Herb Alpert reflects on fame, TikTok and turning 90 with the Tijuana Brass
Herb Alpert celebrates 90 years and a return to the stage with new Tijuana Brass
Legendary trumpeter Herb Alpert celebrated his 90th birthday last month by taking the stage at Jazz at Lincoln Center with a new iteration of the Tijuana Brass, marking his return to the iconic group format for the first time in 40 years.
The milestone performance coincides with the 60th anniversary of his landmark album "Whipped Cream & Other Delights," which spent eight weeks at No. 1 after its 1965 release and helped define the sound of the era.
"It has been overwhelming. I didn't realize I'd get this much attention at 90," Alpert said.
Alpert's distinctive brass sound, inspired by bullfights in Tijuana, dominated the 1960s music landscape — appearing in television commercials, game shows like "The Dating Game," and films including "Casino Royale." At his commercial peak in 1966, Alpert had three albums in the top five simultaneously and outsold The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra.
"Sometimes I was even a little embarrassed by it all," Alpert admitted.
His classic hit "Ladyfingers" recently found new life on TikTok, generating what Alpert described as "three billion streams" on YouTube, a phenomenon he finds "strange, because I recorded it like 60 years ago."
The trumpet virtuoso's career hasn't been without challenges. By 1969, while going through a divorce, Alpert faced a personal crisis with his instrument. He described the trumpet as "my enemy" as he struggled with confidence and technique. A breakthrough came after consulting New York brass teacher Carmine Caruso, who reminded him that the trumpet was "just a piece of plumbing" and that "the instrument comes from deep inside you."
Alpert also co-founded A&M Records with the late Jerry Moss, operating on a handshake agreement from 1962 until they sold the company in 1990. The two never signed a formal contract, a fact that still moves Alpert to tears when he recalls their partnership.
Now touring with a newly assembled Tijuana Brass, Alpert says the music feels fresh again. Alpert continues to perform with his wife of 52 years, singer Lani Hall, whom he met when his label signed Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.
"I try to be as authentic as I can when I play," he said. "I'm playing in the moment of my life. And it's a hard place to get to. But that's the place I'm always looking for."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Beyonce to bring Cowboy Carter Tour to this city for six nights
Singer Beyonce is to bring her Cowboy Carter Tour to London for six performances at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The 43-year-old will perform her first show in the run on Thursday, followed by shows on June 7, 10, 12, 14, and 16, after the tour for her eighth studio album began in April in the US in Inglewood, California. The singer last performed in the UK in 2023 on the Renaissance World Tour, which saw her play five dates at the same London venue, and will arrive in the capital having just played five dates in East Rutherford, New Jersey. So far in the tour, Beyonce's set has seen her perform classic hits such as Love On Top, If I Were A Boy and Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), along with tracks from her latest album, which saw her move into country music, including Texas Hold 'Em, 16 Carriages and II Most Wanted. READ MORE: The Houston-born star has also been performing covers of The Beatles' Blackbird and Dolly Parton's Jolene. Doors are expected to open at 5pm for the show, and the singer has not had a support act on the tour so far. Following the UK gigs, the singer will move on to Paris, where she will play three nights at the Stade De France, before returning to the US to conclude the tour. Beyonce announced the London dates after finally winning the album of the year Grammy this year for Cowboy Carter, released in March 2024, she also won the best country album Grammy as well as the country duo/group performance award for her song featuring Miley Cyrus, titled II Most Wanted. The singer had previously failed to secure the best album prize with 2008's I Am … Sasha Fierce, 2013's Beyonce, 2016's Lemonade and 2022's Renaissance, and dedicated her win to Linda Martell, who features on the album, who was the first black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The 67th Grammy Awards, held in February, saw the singer extend her lead as the most decorated artist in the event's history with 35 awards. In March, the King hailed Beyonce as 'exceptional' during his online radio show, The King's Music Room, and congratulated her on her first album of the year Grammy. Beginning her career alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams in Destiny's Child during the 1990s, Beyonce has gone on to have six UK number one singles and five UK number one albums. She married rapper Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, in 2008, and the couple have three children – Blue Ivy, Rumi and Sir.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Are Music and Other Celebrity Films Killing the Documentary?
Glance at the list of top contenders for the nonfiction special this Emmy season and you'll find some big musical talent: Bruce Springsteen. Celine Dion. John Williams. The Beatles. Yet far from a thrilling foray into the modern canon, these Rock and Roll Hall of Fame excursions suggest a world in which nonfiction TV has become an exercise in brand management, say documentary leaders, marginalizing robust storytelling and journalism. More from The Hollywood Reporter Roy Wood Jr. Mocks White House, CNN and Patti LuPone in Peabody Awards Monologue How Reginald Hudlin and Shola Lynch Put Together the Greatest Call Sheet Ever Questlove Reveals the Standout Musical Performance He Omitted From 'Ladies & Gentlemen ... 50 Years of SNL Music' - And Why The Emmys documentary special once covered a wide range of social topics. Beginning some 25 years ago, it included the stories of Vietnam POWs and prison cover-ups, child beauty-pageant contestants and racial inequities. But in recent years this has morphed. In 2024, four of the five nominees were authorized celebrity biographies. The year before? The same. Don't count on much changing this season: Artist-friendly music docs flood the space. 'A lot of this is the shift to streaming where companies are looking for names that are reliable and global, and what's being said in the films doesn't really matter,' says Thom Powers, a veteran documentary programmer at Toronto, Doc NYC and other festivals. 'It becomes less about content or rigor and more about marketing.' That these shifts are happening at a time of crisis — from social injustice to climate disasters to the slashing of the federal safety net — makes the tragedy that much greater, say nonfiction experts. Documentaries are unavailable at the exact moment they're needed most. Three veteran filmmakers, who all asked not to be identified because they did not want to jeopardize even hypothetical partnerships, expressed their concern and pointed to the shift in the doc power base from onetime rulers PBS and HBO to Netflix, Disney and Apple, which they say prioritize polish and name recognition. Some of the diminishment, they say, can also be traced to when streamers began running commercials, as Netflix did in late 2022, giving them a weaker stomach for content that might alienate advertisers. What's more, these platforms sometimes pay their subjects, turning them into de facto directors. After so many decades when artists, actors and athletes were forced to cede control to the companies, record labels and teams they work for, the pendulum has swung the other way. Not that the companies don't have their say: A film's need for music rights and the increasingly tight oversight by the entities that control them can mean even basic humanizing details are left out. Many nonfiction films these days are about only what the subject wants us to see — less documentaries than documercials. The crisis came to the fore in the fall with the revelation that Ezra Edelman, the creative force behind the Emmy-winning 2016 docuseries O.J.: Made in America, had directed a similarly ambitious piece for Netflix about the beautiful genius and alleged malevolent manipulations (and worse) of Prince. But with both the lawyers and rights-management company Primary Wave that were in charge of the musician's estate worried about the effects on Prince's catalog sales, at least some among the estate overseers reportedly threatened to use a clause in the contract that would require the nine-hour film to be cut down to six. The move led to the completed piece being permanently shelved. A new, more burnished authorized movie not directed by Edelman will now rise in its place. One hardly needs a nine-hour plumbing of the dark soul of Paisley Park to understand what's being lost. Time and again, the artist-approved film glides past the meatiest material. Of the Springsteen-centric Road Diary, The Hollywood Reporter's review offered that 'an in-depth excavation or an exhaustive accounting, this is not.' Of Music by John Williams, The Guardian said, 'The man behind the maestro remains elusive.' Of I Am: Celine Dion, Variety noted that the movie was 'managed to within an inch of its life…there's a sense the filmmaker didn't want to include anything her subject wouldn't approve of.' The shift is surprisingly recent. Just six years ago, the winner of the Emmy for doc special was Leaving Neverland, HBO's unflinching look at alleged Michael Jackson abuses from two alleged victims — a far cry from last year's winner about the genius of Jim Henson that was authorized by his family and came out from Disney. The company was doubtless happy not to deal with Neverland-level legal headaches. (There does still seem to be journalism within certain narrow documentary genres, like true crime, which recently yielded Liz Garbus' robust Netflix docuseries Gone Girls.) Doc-world veterans point to the size of the streamers as a culprit. 'It's a difficult environment now in the United States for controversial content,' says Alex Gibney, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker (Going Clear won the nonfiction special Emmy in 2015). 'With consolidation comes a belief that you can talk to everybody, so you don't want to offend anybody.' Gibney's own journalistic film about Benjamin Netanyahu, The Bibi Files, couldn't find a major network or streamer at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, joining another acclaimed TIFF work, Steve Pink's anti-Trump doc The Last Republican, in the distribution desert. Instead, filmmakers say the documentaries that land big deals are well-meaning but ultimately unrigorous — fan worship in auteurist clothing. Serving fans is hardly a crime, of course, and many of the music films can charm or educate the faithful. But filmmakers say they worry that these soft-focus looks are crowding out serious work. And they ruefully register the irony that artists whose genius came from exploring messy contradictions often wind up with treatments largely free of them. The music industry personalities behind these movies maintain that their efforts serve creativity in their own way, and that while they may have a measured hand in how they handle sensitive or controversial material, they still aim to cast an illuminating light. 'The artists have to be willing to tell their story, and that means the good and the bad, the wins and the struggles,' says Tom Mackay, president of premium content at Sony Music Entertainment, which has been behind a host of recent music docs, including films on Cyndi Lauper, June Carter Cash, Luther Vandross and this year's Celine Dion picture. 'It can't be a two-hour victory lap.' Mackay acknowledges that a built-in audience is part of the appeal in a difficult media environment. Distributors can count on 'that global fan base to migrate to that platform to watch that film,' he says. While the presence of these movies is held up as an example of journalism marginalization, those involved with them say they're actually responding to a deterioration in reporting culture and partly even addressing it. 'Journalism — especially music journalism — has changed; there aren't as many music outlets and not nearly as many in-depth articles about musicians as there used to be,' says Deborah Klein, a manager at Primary Wave whose clients include Melissa Etheridge and Cypress Hill, both of whom have been the subjects of recent docs. 'This is a way to get to know them a little better.' Still, many of the projects are driven by business models. Conglomerates with music catalogs don't need to pay licensing fees, eliminating a main budgetary expense. They then get paid when they sell their movie to a platform and grab another bite at the revenue apple when the ensuing popularity leads to increased streams or album sales — a triumph less of cinema than synergy. It is difficult to avoid the monetizing truth that Disney+ is the company putting out the story of Star Wars composer John Williams or that NBC streaming arm Peacock is behind Ladies & Gentlemen…50 Years of SNL Music. A 'universe' logic abides: Just as Disney produces Marvel and Star Wars shows by the bucket, it's following the template in nonfiction, peddling three movies to which it owns the rights, Michael Lindsay-Hogg original 1970 Let It Be, Peter Jackson's four-hour 2021 restoration of the footage from that film The Beatles: Get Back, and, now, the Scorsese-produced Beatles '64. Any company worth its salt engages in cross-promotion. But producing and distributing films with a commoditized-package strategy for a band that spent much of its career fighting commoditized packaging can set off the irony meter. Welcome to the Lennonverse. Natalia Nastaskin, chief content officer of Primary Wave, says that while 'we do hope that there's impact on catalog,' she also believes 'there's an opportunity for revelatory storytelling' with these movies. She called them 'another form of artistic expression.' But documentary directors say the approach makes for a very different environment than the one they're used to. 'Getting called into a meeting on these projects, you can sometimes feel more like you're filling a marketing hole than offering an artistic vision,' says one. Sheila Nevins, the former HBO executive and so-called 'godmother' of the modern documentary who has been nominated for the Emmy nonfiction special some 30 times, says she has been disheartened by the business and creative tilt in the past several years. 'The documentary is in hiding,' she says flatly. Still, she believes that even if the biggest streamers don't take many risks, a groundswell of documentarians as well as audiences eager to understand the challenges facing the country will emerge to resurrect the form. 'Just because these companies don't want to go too deep into the water doesn't mean docs are coming to an end,' Nevins notes, suggesting the possibility of private investment to produce and distribute films. 'These filmmakers will come back with their fists on fire. And they're going to punch very hard.' This story first appeared in a May stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Associated Press
Ringo Starr on turning 85, meditation and The Beatles evolution
Sir Ringo Starr sat down with AP entertainment journalist Liam McEwan to reflect on a milestone year: celebrating his 85th birthday next July 7, 35 years of the All-Starr Band and a recent Grammy win ('I'd like a couple more if you don't mind,' he says). He shared stories from his early days as a hopeful dreamer, the musical evolution of The Beatles, and his mindset when behind a drum kit ('I'm in a blackout!'). Starr also opened up about his journey practicing transcendental meditation, photography and the deep bond he still shares with his bandmates.
