Herb Alpert and Lani Hall. Photo by Dewey Nicks.
Grammy Award-winners, Herb Alpert and Lani Hall have a huge local following, performing many times at Maryland Hall in Annapolis. This year, they made their debut in an even larger arena—the beautiful Strathmore—performing to an enthusiastic and sold out crowd. Through the years, there may have been those who may have thought Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass were not cool, but when you discover all of Alpert’s accomplishments, it is simply astounding. Herb Alpert is the stuff of legend and one of the most successful, influential, and generous people in the music business.
There are not enough superlatives to describe the talent and contributions of Herb Alpert and Lani Hall. They are still performing at the top of their game…
Herb Alpert is a musician, songwriter, arranger, conductor, painter, sculptor, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Among his many accolades, he has 15 gold albums and 14 platinum albums, won nine Grammys (24 nominations), and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. With his late partner, Jerry Moss, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received the National Medal of Arts Award from President Barack Obama. Surprisingly, he is also a Tony winner as a Broadway theater producer of the Tony Award®/Pulitzer Prize-winning production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.” He also was a producer for “Jelly’s Last Jam” and August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars,” among others. Alpert is also a prolific philanthropist creating The Herb Alpert Foundation and the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He saved New York’s Harlem School of the Arts and has donated generously to the Los Angeles City College Music Department and the California Institute of the Arts. The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts annually gives a generous stipend to mid-career artists.
Herb Alpert seems to be missing one thing—as one audience member called out and was met with applause—Kennedy Honors recipient.
With movie star good looks and and incredible talent as a musician, Alpert created his own sound (and The Tijuana Brass) with the release of “The Lonely Bull” in 1962. A hybrid of jazz, pop, and Latin influences, he was very much ahead of his time, finding his inspiration in the vibrant, infectious sounds of world music. In 1965, Whipped Cream & Other Delights (with that iconic cover) outsold the headliners of the first British invasion—The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In 2023, Taylor Swift was the first artist since Herb Alpert in 1966 to have four albums in the Billboard 200 chart’s top ten at the same time. His only vocal effort, “This Guy’s In Love With You,” written by Bacharach/David, and “Rise” give Alpert the distinction of being the only musician to hit No. 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 as a vocalist and an instrumentalist.
Alpert also signed many of the most successful groups in music history, co-founding A&M Records, with his partner, the late Jerry Moss (Their headquarters were on the former Charlie Chaplin studio lot, now the Jim Henson Studios). A&M became the world’s largest independent record company, not only discovering the The Carpenters, but signing Quincy Jones, Joe Cocker, Janet Jackson, Carole King, The Police, The Go-Go’s, to name just a fraction of the superstars on the label.
Among those groups was Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, whose sound was tuned into the huge, bossa nova movement created by Antônio Carlos Jobim (who was also on the label) at the time. The group’s lead singer was Lani Hall—and one of the great romances was born. Herb Alpert and Lani Hall have been married for 50 years. Excluding the pandemic, they tour every year and their love and respect for each other is palpable on stage and often illustrated in photos and videos on the screens behind the band. Alpert just turned 89 and has never stopped making music—and he loves it.
All this background is important because, this concert was a musical journey and history through time of a man, his music, and his art with his equally talented partner by his side. There is a lot of music and storytelling and it is very intimate despite the the grand setting. The show opens with a video of the planet and it’s diversity with Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” (Appropriate because, this evening, the proceeds were going to the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.) As Herb Alpert said, “it would be if we give it a chance.”
Alpert and Hall were backed by an extremely talented trio of musicians—Bill Cantos on piano, Hussain Jeffrey on bass, and Tiki Pasilas on drums/percussion—and they provided vocals as well. All through the performance, the three screens behind the band displayed Alpert’s paintings, archival video of him and Hall and the Tijuana Brass back in the day, as well as music videos of Alpert’s more current music while he and the band played live. He also welcomed interaction with the audience though, at times, it was overwhelming with so many eager questions all at once.
There was no program and there was so much packed into the evening, it only scratched the surface of this multi-talent group of musicians. The concert included “What Now My Love,” “A Taste of Honey,” Jobim’s “One Note Samba” (sung by Hall), bits of “The Lonely Bull,” the theme to the film “Casino Royale” (the 1967 James Bond spoof), and “Tijuana Taxi” (Alpert and the Tijuana Brass performed it on “The Muppet Show.”) We also were treated to his jazz solo hits, “Rise” and “Route 101” from the late 70s/early 80s. Lani Hall covered Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Like a Star” with accompaniment by Alpert, which sums up their unabashed romance. This was followed by a medley of Brasil ’66 hits sung by Hall—”The Look of Love,” “Fool on the Hill,” and ‘Like a Lover,” “Pretty World,” “Bim Bom,” “Like a Lover” and “Night and Day,” and “Mas Que Nada.”
The band had its chance to shine with a jazzy, improvised version of “Fly Me to the Moon,” all with solo spotlights for each of them. There was a very fun 2017 music video by Alpert for Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” with couples around the world holding up notes about sentiments for what appears to be their lovers and playing trumpet—the notes are in fact about their love for the trumpet. Alpert’s 2014 music video, a cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” not only features some great young dancers and dance sequences but is done in one, continuous camera shot. The show concluded with “Sunny Side of the Street” and Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” done in English and Portuguese by Hall.
There are not enough superlatives to describe the talent and contributions of Herb Alpert and Lani Hall. They are still performing at the top of their game, along with their accomplished band. The two hold a special place in my heart since I grew up with their music and now, even more so, because of their devotion to each other and the arts—and humankind—through their music. If you have a chance to see them in concert, this is one you don’t want to miss.
Are you listening Kennedy Center?
Running Time: Approximately two hours with no intermission.
Herb Alpert and Lani Hall performed one night only on May 17, 2024 at The Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD 20852. For more information and to purchase tickets for upcoming events, call the Ticket Office at 301.581.5100 or go online.
