Herb Alpert, Tijuana Brass and Other Delights Legends

Herb Alpert, the kid from LA who sold America the sound of Mexico.

In the '60s, his Tijuana brass became the soundtrack to the new suburban dream.

Herb, he had identification, now that's what it's about.

If you don't know who it is in 20 seconds, then you're making the wrong record.

It's an extraordinary career, to be a trumpet player and have hit records.

It's very rare.

He was so damn successful AND he had movie-star good looks.

He was the shy guy who found himself propelled into the spotlight.

The guy who lived the American Dream, but felt trapped by his own success.

# You see this guy

# This guy's in love with you... #

But that's only half the story. He was also the A in A&M Records,

a label that gave us amongst others, The Carpenters,

The Police,

and Janet Jackson.

The most successful boutique record company maybe of all time.

I mean, it was fantastic and happened very quickly.

This is the story of musician, producer,

record industry mogul, artist.

Mr Herb Alpert.

TRUMPET PLAYS

Wasn't that wonderful?

HE LAUGHS

I practise every day. Yeah. I'm addicted.

I started practising when I was eight. I've missed maybe three days in my lifetime.

I don't think of myself as the greatest trumpet player in the world, I just play me, you know,

and that's all you can do as a musician. That's the get off.

I mean, that's when you can really have fun, be yourself.

Herb divides his time between sculpting, painting and performing, and still finds time to tour.

Today Herb is playing a gig alongside his wife Lani Hall at his own Bel Air jazz club.

APPLAUSE

Thanks for being here.

It's the most beautiful jazz club in the world.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

OK, so here is It's Only A Paper Moon, and thanks for being here.

APPLAUSE

I was born in Los Angeles, and it was a much different city.

Years back. Before smog.

Born in 1935 in the Los Angeles suburb of Fairfax,

Herbert Alpert was the youngest son of Russian Jewish immigrants.

There was music in the house.

My father played mandolin by ear, he's from Russia.

He'd just kind of spontaneously play songs. He had a good ear.

My mother played violin.

My sister, piano, and my brother was a professional drummer.

Herb is six years younger than me, so he was very into music,

because at an early age he saw we were all playing music.

I guess he figured out that none of us played the trumpet,

so he decided, I guess, to take the trumpet.

I liked the sound of it.

I was very, very shy when I was five, six, seven years old,

and the horn just made a loud sound and I liked it.

You know, it kind of spoke for me.

Herb is very shy.

He's always been that way, but once in a while he'd play, but he would mostly just practise his scales.

He studied, and he was really dedicated to the trumpet.

As a kid I studied with this Russian trumpet player.

Like, every week I would take a lesson,

and I'd usually try to get out of some of the lessons

claiming I had chapped lips, or whatever, I was dodging it a bit.

And I was playing this one etude for him,

and when I finished I looked over and he was crying.

He had tears coming down his face,

and he looked at me and said with a little bit of an accent, "That was beautiful."

That was the first time I realised, gee, I could touch somebody.

He studied classical music, but it was jazz that was the sound of '50s California.

I was really enamoured with Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker.

They used to play at a place, a little jazz club here in Los Angeles.

Jazz in California took on a flavour of its own in the early to mid '50s.

It was cooler, it was less heated and frenetic,

and environmentally you could say more appropriate.

You know, tropical.

More laid back, all the sort of Californian cliches if you like.

That was the moment when I kind of switched from...

I was classically trained to, you know, moving in to wanting to just close my eyes

and play whatever came out, because that's what they were doing.

They seemed very cool. They were super cool.

Forming the Colonial Trio,

Herb got his first taste of a career in music.

In high school we got a little trio together and formed a band,

and started making money playing on weekends.

We became popular, and we were earning a pretty good living.

But he was no jazz purist. He had a keen ear for the pop music of the day.

The first time I got interested in... That wasn't really rock 'n' roll,

it was kind of a combination between rock 'n' roll and blues.

Oh, boy, how do I find it now?

-COMPUTER:

-# Life could be a dream... #

This is The Chords, and every time I hear this tune,

this rendition especially, I remember exactly where I was, and looking at this radio,

this plastic radio, staring at it, thinking,

"This is cool. This is good."

There's so many different types of music that I respond to.

I think it's all about a melody.

A good melody is always infectious.

# Oh, life could be a dream Sh-boom

# If I could take you up in paradise up above... #

In 1956 Herb married his teen sweetheart, Sharon,

and was playing local gigs to support their young family.

I knew him as a local trumpet player.

Had a small group, played Bar Mitzvahs and weddings.

I had written poetry,

and school songs and lyrics.

And I wrote some music to his poetry, and we took those songs round to publishing companies,

and we got some pretty good reaction,

and then at Keen Records, they wanted to sign us as staff writers.

That's when we met Sam Cooke.

# Darling, you send me

# I know you send me... #

Sam Cooke had a profound effect on my life, I was crazy about this guy.

He was just a wonderful artist,

and a wonderful human being, and just a terrific teacher,

and he didn't know it, but he had great instincts.

# Now I find myself wanting

# To marry you and take you home

# I know, I know... #

He always used to tell me, "Herbie, people are just listening to a cold piece of wax,

"and it either makes it or it don't."

He says "People don't care if you're black or white or whatever. It either touches you or it doesn't."

And that's when I realised what to listen for, you know, listen emotionally.

# Don't know much about history

# Don't know much biology... #

Wonderful World, which Herbie and I wrote with Sam,

was actually maybe one of the first records we produced,

but the record became very, very big.

# And I know that if you love me too

# What a wonderful world this could be... #

For both of us, it was pop music training that eventually

became the education that took us into the music business

and success as record producers.

Herb and Lou left Keen Records, and targeting the new teen market,

for their next venture they hit the beach.

Jan and Dean at that time were 17-year-olds and they were going to university high school.

I just liked their look.

I mean, they looked like typical California kids, you know,

they were both six foot tall, blonde, surfers.

Our office that we had was in the telephone booth at state beach,

and right after school Jan and Dean would come to the beach.

So I had the telephone number of the phone booth,

and I had cards printed up and I used to give it out as my phone,

and then somebody would yell "Lou, your phone's ringing."

All during that time, Herbie,

although he was enjoying what we were doing,

in the back of his mind and somewhere in his soul,

he wanted to be an artist.

I took Jan and Dean, and Herbie took the tape machine.

I signed as an artist, singing for a year with RCA Victor,

which was a great experience for me, because I learned what not to do.

How not to create a recording studio.

Because I was in the studio recording, I think, the last session I did there.

I wanted to put a little bit more bass on,

just to hear what the bass would sound if it was a little louder, so I reached over to the board,

put my hand on, and the engineer slapped my hand.

He says "Don't ever touch that again.

"It's a union house, and I can really get in trouble for you touching that board."

And I thought to myself, "Man, isn't the record industry supposed to revolve around the artist?"

Disgruntled by the big corporate record company experience,

Herb left RCA, and in a bid to have more control,

he partnered up with the west coast's number one promotion man, Jerry Moss.

The two budding entrepreneurs set up their own record label,

and sealed the deal on the beach with 200 and a handshake.

You have to understand the investment in that handshake, think about it, it was only 100 each.

This was in a certain way a get-rich idea,

you know, number 432.

Either way it happened, we were going to end up as friends.

Setting up shop in Herb's garage, Alpert and Moss became A&M Records.

Herb's garage, that was where our office was for the first six months or so.

He had the two-track tape recorder,

and I had a little desk in that garage with a two-line phone.

There was no secretary, no book-keeper, nothing.

I was pretty much running a ledger by myself.

They had some success with Herb as a vocalist, but Herb wanted to go back to the trumpet.

For a long time I was trying to emulate my jazz favourites,

Louis Armstrong for a while, then I played a little bit like Miles,

and I realised I was going to get nowhere doing that, because who wants to hear a replica of somebody else,

and I realised at that moment if I was ever going to be a jazz musician or be a professional musician,

I'd have to come up with my own way of doing it.

I was going to bullfights in Tijuana,

and I got kind of charged up with the feeling of the bullfight,

the feeling of the crowd, the feeling of the brass section that was in the stands,

and they'd announce each event.

So that's kind of got under my skin, not so much the bullfight, they were a little gory at times,

and I didn't appreciate that as much as I appreciated the feeling of the crowd,

the energy the crowd had, and I tried to translate that feeling into a record.

I had two tape machines in my little studio at home,

a very little studio at home.

But these two tape machines allowed me to play the trumpet on one...

..and then hear that sound and transfer it

over to this other tape machine and play it again on top of it,

so little by little, I got this sound that really was intriguing,

and that was the genesis of the Tijuana Brass.

He did all the trumpets, all the sound.

They just sounded bigger because he was so gifted at arranging the horn sounds.

After The Lonely Bull, I get letters from people saying,

"Thank you for taking me on this vicarious trip to Tijuana,"

which gave me the hint that, wow,

people were getting the feeling of being there without being there.

So I have to make visual music instrumentally,

and that's what I always tried to do.

'The single was a success, and they were determined that it wouldn't be a one-hit wonder.'

Before we did the album, most of the independent distributors

said, "Why don't you guys just take the money and run?

"You got lucky, and that's it."

And that really challenged us.

We decided we could re-invest the money

that we made on The Lonely Bull and put the album out and re-invested that.

Voila. We were a record company.

Herb and Jerry had invented their very own Mexico.

By taking catchy melodies and giving it their Tijuana twist, they'd hit on a winning formula.

A lot of people tried to identify what I was doing, and they thought,

"Well, this guy is spinning off of mariachi music."

I never listened to mariachi music in my life.

I chose to use some Latin instruments, like maracas

and congas and things that maybe are synonymous with Latin music,

but I was just trying to invent my own little thing.

I took a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And that's the fun of it.

I felt we'd established a real market

for what the Tijuana Brass really was,

sort of a jazz-inflected, happy sound

with a sense of humour, if you will.

Clark's Teaberry Gum presents The Teaberry Shuffle.

I think it was round '63, '64, Teaberry, which was a chewing gum,

picked up a song of Herb's called Mexican Shuffle

and called it The Teaberry Shuffle and advertised on

national television, and that added to the momentum,

so to speak.

'This huge advertising campaign meant Herb's upbeat sound

'was being piped into homes all across America.'

What he was able to do with the Tijuana Brass was capture a

commercial sound, which is difficult for a jazz-playing trumpet player.

I mean, it's easy for the public to understand his music.

He plays popular music.

'Their skills at packaging meant Herb's records looked good, too.'

You know, I loved the cover.

I loved that girl covered in cream.

I was in love with her. And then I liked the music, too!

Most people say the cover was the thing.

It was in every radio station, every high school, whatever it was.

That's now considered almost iconic, you know?

By this time, A&M had moved into offices and taken on extra staff.

The albums were selling, and with success there was a growing demand for Herb to perform live.

The only thing missing was an actual band.

You know, there was no Tijuana Brass until after the Whipped Cream (and Other Delights) album.

People at A&M at the time kept insisting I get a group together, and I was a little lazy about that.

I thought, "Oh, man. I don't want that responsibility."

It just didn't appeal to me.

Despite Herb's reluctance, their enterprising minds knew a band would complete the image,

and they embarked on a hectic promotional schedule.

Personal appearances would sell records, so every time

we played a town, the record sales would just sky-rocket.

They were doing all right, but we just sold a lot more records after there was a group out there.

The records fuelled the TV shows,

and the TV shows fuelled the appearances, and it all

moved around like that, as it always does with a very successful artist.

'The band brought the music to life, with everyone playing their part.'

We would like to point out first that there are no Mexicans in the group.

Herb used to have... What was his line? He said, "We have four...

-"Italians...

-"four lasagnes..."

We have four lasagnes,

and we have two bagels

and one

American cheese sandwich.

"American cheese sandwich."

That was me, cos I didn't know where I was!

The band were now competing with the Beatles and began to experience Tijuana mania.

-CROWD:

-Ole! Ole!

We would be in our dressing room, and this would start up over the sound system with this "Ole!",

and the people would get everybody joined in.

And by the time we get onto the stage,

they were just screaming and going crazy.

I mean, it was like we were a success before we even played a note, you know?

But we played anyway!

Yeah! Exactly!

The band toured extensively, and the hits kept coming.

I think people came to the concerts to have a good time, and they did.

Herb was a terrific front man for the band, you know,

a very good-looking man, an authentic musician

with a very accomplished band who had a lot of fun on the stage.

The shows had humour,

they had pace. People danced, they laughed, they had a good time.

-The first gig we did of any consequence was at the Arizona state fair.

-Oh!

It was a daytime thing. It was the first time there were teenagers, the young girls and all that.

And I remember, we were walking, Herb was a few feet away, and they all started running after him.

And I kind of chuckled, "Well, we'd like a go of that."

And all of a sudden, here they came after us! It was a little scary.

It sure was!

There was a little bit of mania in the early days.

There were times when it was just

kind of magical, the places we played where people were just super-excited.

I remember one time with a situation like that happening.

-Somebody came up and said, "Are you anybody?"

-That's right!

Thank you and good evening.

-CROWD:

-Ole!

My name is Herb Alpert.

-CROWD:

-Ole!

And these gentlemen are known as the Tijuana Brass.

-CROWD:

-Ole!

I think at that point, the most amazing thing happened.

Herbie, who'd been sort of a quiet type, you know,

never pushed himself on anybody,

became the number one act in America for a good three years.

Ole!

I was a little bit surprised at how much Herb put himself out there as an artist.

I knew the playing part,

but actually doing the TV shows and going onstage and becoming that kind of celebrity,

that was a little surprising, just because I knew Herbie to be more pulled back and shy.

At times, I was a little embarrassed by all the attention.

I'm not a people person,

so a bit uncomfortable at the attention.

On one hand. On the other hand, I liked it.

I liked it when people came up to me and say, "Herb, I really like your music. It makes me feel good."

# Oh, he that gets hurt Oh, he who has stalled... #

The Tijuana Brass sound was in stark contrast to

the protest songs soundtracking the issues America faced at the time.

# For the times, they are a-changing... #

During that period, the '60s, everything was protest and peace and love and all this stuff,

and his music, or our music, was really happy music that people didn't have to think about.

It just was infectious, you know?

You'd hear it all over the place, in supermarkets, in elevators,

the kind of music that put people in a good mood. It was easy listening.

And that's why it was so successful.

The simplicity of it and the happiness just became such a

strong effect on people, and I think that was a lot of the success.

It was just something that people needed at that time.

They needed to be happy a little bit.

It was a sort of housewives' favourite, in some ways,

but also suburban businessmen cooking barbecue on a Sunday afternoon.

It was that idea of the easy, middle-class life

in the sun, that kind of hint of exotica and cocktails,

you know, a very important part of the '60s.

I didn't think about making uplifting music, I thought about making music that was coming out of me.

I think that's the key. If you're authentic, I think it works.

If you try to manipulate recordings, yeah, you could have

a good record or one hit record, but it won't be lasting.

Herb's strengths as an arranger and bandleader came into their own in the studio.

We would go in there and we'd put rhythm tracks down, and one night we'd do the whole album.

And, you know, we didn't know what it was going to sound like.

He'd play a little trumpet just to give us an idea

of the melody of the tunes, but we would do the whole thing in one session or two sessions.

Hey, guys? Guys, let's listen to it, see what happens.

Yeah.

I'd give them an idea for a rhythm, and then they'd give me a little guitar riff or something.

I said, "No, no, not like that.

"Something a little different. What else you got?"

But I'd always go to what they could do naturally instead

of trying to give them something that was a little bit left of centre of what they're comfortable doing.

He'd be in the studios layering it, adding four trombones or adding two more trumpets or handclaps.

Everything was spaced out so that nothing was overlapping each other

and you really heard everything, and he loved that.

Well, he knew how to personalise his music.

That's what arranging is all about, is making it belong to you

or represent what you feel about the music.

And Lord knows, he did that.

One of the things I enjoyed a great deal on certain recordings in particular, it's the way he released.

# Pa pa pa-oh! Pa pa pa-oh!

There's a little rip, for lack of a better term, that...

Boy, I waited for that.

He sounded completely different, and as a promotion man, I realised that if you can sound different

on the radio, if the disc jockey doesn't have to mention your name, you're way ahead of everybody.

Herb and the band were on a roll.

In '66, those four albums sold 13 million records,

and that was more than the Beatles sold that year.

Sounds good. That felt good.

By re-investing the profits from Herb's success straight back into A&M,

they were able to open bigger offices in the heart of Hollywood.

We bought the Charlie Chaplin lot.

It was the original Charlie Chaplin studios.

We spent a million bucks buying that lot.

We were absolutely coming on, you know?

Terrific. Just wait till you hear this album of today's most exciting music.

They'd built a repertoire which included Burt Bacharach, Chris Montez and Liza Minnelli,

artists which cornered the easy-listening market.

16 great performances, 40 minutes of listening pleasure

on the A&M Family Portrait album, all yours for only 1.50.

Herb and Jerry had shown with the Tijuana Brass

that they could take a new sound and package it for a pop market.

# Oba, oba, oba

# Mais que nada

# Sai da minha frente Eu quero passar

# Pois o samba esta animado

# O que eu quero e sambar! #

I think the thing that sold them to us was the fact

that we offered them a spot for them to tour with Herb.

And that Herb would help produce their first album.

# Mais que nada... #

I had two girls singing, so that was kind of a unique sound at the time.

And we went to the studio with Herb, and he was guiding us what to do.

One of the songs that we were rehearsing at the time,

which, you know, I knew the song and played the song in Brazil,

was Mais Que Nada.

And Herb said to me, "No, we got to do the song.

"This song is so special."

# Oaria raio

# Oba, oba... #

The trick of a producer is to pick the material

and make sure the material's right,

that the artist is comfortable,

that we got a good studio and an engineer.

The rest is you can put your feet up on the desk and listen. And it works.

# Oaria... #

And that became a very good record for him

and I think from that point on kinda got onto the American pulse.

Herb opened the first door, the important one.

The fact that I had a record out

and going out on the road with Herb gave me a tremendous exposure.

That's why I have a lot of gratitude to him for introducing us to the music world.

Brasil '66 had been used to playing in small venues,

and so when we were out with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,

which was the biggest act in the world at the time,

we were playing to, you know, 18,000, 20,000 people,

so it was a real adjustment for all of us.

For the Tijuana Brass guys,

it meant sharing their tour bus with new talent.

Oh, the Tijuana Brass was a bunch of guys, you know,

and so the fact that I had two girls in the band,

two beautiful girls, you know,

there was a lot of attention paid to that.

I remember these two beautiful young vocalists come into the airport,

and everybody was looking.

And Herb said, "Oh! We have a meeting. Come on."

He said, "Look, we're going to be travelling together.

"I don't want you to hit on these chicks at all. You just stay away."

I remember getting on the plane one day,

and the piano player was talking to me, was facing me,

and he was wearing those sunglasses that reflected.

So I'm looking at his sunglasses, I see myself,

and I see Herb behind me doing like this!

So he was serious!

The guys stayed away from us!

"Don't fraternise with the girls.

"Just leave them alone. It's not good business.

"You should not. Please don't do that."

I ended up with Lani.

There was always, I think, a mutual admiration between them,

being a musician and a singer.

Herb not only loved her but also

could feel that she was a fantastic singer,

and I think music brought them together.

It was destined to be with her,

cos she's, yeah, somebody you want to spin off of

if things are... spinning out of control,

cos at that point in my life, it was like I was over my head.

# Well, I think I'm going out of my head... #

Despite meeting a soul mate in Lani, Herb's life was getting complicated.

He was still married to his teen sweetheart Sharon,

and he was also feeling the pressures and trappings of success.

When A&M really started happening and money started rolling in,

I bought... What I thought I should do.

I bought a home in Beverly Hills and had, you know, a cook and a servant.

I was just doing things that I thought I should be doing,

but really wasn't coming from my gut.

We had this party and invited Sergio and Lani and the group

and some friends at our home,

and I remember I saw Lani -

she was looking at this painting that I had in the living room.

And I was thinking to myself,

"Boy, she's probably really impressed with this.

"This is really getting her."

But she said, "You know, this house doesn't look anything like you.

"This is full of shit, man. It's like...

"It's pretentious."

And when she said it, I was looking at her like,

"Holy shit, man! She's seeing right through me!"

Good evening. I'm Herb Alpert, and welcome to The Beat of the Brass.

But Herb still had to play the part of front man,

and there was no let-up when it came to promoting.

Airports are old friends to the Brass.

It seems as though we never stop moving around.

When it came time to do the special in '68,

the idea came up, and I think it was from the director,

that Herb should really do this love song, you know?

And it was time for Herb to sing, you know, and we got into it -

"Yeah, it was great"...

And Herb was convinced that it was going to be a Burt Bacharach song.

I said, "If I can get the right song, I'll consider it."

So I called Burt, who was a friend,

and I said, "Do you have any material

"you think that I might be able to handle as a singer?"

I never thought of myself as a singer.

So a couple of days later, he sent me this demo of this record.

I liked the melody a lot.

Here again, it's melody for me.

# You see this guy?

# This guy's in love with you

# Yes, I'm in love

# Who looks at you the way I do? #

When I recorded the song with Burt, I just did a demo version singing it,

just to see if my voice would work on the track.

And so when I went into the control room to listen to the playback,

the singers were there and some musicians were there,

and they looked at me and said, "Don't touch it."

I said, "Don't touch what?" He said, "Don't touch what you just did."

I said, "I was just seeing if my voice can work."

They said, "Don't touch it. It sounds great."

And so I never touched it. It was just one take!

# I've heard some talk

# They say you think I'm fine

# Yes, I'm in love

# And what I'd do... #

For the TV special, it was suggested that Herb should sing the love song to his wife, Sharon.

I was told that that's just what made the record a hit,

it's Herb and Sharon walking on the beach.

At the end of the number...

..it's a close-up of the two,

and just as they kiss, the sun is coming right through.

# I need your love... #

They say that's what made the record a hit.

# I want your love

# Say you're in love... #

This Guy's In Love With You became A&M's first number one,

and Herb appeared to have it all.

It was huge. You know?

And really gave us a whole other year, you know,

to promote Herb Alpert records, Herb Alpert promotions,

and I would say probably took its toll on Herbie,

because he worked very hard during that time, you know?

It was a really different time in my life.

It was a time when I was trying to take stock of myself,

because we were - I remember this distinctively -

we were playing in Germany,

and all of a sudden, I was onstage playing,

and I had this out-of-body experience.

I was like in the third row watching this concert.

I mean, it was eerie. And I wasn't on drugs or anything.

It was just like there I was,

looking at this guy onstage, thinking to myself,

"Man, this guy looks reasonably comfortable onstage,

"but when he's down in the middle of a party

"or talking to two or three people, he's like a little unravelled."

You know, I had the American Dream come true,

I had the thing that you're supposed to get,

and yet my shoulders were a little tight

and I was not feeling all that great.

-I think it was a change in Herb.

-Yeah. Exactly.

That last trip, if you recall, he was...

He was... I don't know, confused.

-Right.

-You know, it was at the time of the break-up with Sharon.

Right.

And I think also there was a lot of pressure on him

to keep producing hits, you know?

And it'd get confusing for him, too.

You know, it was just such a big responsibility for him,

and I think he just got to the point where he just had enough

and he had to back off for a while.

It wasn't a difficult decision to make

to disband the group at the time.

I was not feeling tip-top.

I was going through a divorce,

I was not emotionally equipped to continue on.

And I feel like I'd kinda peaked with the sound of the Brass

with what I started out to do.

I didn't have a nervous breakdown. I wasn't close to that.

But I ran into a snag with the trumpet

where I wasn't able to play it, which is very interesting.

It was like...

It went from a really good friend of mine to an enemy...

..in a short period of time.

I remember getting some professional help and the therapist said,

"Well, describe yourself. Who are you? What do you do?

"I mean, what are you thinking?"

I remember there was a mirror on the wall, and when he said it,

I looked at myself, and I was like yellow!

I didn't know how to answer the question.

He needed time to just figure it all out, you know?

This guy had carried us on his back, you know?

And I certainly was grateful to have him done what he did.

My God, where we had come from 1962 to 1969 was quite amazing.

Quite amazing.

But music tastes had shifted and A&M had fallen behind.

Their trademark easy-listening sound was no longer hip.

1969 though we didn't have what you'd call a profitable year.

Los Angeles, the city itself, was going through this vast transformation, you know?

Everybody was just growing gobs of hair.

Yeah, the sales did start to slow down.

Jerry concentrated on giving A&M a more current image.

We signed some amazing British groups,

like Spooky Tooth and Procul Harum, Cat Stevens

and a guy named Joe Cocker.

Inventive rock'n'roll, you know? That was our future.

# All I need is my buddies!

# Get by with a little help from my friends... #

As we moved, let's say, as Herbie was,

from the so-called everyday scene, you know,

he managed to find a tape

and summoned the band to the sound stage

and he got up there and said, "This is an act I'm proud to have on A&M."

Herb's discovery were a decidedly un-rock'n'roll, all-American brother-and-sister act.

Would I have gone out of my way

to sign The Carpenters at that particular time? Probably not.

But Herb liked them, wanted them.

No problem.

The Carpenters were recording for us at A&M for a year with no luck,

no luck at all, hardly any radio play,

and I was getting...

I was getting strange looks from some of the people at the company,

thinking, "Ah, why'd you sign these guys?

"They're too soft, it's too easy listening, it's too wimpy."

We were kind of persona non grata

with a lot of people at the label.

The album didn't sell well,

and there was some talk that they wanted us gone.

But Herb still thought there was something there.

Of course, so did we.

And he brought a little known Bacharach-David song

to my attention to arrange.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# Why do birds

# Suddenly appear

# Every time

# You are near?

# Just like me

# They long to be

# Close to you... #

She had something really magic.

When her voice came out of the speaker,

it felt like her voice was sitting right next to me.

It had that much volume.

And Richard loved putting it together,

he loved doing those wonderful voicings, the harmonies.

He was very knowledgeable about sounds and echoes

and placement of voice.

# On the day that you were born The angels got together

# And decided to create A dream come true... #

We all thought it was something very special.

Whether it was going to become a hit or not,

to me, it was either going to be number one or nothing,

it was so different.

# Just like me

# They long to be

# Close to you... #

When Close To You hit - and it really hit - all of a sudden I became a genius.

"Wow, that was a brilliant signing!"

Karen and I are the biggest-selling act in the label's history.

By far, actually. That's to take nothing away from anybody else!

Herby, baby, you know how to pick talent.

-Come on Piggy-doll, let's get out of here.

-He's cute.

Well, as I was saying, there are certain moments in music that definitely need a woman's touch.

This woman happens to be the lady in my life.

I'd like for you to experience the voice of Miss Lani Hall.

APPLAUSE

In 1974, Herb made a return to performing.

He had married Lani and she had helped him through his creative struggles.

# Doesn't it make you feel like

# Tryin' to save the sunlight? #

They were very difficult times.

You know, he was having a hard time playing the trumpet.

That was... That started a journey to all these

trumpet teachers, relearning things, dropping old habits.

It was a real exploration on every level.

Psychologically, emotionally, spiritually.

It was a long and winding road back.

But, in the interim, I was producing records and working with Lani.

His connecting with Lani,

that completed his personal life,

his happiness, his being able to express himself.

I think Lani has been the key to his life.

That's when I started recording again. And then we got the brass together for the second go around.

The reformed TJB band only lasted a couple of years. Herb was developing a solo career.

And his next venture would see him on the dance floor.

By the late '70s, A&M had tuned into the sounds from the clubs.

After all, if Beethoven could go disco...why couldn't Herb?

The A&R people,

the business people at A&M, wanted him to do a dance record.

At that time, we were coming off of Saturday Night Fever, which was a huge worldwide phenomenon.

And people were dancing.

Why don't you take Taste of Honey and Tijuana Taxi, some of those evergreens,

and do a disco version of them?

And we started doing a disco version of Taste Of Honey.

When I heard about eight bars of the drum, and the thing and the disco groove,

I got nauseous. I said, "Man, I cannot do this. This is not something I want to do."

Herb preferred one of Randy's original tracks, Rise.

It was going to be a dance song at about 120 beats a minute, which was popular.

Not disco. Not disco. It's going to be a funk record.

But Herb came up with a brilliant idea, which was to slow the record down,

to, like, 100 beats a minute. And suddenly, when it's slowed down, the groove got deeper.

It's just like, bing, magic.

TRUMPET PLAYS WITH FUNK BACKING

We recorded it live. It was a live recording, I was playing live in the studio

with the musicians. And when I was in the control room, listening to it back,

I got that feeling, that goose-bump feeling.

Herb and I kept looking at each other and thinking, this is cool.

It's not like every other record. It's different.

I said, I think this is a number one record.

Herb was back in the groove and back on the beach.

In 1979, Rise became Herb's biggest-selling number one and business was booming.

Herb and Jerry had come a long way from their garage set-up.

A&M was one of the world's most successful independent labels.

Their commitment to and successes with acts such as Peter Frampton and Supertramp

had given them the reputation of the artist's label that took them into the '80s.

# You don't have to sell your body to the night... #

I knew their reputation and I knew it was the right home for us.

You go to CBS, you can't meet Mr C, Mr B or Mr S. You know. EMI.

But A&M, their office was next to the big studio.

So you could actually bring then in and say, you know, what do you think?

What do we do now? It's not the norm.

# Every little thing she does is magic

# Everything she do just turns me on

# Even though my life before was tragic

# Now I know my love for her goes on... #

You could go and sit on Mr A's desk and talk about interesting things like chords and middle eights.

And he was a record executive but he was also an artist.

So I felt there was a rapport there, instantly.

Herb!

In 1986, A&M had huge success with Janet Jackson's breakthrough album, Control.

Herb was keen to work with the winning team behind that sound.

-The boss!

-The boss!

-We were working with the boss.

Not Bruce Springsteen.

The real boss! Herb Alpert.

# Don't you know, diamonds are a girl's best friend... #

I think for him it was just time to have fun and just be a musician.

Not think about the business, not think about producing.

Just go have fun.

These are two really interesting guys.

They were right in the pocket, as you would say. They were in the groove.

They knew where to put the notes, let's say.

And they played this one song for me that I liked a lot and I wanted to record.

I said, "What's the name of this thing?" They said, "Sausage."

I said, "I don't know about that title, man.

"I like the song, but can we come up with something a little better than Sausage?"

# Keep your eye on me. #

In this age of digital sampling and big-budget videos, Herb could still pick a hit.

But, unlike the Tijuana days, he allowed someone else to take control.

He allowed himself to become a blank canvas.

He would allow himself to just be painted on by us.

He wasn't, like, "This is my thing, you guys just do what I ask you to do."

He just kind of said "Well, what do you guys think?"

I was just proud to be a part of that. I mean, what an

honour for the A of A&M to ask you

to produce a record? You know, amazing.

By the end of the '80s, the music industry had become a corporate monster.

With huge multinationals absorbing smaller record labels,

it was becoming difficult for A&M to compete.

Artists were getting tremendous advances, which they deserved,

and we had a few of those artists.

And we wanted to make sure that we kept them.

But yet,

putting that much money on the line in advances was just not our style.

We weren't that big, that we could do that, you know?

So we had to do something.

We decided to sell. It was a...

mutual decision.

Strangely enough, Jerry and I never signed a contract for when we started A&M.

We just had a handshake and that was good enough for me and him.

And...

It makes me sad.

We signed the contract, we gave each other a hug and that was it.

I remember worrying at that time how he would adjust to changing such a deep routine.

You know, to wake up, to get ready and to go to A&M.

And then do what he does there, and then come home.

I would say to him, you know, "What do you think it's going to be like?"

He said, "Oh, I think it's going to be OK."

And it was. I worried for nothing.

I've been painting since 1970, for 40 years, and sculpting for 20.

I get energy just painting, sculpting, blowing the horn.

Something about it just feeds me.

And I'm addicted to it.

Here we go. One, two, three.

And you tell me if I'm going too fast or not.

You're going too fast.

LANI LAUGHS

Herb has been working on his latest project, a series of black totems,

at his home studio in Malibu.

-The ocean looks great today.

-Beautiful. Look at that.

Lani is Herb's artistic curator and many of his pieces are installed around their Malibu gardens.

Here's Phantasm and First Impression. They're at the show.

This is Ancient Source.

She remembers them all by name.

It's a big part of our lives, yeah.

I don't know, there's something about them that's just in harmony with nature.

I always thought of myself as a jazz interpreter.

I just see these pieces as rhythms and forms that appeal to the eye.

Because there is a universal aesthetic that most people get.

I think that's intriguing.

What makes something beautiful?

What makes something interesting to look at?

Very similar to music.

Herb is centre-stage yet again, as the Los Angeles art scene take in his latest work.

Well, I'm a long-term fan of Herb Alpert.

Of course, he had this amazing first act with his Tijuana Brass.

He had this amazing second act, founding A&M Records.

Now he's having this extraordinary third act as an artist.

I mean, what a talented man.

He's quietly proven himself one of the most extraordinary men of his age.

So, what do you think?

I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to think any more.

Artistically...

he may still be striving.

He may not have achieved

what he would feel was the ultimate accomplishment.

But where he has reached is far above ultimate for many, many people.

Have I been lucky in my life? Is the Pope Catholic?

I must admit, I was at the right place at the right time.

Lots of the time. Some of the time I wasn't.

But, yeah, I've been lucky.

I've been prepared, I've done my homework, I've put in my sweat.

But I've got lucky too.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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