Herb Alpert, who reinvented his musical career a few times, on how we listen

“I don’t think people listen with their ears. I think they listen with their soul.”
— Herb Alpert

I heard Herb Alpert — the legendary trumpet player, producer and career-maker — say these words in the documentary Herb Alpert Is…, which is currently streaming on Tubi.

Early in the documentary, we’re reminded that Alpert accomplished something that later generations might find hard to believe. He was so successful around 1965 and 1966, he was outselling the Beatles.

For Gen X folks like me, a few bars of some signature tunes like Spanish Flea are shorthand for an era of kitsch, plastic and questionable taste. But I actually do like his playing, and (Dad puts on his cardigan for this part) some of those Sixties records actually sound pretty good.

His act was called the Tijuana Brass, and while there was eventually a genuine touring band, Alpert played all the brass parts on the early recordings. It was a bit of a conceit: a solo maverick who eventually created the band he had in his head.

He truly was a bit of a DIY guy. Before he hit it big in the charts in his own right, he founded his own label, with Jerry Moss in his garage … A&M. You may have heard of it. (He also co-wrote hit songs, including Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World.)

Alpert is still the only musician to have hit No. 1 on the main Billboard charts as both an instrumentalist and a vocalist. He doesn’t sing much, but his version of This Guy’s in Love with You was a huge hit in 1968.

In 1979, the title track of his comeback album Rise went to No. 1 on the pop charts. That’s not shabby. (Almost two decades later, Rise had a hip-hop resurgence thanks to Biggie Smalls and Hypnotize, which sampled it.)

As a label manager, Alpert — having had a massive Burt Bacharach hit himself — suggested The Carpenters record (They Long to Be) Close to You. He signed Cat Stevens and played a role in the singer-songwriter movement, backing Carole King and others; made Frampton Comes Alive a Seventies mainstay (in Wayne’s World, Wayne says every suburban kid was issued a copy); brought the Police, Joan Armatrading, Squeeze and Joe Jackson into the fold; developed Janet Jackson and later teamed up for a hit record; signed Soundgarden … and so much more. He and Moss sold the label, which still exists as an imprint, in 1989.

The documentary emphasizes how Alpert, who turned 91 last month, is still creating. He has his recording space, he paints, he sculpts.

He’s also still touring, and his current tour this spring includes a date in Montreal.

Remarkable.

An updated playlist

I’ve been adding songs mentioned on Dot Dot Dot to this playlist. I’m biased, but it makes chopping vegetables a little more pleasurable.