning, I'm excited about doing all these things that I get to do that are creative. That's why I invested a lot of money in our Herb Alpert Foundation – to make sure that kids have that opportunity at an early age, because I had it when I was eight years old.
DM:
There is such a crisis these days in our education system, and it seems like it's really your mission to change that with your commitment to inspiring kids and keeping arts alive and well in schools and society.
Herb Alpert:
Well, our politicians don't seem to know about the value of the arts. I think the arts should be a core part of every child's education. They don't have to be professional. They could just explore their own creativity.
DM:
What are some of the other projects you've been involved with through the foundation?
Herb Alpert:
The beautiful part of it is our country was created by innovation, and we have not done too much to help encourage the arts. I think artists are the heart and soul of our country. I think that's what makes this country work. Painters, writers, sculptors, actors, poets, drummers – the gamut. This is what gives us the soul of our country.
DM:
Tell me, why the trumpet?
Herb Alpert:
Well, it was the thing that started me getting excited about doing something creative.
I ran into a snag playing the trumpet around 1969, ’70, ’71, going through a divorce. All of a sudden, the whole trumpet thing backfired. I wasn't able to get the sound out properly. I took a lesson from this trumpet teacher in New York City – Carmine Caruso – who was called “the troubleshooter.” He used to work with students from around the world who had problems with their instrument. His studio was like a 5x7 room – a very small place. When I met him, I said, "You think maybe I need another trumpet, or maybe I need to change the mouthpiece or change my whole setup?" He said, "Listen, kid. You see this trumpet that you're holding there? That's just a piece of plumbing. The most important thing – you're the instrument. That [trumpet] … it's a megaphone. It reproduces the sound that you're feeling inside." So, that was a big “aha” moment for me, and that's what I try to impart to kids. It ain't what you do, it’s how you do it, and it's not the instrument – it's you. I think that probably goes for all the arts.
DM:
What do you tell kids who say they want to be musicians or professional artists?
Herb Alpert:
Everybody is creative to some degree. I started out classically trained. I played the notes that the classical composers wanted you to play in the way they wanted you to play it. But, the idea is that you can express yourself. When I started listening to jazz, I got the feeling these guys were just playing what they were feeling. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to just play what I was feeling and not worry about whether someone would critique what I was doing. I wanted it to be free. When I heard Louis Armstrong and then Miles Davis, and all the great jazz musicians, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to just express myself. I’d say don't become a professional unless you are really passionate about it, because there is so much competition out there. There's so many great musicians. I have a jazz club here in Los Angeles called Vibrato, and we’re open six days a week. Sometimes, we hear musicians that are just living in Los Angeles. You’ve never heard of them, but they are just fabulous. The competition is rough out there. And if it's not something that the student is totally passionate about and they're not doing it for the right reasons, forget it.
