Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists and writers, policymakers and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories, what inspired their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: changed their careers, and what relationships influenced their work. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Both of my guests today were successful early
Speaker 1: in their careers. Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass sold
Speaker 1: over thirteen million albums in nineteen sixty six, out selling
Speaker 1: even the Beatles. After leaving Saturday Night Live, Chris Rock
Speaker 1: created two comedy specials, the second of which one too Emmys.
Speaker 1: Who's more racist? Black people? Of white people? Black people?
Speaker 1: You know what? We hate black people too. Now. Usually
Speaker 1: when an entertainer finds success at something, it guarantees you'll
Speaker 1: see them do that same thing over and over again.
Speaker 1: But both Curb Albert and Chris Rock have taken their
Speaker 1: careers well beyond they expected. Albert started what became the
Speaker 1: largest independent music label of its time, and recently, Chris
Speaker 1: Rock starred in his first play ever on Broadway. You
Speaker 1: want to press if this is something beautiful, come and
Speaker 1: stay with me and Vicky Man get on a nutritional
Speaker 1: beverage program man, come out to rock away man. I
Speaker 1: wanted my acting to grow, So I'm actually figuring out
Speaker 1: how to add lib every night without saying words, how
Speaker 1: to work eat, seeing a little different in each line,
Speaker 1: and try to find laughs and places that I didn't find.
Speaker 1: One a night before something, the play was The Mothercker
Speaker 1: with the Hat. I met up with Chris in his
Speaker 1: attic a dressing room at the Schonefeld Theater after a
Speaker 1: Wednesday matinee. Broadway is not where you'd expect to find
Speaker 1: Chris Rock. He sells out stay mediums. His stand up
Speaker 1: routines are merciless. He leaves no time for recovery. Your
Speaker 1: sides ache with laughter from both shock and recognition. Married
Speaker 1: and bad are single and lonely. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Marriages are boring because once you get married, you gotta
Speaker 1: hang around other married people, and that's just disgusting. You
Speaker 1: have a gone to dinner with six newtered adults, a
Speaker 1: bunch of women talking about diaper genies and hair coloring.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're leaving in too long, it's staying
Speaker 1: Shut up. God. You have obviously a huge following black
Speaker 1: and white in your concerts, and yet when you go
Speaker 1: out in this audience. How black is the audience? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean put this way. In the old days, they
Speaker 1: used to have signs up whites only, whites only. Now
Speaker 1: they have a new thing. It's called prices. You know,
Speaker 1: some nights is darker than other nights. I buy tickets
Speaker 1: every night when this play is a were would spend
Speaker 1: spent almost a whole weekly paycheck on tickets as gifts
Speaker 1: for friends otherwise couldn't come see the show, otherwise, could
Speaker 1: not afford to see this show. I tour and I'm
Speaker 1: normally you know, at the garden or whatever, like sixty
Speaker 1: thousand seats to give away what I'm normally on tour,
Speaker 1: and people have gotten used to this. My man takes
Speaker 1: care of us, and you know I don't. I can't
Speaker 1: take that away from friends and family. You haven't done
Speaker 1: a lot of theater. Correct, This is the first play
Speaker 1: I've ever done. This is the first play you've ever done.
Speaker 1: I didn't do a play in high school. I didn't
Speaker 1: go to high school. So so not only your Broadway debut,
Speaker 1: but your first play period. You're with a pretty cool
Speaker 1: group of people, a lot of experience, you know what,
Speaker 1: and they have held me up. No one ever got
Speaker 1: frustrated at what I didn't know. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a bunch of little thing that people take for gret
Speaker 1: I have no idea. You're never supposed to walk straight
Speaker 1: at somebody, supposed to loop. Just all these weird little things.
Speaker 1: And my favorite is that you don't give information to
Speaker 1: the person. So if you're standing here telling them something,
Speaker 1: you tell it out. You sit there and go open,
Speaker 1: open to the audience as much as all that open, open, open,
Speaker 1: open open stuff. Yes, even today, I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: The Chris Rock that I know from your live shows,
Speaker 1: I don't see much of him in this show because
Speaker 1: that Chris Rock is like marauding the stage and as
Speaker 1: complete control over the audience. This is a different Chris
Speaker 1: I see in the play. I'm really trying to act here,
Speaker 1: you know. Have you enjoyed it? I'm enjoying it a lot,
Speaker 1: A lot. A lot. Is the hardest thing I've ever
Speaker 1: gone through in my life. I always tell people it's
Speaker 1: like having the Empire State Building shoved up your one
Speaker 1: brick at a time. And to learn the play. Can't
Speaker 1: believe there's ever gonna be a day when you know
Speaker 1: what's been the surprise about doing this for you. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised I'm doing it. I mean, I'm surprised that
Speaker 1: I'm not bored with it already. Are you afraid of that?
Speaker 1: I'm really that that's the that's the biggest fear, to
Speaker 1: actually be stuck doing anything. Well, what I love about
Speaker 1: this plant by the way, everybody has loved someone, and
Speaker 1: not too far into the relationship, you say to yourself,
Speaker 1: not only is this probably wrong, this is definitely wrong,
Speaker 1: but you can't get out of it. How does this
Speaker 1: play resonate with you in your personal life? I've been
Speaker 1: every person in this place, everything, everything, and it's the
Speaker 1: one who the other person in response to the betrayal,
Speaker 1: the revenge, every person, every person. It's the kind of
Speaker 1: play you can't watch without putting yourself in it. When
Speaker 1: you write your material for stand up, how do the
Speaker 1: people in your life react to how you fill at
Speaker 1: them on stage? If you you know what, I'm like
Speaker 1: a lawyer in a sense. I mean, it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like a legal document. It's a word. It like it's
Speaker 1: all our wives and all our you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like like if you if I gave you the transcript.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, he hasn't talked about anybody, that's about you, baby,
Speaker 1: It would all hold up in court, but you do.
Speaker 1: But you never have anybody in your life. No, No,
Speaker 1: everybody's uncomfortable. I remember I read a quote Tarantino said,
Speaker 1: if people in your life aren't uncomfortable, you're not really writing,
Speaker 1: you're not really hitting it. You know, somebody better be uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up in a situation that was remotely
Speaker 1: like this and then emotionally turbulent? My parents place way,
Speaker 1: My mother cursed a lot, screamed a lot. You know
Speaker 1: my father, my mother beat us with a curtain rock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we got beatens with curtain row odds and brooms
Speaker 1: and brushes, niers or whatever. But I mean my father,
Speaker 1: it's weird. My father, his temper towards my mother was
Speaker 1: always controlled well else he could lose it. Why do
Speaker 1: you think it was he wanted to protect that? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, first of all, I mean, guys
Speaker 1: from that era did not view women as their equals.
Speaker 1: They did, and they were loving and blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, but they did not view women as their equals. Therefore,
Speaker 1: they could actually deal with the woman's emotional whatever swings
Speaker 1: way easier than a guy in my age, because I
Speaker 1: view a woman as my equal. So if I'm with
Speaker 1: a woman and she starts crying, I look at her
Speaker 1: like I'm with you when you start crying, don't go
Speaker 1: female on me. I'm like something, I look at her life.
Speaker 1: I would look at a guy that gets emotional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought, if we were equal, then you can't play
Speaker 1: that car. Don't play the female. So I'll just say
Speaker 1: my father and my grandfather's both of them were really
Speaker 1: delicate with their wives. You know, not a child, but
Speaker 1: close to a child. That wasn't different for you. My
Speaker 1: wife's my equal, and you know, you know any budding
Speaker 1: of heads is because I I want I'm dealing with
Speaker 1: you the same way I would deal with myself, where
Speaker 1: I deal with any guy and we're both wrong. What
Speaker 1: are gonna do when this is over? Do you know?
Speaker 1: I'm much sure? I think I'm gonna direct a movie.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm feeling. So this is the time in
Speaker 1: your life when you do all the things you told
Speaker 1: yourself you'd never do. Play on Broadway, direct a movie?
Speaker 1: Why do you want to direct a movie? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's your Warren Batty face that Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I put this away. If I can get a great
Speaker 1: director to direct me, I'll do it. But once you yeah,
Speaker 1: once you get to the sea list, you I still
Speaker 1: do it yourself. That's what I say. Yeah, how picky
Speaker 1: are you about the films you do? Because you don't
Speaker 1: do a lot of films. Um, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean I turned out a lot, but I don't have
Speaker 1: a list of great films I've turned down. You turned down,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether they're great or not. Do you turn
Speaker 1: them down? Because for you, you always have the stand
Speaker 1: up thing in your pocket and the concert thing in
Speaker 1: your pocket. You're not in any hurry to go out
Speaker 1: and make a living. Most movies suck man early suck. See.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm messed up because I like to see something
Speaker 1: I haven't seen or haven't seen with a black person.
Speaker 1: Black people in film is still at its really at
Speaker 1: its infant stage. And why do you think that? I
Speaker 1: don't know? You know what, here's the thing. You know,
Speaker 1: you hand a studio person to script, and sometimes the
Speaker 1: studio people are good at a time when you hand
Speaker 1: somebody as script, they pick a person in the movie
Speaker 1: that they identify I with. So if you hand the
Speaker 1: woman a script, if the woman's got nine lines in
Speaker 1: the movie, the first person who gives you notes about
Speaker 1: is the woman. And if you hand the boss the script,
Speaker 1: he's gonna give you notes about the main character. And
Speaker 1: if you hand his assistant the script is gonna give
Speaker 1: you notes about some other everybody figures out who they
Speaker 1: are in the movie. Now, when you hand somebody a
Speaker 1: black script, they don't relate to anybody in this It's
Speaker 1: a very good point. I'm serious, even when it's you
Speaker 1: secutive who does relate to a black person's script. What
Speaker 1: does that mean to you? You You struck gold happen? They
Speaker 1: just they're making a product all of a sudden, That's
Speaker 1: what I've experienced. And when you do that, because I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no black studios or whatever, so you end up
Speaker 1: you always end up with just a person trying to
Speaker 1: make a piece of product. They might as well, they
Speaker 1: might as well be making an iPad business. But you
Speaker 1: seem to me, because you're so smart and so clever,
Speaker 1: that you have as much of a white audience as
Speaker 1: you do with black ondies, don't you think so? In
Speaker 1: spite of the fact your stand up can be pretty
Speaker 1: tough on white people. Yeah, but I always say my
Speaker 1: stand ups like Chinese food and what's Chinese food? Well,
Speaker 1: Chinese food is one of the most popular foods in
Speaker 1: all of America, and they don't put Americans on their menus.
Speaker 1: People really want Chinese food. They don't put friese grilled
Speaker 1: cheese on the menu of the most popular Chinese food
Speaker 1: of people. I'm just saying when people see people come
Speaker 1: to Christ's restaurant, think Christmas menu. They want Christmas menue.
Speaker 1: It's the guy that tries to cross over that gets
Speaker 1: less white people I find. Do you think the app
Speaker 1: to you with a black audience is how much you
Speaker 1: have fun with white commentary? Do you think your black
Speaker 1: audience expects you to do that when they come see you,
Speaker 1: they expect me to do it? Yeah? What am I
Speaker 1: trying to say? First of all, all the materials run
Speaker 1: by run through black. It's actually it's run through black.
Speaker 1: Actually first is run through Jews. I always work out
Speaker 1: the material in West Palm Beach, get out of here,
Speaker 1: I go to West Palm Bease and guess what they
Speaker 1: show up. I play a little club so I figured,
Speaker 1: I'm in front of these people, they're a little older.
Speaker 1: If I can get them to laugh at this one.
Speaker 1: I get in front of the black people, they're gonna
Speaker 1: go zirk. And then I get in front of the
Speaker 1: black people, make some adjustments here and there. And this
Speaker 1: is all before I put like the garden or something
Speaker 1: on sales. So it's these two very different groups. So
Speaker 1: work it out in front of how I'm sixty six man,
Speaker 1: which means and you started, and you started. I started
Speaker 1: probably five seven years before I got on. But I
Speaker 1: always I haven't been you know, I haven't been poor
Speaker 1: day since I met Laura Michaels, and I never been broke.
Speaker 1: A lot of his stuff sticks with me. What thing
Speaker 1: he said to me is like everybody loses their first money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now if you're talented, you'll make some. You're sure he's
Speaker 1: start right. He knows more about Let's take a moment
Speaker 1: to talk about the wisdom of Laurd Michaels. He's always
Speaker 1: there to remind you how you can lose perspective about
Speaker 1: this business, at least in my case. He's very good.
Speaker 1: But how much of things changed in your mind? And
Speaker 1: not just for you, but for you specifically. But in
Speaker 1: the business, I don't know about you. I find a
Speaker 1: business a lot smaller, less movies, less, I mean less
Speaker 1: stuff that relates to me, you know what, less stuff
Speaker 1: that relates to me. I'll say that for the young people.
Speaker 1: You know, this whole reality thing, I'm not gonna dismiss it.
Speaker 1: You know, sound like I'm some old person talking about
Speaker 1: rap Music's not gonna last, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But do you the same time? I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Do you think you'd make it today if you came
Speaker 1: in today. Yeah, me and Sana, Well that's our little
Speaker 1: tests with each other, we kinda we assessed. The stand
Speaker 1: ups were, Yeah, you still got it. I still got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I keep the weight off a little bit. You know.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to do. Dude, bon Jovi, doing it,
Speaker 1: still doing it, still doing it. Man. Just look hot.
Speaker 1: Just try to look hot to somebody. How many kids
Speaker 1: you have done? I got to what are you worried
Speaker 1: about raising your kids in this world? I care that
Speaker 1: they're good with money. I don't even care for When
Speaker 1: I say good with money, I just mean you've got
Speaker 1: two dollars and you spend one and you put a dollar.
Speaker 1: But I don't mean that they run Microsoft or they
Speaker 1: flip money and buy a house. I just mean, does
Speaker 1: that come from your childhood? Yes, it comes from my childhood.
Speaker 1: I just mean can they handle their own That's it.
Speaker 1: Because it's a tough hole to get out of, and
Speaker 1: it's a weird hole for a pretty woman to get
Speaker 1: out of, and they end up in relationships with guys
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have relationship with. There's a great line that
Speaker 1: Anthony Quinn has in Lawrence of Arabia where he says,
Speaker 1: I am a river to my people, and I'm getting
Speaker 1: a lot of that. Now. Well, here's the thing. You
Speaker 1: can only help, Like, I got some family right now,
Speaker 1: guy would ever losing his house whatever, I'm gonna help
Speaker 1: him move in to wherever he's gonna move into. I'm
Speaker 1: not buying his house because he's never gonna be able
Speaker 1: to afford the house. So yeah, I my I'm a river.
Speaker 1: But it's a little river. It's a little river because
Speaker 1: when you turn down somebody and they know you have
Speaker 1: the money, this is one thing to go. These kids
Speaker 1: are kicking or whatever and you don't have the money.
Speaker 1: They know you have the money. So it's almost like
Speaker 1: a woman. It's like, I know you have vagina and
Speaker 1: you have sex, you just don't want to have it
Speaker 1: with me. I remember I used to do a movie
Speaker 1: and they'd say to me in whatever way, what would
Speaker 1: come back was, Uh, we don't have the money for that.
Speaker 1: And what they really were saying was, we don't have
Speaker 1: the money for that for you, For you, we don't
Speaker 1: we have the exactly for Leo, we're gonna sell our houses. Remember,
Speaker 1: for you, we don't have the money. And that's what
Speaker 1: you're saying to people in your life is I don't
Speaker 1: have the money for you. I don't have the money
Speaker 1: for you. You're not going to be the reason I'm
Speaker 1: doing some bad kung fu movie. I got one last
Speaker 1: question for you. When you're home and you really want
Speaker 1: to relax, what do you like to watch? Like? What's
Speaker 1: entertainment to you? You know, it's probably just about any woody?
Speaker 1: What gets me? Like? Yeah, me too, any woody? Just
Speaker 1: about man? I mean, what is this way the average
Speaker 1: great filmmaker great has about four good movies. What he
Speaker 1: has about twelves like great, and then he probably has
Speaker 1: about ten more really good finger. So that's the dream,
Speaker 1: is to be a Woody. That is really really I
Speaker 1: love the guy. It's not too late, and of course
Speaker 1: it's not to us. Woody Allen is now in pre
Speaker 1: production for his next movie. No word yet if Chris
Speaker 1: Rock will be joining the cast. Dude, I just want
Speaker 1: to hang on a set. I just want to like
Speaker 1: what happens coming up. Legendary musician and record producer herb
Speaker 1: Aubert in the sixties the Tijuana Brass We played some
Speaker 1: college affairs in Upper California. Woody Allen opened the show
Speaker 1: for us as a stand up comic. Hey, Chris. Eventually
Speaker 1: everyone ends up working with Woody. So don't give up, Hope.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you were listening to the radio in nine six,
Speaker 1: it was a true hodgepodge of what was then considered
Speaker 1: popular music. And right up there with the Supremes and
Speaker 1: Simon and Garf Uncle and Frank Sinatra and even the Beatles,
Speaker 1: was this guy. Yes, that's ignature Tijuana Brass sound. Herb
Speaker 1: Albert had no Latin roots, but wanted to recreate the
Speaker 1: sound he'd heard at the bullfights in Tijuana when he
Speaker 1: overdubbed his trumpet on two different tape machines. He captured it,
Speaker 1: and he captured more than that. Whipped Cream and Other
Speaker 1: Delights was the number one album in the country in nineteen,
Speaker 1: remaining on the charts for three years. I started playing
Speaker 1: when I was eight, and I was earning a living
Speaker 1: on weekends playing. I love playing. What happened when you
Speaker 1: were eight? Well, what had you seen or heard that
Speaker 1: made you say I want to pick up a trumpets? Plan? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really fortunate. In my elementary school they had
Speaker 1: a band appreciation class and they had this table filled
Speaker 1: with various instruments, and I was able to just pick
Speaker 1: one up. And where were you going to school then?
Speaker 1: Melrose Elementary School in Los Angeles. And what did your
Speaker 1: dad do? Ladies coats and suits? Yeah, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: he's a clothing business. He was in the clothing business.
Speaker 1: He was a schneider. You know. My brother was a
Speaker 1: professional drummer. My sister played the piano, mother violin, and
Speaker 1: my dad played the mandolin by ear. So your parents
Speaker 1: were musical, very musical. It wasn't their professional no, not
Speaker 1: at all. What did your parents think about when you
Speaker 1: were so devoted to music? Were they discouraging you of
Speaker 1: doing that, or they encouraged Your dad wasn't so crazy
Speaker 1: about it. He thought, what do you want to play
Speaker 1: and sawdust pits the rest of your life? That was
Speaker 1: his image of it everybody at the time. He didn't
Speaker 1: know it, but Albert was only just beginning an extraordinary
Speaker 1: career as a musician, eventually earning five number one hits,
Speaker 1: eight Grammys, fourteen platinum albums, and fifteen gold However, those
Speaker 1: achievements might be seen as a prelude to his later
Speaker 1: career as a music producer. We've only just speak up.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, with his friend Jerry Moss, Albert
Speaker 1: founded what would become the world's largest independent record label,
Speaker 1: A and M Records. They signed such artists as The Carpenters,
Speaker 1: Cheryl Crow, Janet Jackson, and the Police. You don't have
Speaker 1: to night those. Albert and Moss started the whole thing
Speaker 1: with two hundred bucks and a handshake, ultimately selling A
Speaker 1: and M to PolyGram Records in nineteen ninety for half
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. Herb Albert is seventy eight now and
Speaker 1: he's still as handsome as ever. But although he's always
Speaker 1: had Matt May idol looks. He never took up acting.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. When I was in high school,
Speaker 1: I was working at a gym. This agent came up
Speaker 1: to me and said, man, you look like he should
Speaker 1: be in the movies. So I said, well, what can
Speaker 1: you do for me? He set me up with the
Speaker 1: people at Paramount. I auditioned. They said I was a
Speaker 1: little green, so I started taking lessons. I studied with
Speaker 1: Jeff Corey and also Leonard Nimoy, and I realized I
Speaker 1: didn't have it. I'm passionate about playing the horn. What's
Speaker 1: the music scene like in Los Angeles? Then? For a
Speaker 1: young guy who wants to play, well, it was quite different.
Speaker 1: It was Shah Boom, Shah boom, sixty minute Man, and
Speaker 1: those type of songs that were kind of popular at
Speaker 1: the time. I had a great experience, though. I was
Speaker 1: partners with Lou Adler at the time. How did you
Speaker 1: become partners with him? Well, he was dating my ex wife.
Speaker 1: Oh Hollywood, yeah, I forgot. We're talking about l A.
Speaker 1: Lou was writing poetry and I started writing some some
Speaker 1: you know, music to his poetry. And he's kind of
Speaker 1: a knock on every door type of guy and I'm
Speaker 1: on the shy one. So we got this job at
Speaker 1: Keen Records in Los Angeles and started working for Bumps Blackwell,
Speaker 1: who was the producer for Sam Cook and Lou and
Speaker 1: I became really close friends with Sam Cooke. We wrote
Speaker 1: Wonderful World together with him. He was really special. He
Speaker 1: had something very unusual. He's very unpretentious guy, but very elegant.
Speaker 1: What did he teach you? Sam had this number one
Speaker 1: records you sent me and his follow up was I
Speaker 1: love you for sentimental reasons. And so the owner of
Speaker 1: this company that I was working for was like an
Speaker 1: amateur piano player. So Sam was recording, goes into the
Speaker 1: control room and starts listening to a playback. I was
Speaker 1: there with this owner, and the owner walks up to
Speaker 1: Sam and says, Sam, you know, in bar twelve you
Speaker 1: can put in a whoa, whoa, and in bar thirty
Speaker 1: five you can put in another who You know. He
Speaker 1: had the sheet music, and Sam looked at the guy
Speaker 1: and says, it's Jack, just put in a man. You
Speaker 1: gotta feel it. Yeah, he says, man, you're listening to
Speaker 1: a cold piece of wax, and it either makes it
Speaker 1: or it, don't you know? He broke it right down
Speaker 1: to the nab. For me, what's interesting about your career
Speaker 1: is not just virtuosic musicianship, and you go on to
Speaker 1: become a very serious and like incredibly successful producer. Did
Speaker 1: you feel when you met those people did you have
Speaker 1: that skill as well? Oh? No, I didn't have any skills.
Speaker 1: Didn't no in producing wise, I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 1: I had an experience at a place, uh called the
Speaker 1: Annex in Los Angeles, a recording studio, and I was
Speaker 1: watching a reasonably famous producer producer record. So the musicians rehearsing.
Speaker 1: Plas Johnson was a saxophone player. He was a saxophone
Speaker 1: player that played on the Pink Panther. Yeah, they rehearsed.
Speaker 1: Plas played this incredible solo. Producer gets on the horn
Speaker 1: and said, okay, Plass, beautiful, just play the same thing again.
Speaker 1: Plus what do you mean? He said, just play that
Speaker 1: solo again. I love that. He says, did you record it?
Speaker 1: He says no, But you know what, you know what
Speaker 1: you did? Just play it again? I said, well I
Speaker 1: can do this. This is always be rolling. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I always do that. No. Great success for you with
Speaker 1: Tawana Brass and great success for you recording albums, And
Speaker 1: when does producing become something, if ever, that was as
Speaker 1: important to you. I mean A and M is not
Speaker 1: some mom and pop shop. You and Moss set up
Speaker 1: a huge company that you sold to PolyGram for an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of money. Becauld you strike me as a
Speaker 1: guy that's as a real artist. You're painting and you're sculpting,
Speaker 1: and you're playing music. When when does it start to
Speaker 1: really take over the business side and A and M? Well,
Speaker 1: you let Jerry do that well exactly. And I surround
Speaker 1: myself with really quality people that people that can do
Speaker 1: things that I can't. And I'm a right brain guy,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm on the right side of my brain.
Speaker 1: So businesses, uh, was always a little funny for me.
Speaker 1: You know. Jerry and I always discussed the big broad
Speaker 1: stroke of n M, but you know, the little incidental
Speaker 1: things that happened on daily basis. I wasn't interested in
Speaker 1: front of the house, back of the house. Yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: what was it about Jerry that you think it lasted
Speaker 1: so long? It was so successful. He's just a really
Speaker 1: good guy. He's an honest he has a lot of integrity,
Speaker 1: he doesn't lie It sounds strange, but we never had
Speaker 1: a contract. Jerry and I had a n M on
Speaker 1: a handshake and the only time we ever signed a
Speaker 1: contract was when we sold to PolyGram. Now, during that
Speaker 1: period when you're producing, I know nothing about how records
Speaker 1: are made, which must be just completely unrecognizable now from
Speaker 1: what it was back in technically completely I did an
Speaker 1: album called Whip We Ripped, we whipped, you know, re whipped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, I'm your pr man. Thank you.
Speaker 1: The guy who got the concept for this album. You know,
Speaker 1: got a bunch of young producers together to redo the
Speaker 1: Whip prim and Other Delights album. So they sent me
Speaker 1: music files on a c D or on a DVD
Speaker 1: or through the net. I would put my trumpet on,
Speaker 1: put the trumpet on a CD because it's all time coded,
Speaker 1: send the c D back to them. They would slip
Speaker 1: it right into their master recordings. And I never met
Speaker 1: these guys. I spoke to one, but ultimate Internet dating.
Speaker 1: These guys could have been in Afghanistan and it wasn't
Speaker 1: worked the same way. My first recorder was a wire recorder.
Speaker 1: I had a Whip Corps wire recorders. If you wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, inter cut somethings. You need a soldering irony.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that all this technology and all of
Speaker 1: the power that comes with that, has it made people lazy,
Speaker 1: Like people can't get in a room and they just
Speaker 1: can't play a song a little way through anymore. I don'
Speaker 1: think it makes them lazy. I think it gives them
Speaker 1: too many options. I think it takes some of the hardaway.
Speaker 1: I mean, I also wonder people say, what's the difference
Speaker 1: between you know, theater and film and more and more
Speaker 1: the technical cost of these highly technical fields, whether it's filmmaking, television,
Speaker 1: recorded music. It's expensive, and so they want everybody. It's
Speaker 1: almost to the point now where they don't care how
Speaker 1: you feel about the experience, because I'll stand there and
Speaker 1: I'll say, well, I want to do another take, man,
Speaker 1: and I want to feel it, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to do this whole speech on page two all the
Speaker 1: way to the bottom of page four. It's like a
Speaker 1: ski run. I want to ski that hill all the
Speaker 1: way to the bottom without falling. And everybody looks goes,
Speaker 1: we don't have time for that, man, we gotta get
Speaker 1: out of here. That's the way the music businesses now.
Speaker 1: No I don't think so. I mean it depends on
Speaker 1: you know what artists you're talking about. Who's someone that
Speaker 1: you recorded. You sat there and you were like, wow, man,
Speaker 1: this is really a thrill for me as an artist
Speaker 1: to watch this man or woman. Well, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of incredible artist name a couple that you dug
Speaker 1: with the most cast. Stevens was unusually special. Now I've
Speaker 1: been happy, lazy, thinking about the good things to come,
Speaker 1: and believes it could be something good had begun, gotta
Speaker 1: something magical. You guys signed him? Oh yeah, But I
Speaker 1: mean he was so passionate and so you know, the
Speaker 1: lyrics and so unusual. He had his own interpretation of
Speaker 1: all these songs that it was. He was beautiful. I
Speaker 1: remember those records, and of course you know the police,
Speaker 1: Sting just writes a great song. And when we saw them,
Speaker 1: you know, Sting was bouncing around the stage like he
Speaker 1: was on a pogo stick. Yeah, they were great to watch.
Speaker 1: And of course I had an unusual experience with the carpenters.
Speaker 1: I signed the carpenters, and um on my iPod, I
Speaker 1: have the carpenters, I have Sting, and then I have
Speaker 1: a home. On a second I have Cat Stevens on
Speaker 1: my iPhone. You got a lot of my money, man. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, in nineteen sixty this is an interesting story
Speaker 1: if you want to hear this. Joy. In nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: uh six seven, I was doing a special for NBC.
Speaker 1: Jack Hayley Jr. Was directing. He said, why don't you
Speaker 1: sing a song? I said, well, if if I can
Speaker 1: find the right song, I'll give it a go. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I go through my barrolla decks and I
Speaker 1: called Bert backrack. I said, Bert, is there a song
Speaker 1: that you have that do you think I could handle that?
Speaker 1: You have tucked away in your drawer someplace where you
Speaker 1: find yourself whistling in the morning, or you know a
Speaker 1: tune that haunts you. Well. Three days later he sent
Speaker 1: me this girl's in love with you? You see this guy?
Speaker 1: This guy love with you? Yes? Uh love? Who looks
Speaker 1: at you the way? When I watched the video this morning,
Speaker 1: what have you singing the song? When he saw my
Speaker 1: ex wife? Then that's your ex wife. Cute? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: record the song. I go to I fly to New York.
Speaker 1: So how David hell, David would change you know, the
Speaker 1: lyric to suit me? As I'm marking out of Hall's door.
Speaker 1: I said, how is there a song that do you
Speaker 1: think I might be able to handle? Or the song
Speaker 1: that you have talked away in the door In the
Speaker 1: same yarn I gave Bert. Two days later, he sent
Speaker 1: me close to You. I recorded it in the studio.
Speaker 1: I'm listening to the playback and my engineer friend Larry
Speaker 1: Levine rested so looked at me, says, man, you sound
Speaker 1: terrible singing this. I don't forget it. I lost my confidence.
Speaker 1: I put that thing in the drawer. When I signed
Speaker 1: the Carpenters in nine, they had an album that didn't sell.
Speaker 1: I mean, the first album was zero and people have
Speaker 1: described the first album to rely on Richard Carpenter. No, no,
Speaker 1: it has had Karen. But it was very soft. It
Speaker 1: was very delicate and very it wasn't really radio friendly.
Speaker 1: Uh So a year later I gave him close to You.
Speaker 1: They recorded it and it was really light. Again. I
Speaker 1: said this, we need we need a little bit more
Speaker 1: energy on this one. Because because Karen thought she was
Speaker 1: a drummer, I mean she and she played drums and
Speaker 1: she was good, but she wanted to record. And when
Speaker 1: I listened to the recording, I said, no, it's a
Speaker 1: little too too light. You know, we need some more umph.
Speaker 1: They recorded again and it still wasn't quite there, and
Speaker 1: so finally we got the Wrecking Crew. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know that name those these guys that did
Speaker 1: most of the sessions in l A that held held
Speaker 1: Blaine on drums and Tommy Tedesco on guitar and Carol Kaye.
Speaker 1: The third recording was The Charm Why from every time
Speaker 1: you want just like me? What's the difference? How do
Speaker 1: they get there? For you? As a person who has
Speaker 1: this ear, this gift, something happens for you like an
Speaker 1: alchemy where you just go that's it. They got it? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: how do they get there? How do you help them
Speaker 1: get there? Or do you you try to flag them
Speaker 1: down to the runway? You know, That's what we did
Speaker 1: with most of our artists. You know, we didn't try
Speaker 1: to sign the beat of the week. We tried to
Speaker 1: get you know, the like saying the Cat Stevens and
Speaker 1: the artists we we chose were artists that just had
Speaker 1: their own little identity which we loved, and the carpenters
Speaker 1: had that. I mean I signed them because it wasn't
Speaker 1: a type of music that I normally listened to. But
Speaker 1: they were so sincere about it, and they were so
Speaker 1: passionate about the music. Apologetic, oh beautiful, one of the
Speaker 1: most clarion voices. Well, when I heard the original tape,
Speaker 1: you know they are, And the original tape was presented
Speaker 1: to me like studied one. Here a tape, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's when he handed me a tape through the
Speaker 1: gates at A and M. And I sat down in
Speaker 1: my couch at in my office at A M. And
Speaker 1: I did what I usually do, put on the tape.
Speaker 1: The speakers were on the floor about ten feet in
Speaker 1: front of me, closed my eyes and it felt like
Speaker 1: Karen's voice was sitting right next to me on the
Speaker 1: on the couch. So I was just really intrigued to
Speaker 1: meet them. And when I did, I just realized this
Speaker 1: is the real deal. So you build this big company,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta, you gotta, You've got a great
Speaker 1: record company, you and Cherry, and then the time comes
Speaker 1: and aside from uh deal making and aside from you know,
Speaker 1: PolyGram making it well worth your while, what was it
Speaker 1: like in terms of the decision to let it go
Speaker 1: and to sell the company? Well, I felt something coming.
Speaker 1: I felt the music file sharing, and something just just
Speaker 1: felt like the time is right. It was well in
Speaker 1: most of these companies were run by these big corporations,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were throwing millions and millions and
Speaker 1: dollars around for new artists, and we felt that, you know,
Speaker 1: you you make one mistake at our size and then
Speaker 1: you your your ship is sinking. So we just thought
Speaker 1: it was it was time. And originally we were just
Speaker 1: going to sell for which we held on too for
Speaker 1: a long time. And then they said, well, we'd like
Speaker 1: to gobble the whole thing. And I thought, what can
Speaker 1: I do to throw in a little something. I'd like
Speaker 1: my catalog back, her Bopera, Tijuana Brass and her Popera
Speaker 1: single catalog plus Lonnie Hall's catalog. And I got it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what all artists crave, right, is to
Speaker 1: control their own music. I wanted it back, and they
Speaker 1: agreed to it, and we signed the contract and you
Speaker 1: made the deal and sold the company to them. Here
Speaker 1: what Herb Alpert did next after this break. There's something
Speaker 1: about being an artist, being a musician, being a band,
Speaker 1: of being a sculpture. When you're doing it, you're in
Speaker 1: the exact moment of your life. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. Real conversations with artists, writers,
Speaker 1: policymakers and performers. That's where I find out why people
Speaker 1: do what they do. Welcome to confession. I'm father al
Speaker 1: I sign your mind, Kristen. I've done a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Where would a person hear this? If a person wanted
Speaker 1: to hear this, you can listen to other episodes that
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing, dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. Back with her Balbert.
Speaker 1: Having sold A and M records for a staggering some
Speaker 1: Herbalpert can pretty much do whatever he wants. You might
Speaker 1: think this is the point of the story where this
Speaker 1: former record producer takes his cut, finds a nice corner
Speaker 1: of the world to build his castle, and relaxes with
Speaker 1: some headphones on. Not her Albert. I started painting in nine.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Sunday painter. I'm not a Sunday artist.
Speaker 1: I do it every day, you know. Traveling in the
Speaker 1: sixties with the two Wanter Brass around the world, I
Speaker 1: used to go to museums and I go to the
Speaker 1: modern arts section. For whatever reason, that just appealed to me.
Speaker 1: And you know, I see these paintings, like a black
Speaker 1: painting with a purple dot or something hanging on the wall,
Speaker 1: and I think, let me try something like that. I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing it to think some thing would come of it.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what's great. And I know, Alec you
Speaker 1: know about this. It's just there's something about being an artist,
Speaker 1: being a musician, being a paint or being a sculptor.
Speaker 1: When you're doing it, you're in the exact moment of
Speaker 1: your life, and that's rare. You know. When you're not
Speaker 1: in that mode, you're you're thinking about yesterday or tomorrow
Speaker 1: or some other house a rye. That really doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. But when you're doing it, man, it just
Speaker 1: feels so right on the moment. I feel that way.
Speaker 1: Would I'm on my boat. Well, the I don't paint,
Speaker 1: and I don't I wish I could take Well, I
Speaker 1: should try it. I mean when I started painting, I
Speaker 1: painted like a monkey, you know, I was just I
Speaker 1: squeezed some paint on a canvas and moved it around
Speaker 1: with Yeah, you have no training, no training. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was doing. But I think there's an
Speaker 1: advantage to that. I think when you're an amateur and
Speaker 1: you're just fooling around, you have infinite possibilities. You know,
Speaker 1: if you go to a professional, they'll tell you what
Speaker 1: not to do and what to do and how to
Speaker 1: do it and blah blah blah. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: about that. I just did whatever. I'm always going for
Speaker 1: a feel, you know. It's it's I do that in
Speaker 1: music and sculpting and painting. It's like, I'm not looking
Speaker 1: for something that's going to, you know, excite my eyes.
Speaker 1: I wanted to something that's excites my soul, you know,
Speaker 1: it's something that really resonates. I'm assuming there's no preference
Speaker 1: between paint and canvas and sculpture for you. You enjoy
Speaker 1: them both equally. I got a copy from your office
Speaker 1: of the Black Totem's exhibit in the work you've done,
Speaker 1: and these are obviously immense pieces in bronze, and these
Speaker 1: exclusively for people who have cliff side homes in Malibu
Speaker 1: with not really I'm not interested in really selling, you know.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm just saying they're big. They're big, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're huge. I think of my homes in New York
Speaker 1: and on Long Island. I would be interested in buying
Speaker 1: the lower four feet of this one. If we could
Speaker 1: cut this into sections. Actually, that would be kind of
Speaker 1: that would work quite well for me. I don't have
Speaker 1: eighteen feet in Manhattan, I'm but they're absolutely stunning. What
Speaker 1: is music for you? Now, I know that's the ultimate
Speaker 1: cliche question, but how do you how do you view
Speaker 1: the music world now beyond zeros and ones in the
Speaker 1: digital and everything. You must be sitting home and sometimes
Speaker 1: you sit there and go, wow, that sounds great. I
Speaker 1: really did that. Well, you know, I have really varied taste.
Speaker 1: So I love classical music. I love you know, listening
Speaker 1: to your favorite composer. Well, yeah, I love Revel. I
Speaker 1: mean actually Ravel taught me the lesson. Actually, I was
Speaker 1: going to sc for a few moments. I was in
Speaker 1: the orchestra there and they were playing um Pictures at
Speaker 1: an exhibition, you know. I was in the Yorkshire playing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Massoursky wrote it, Bravel arranged arranged it. Good for you,
Speaker 1: And they were playing the last month of Great Gate
Speaker 1: of Kiev, you know, And I was like so intrigued
Speaker 1: with the sound of the orchestra I was leaning forward
Speaker 1: listening to everybody and sounded like wow, it's like natural stereo,
Speaker 1: and I forgot to come in. I've had to come
Speaker 1: in my parry that moment, I thought, Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't for me. What I really want to do
Speaker 1: is just close my eyes and play. I love Miles Davis,
Speaker 1: I love Louis Armstrong. I love those guys that just,
Speaker 1: you know, create. I want to try doing that. And
Speaker 1: so I started, you know, working on jazz, which is
Speaker 1: a very specific language. I mean, just because you want
Speaker 1: to play jazz doesn't mean you can play jazz. Had
Speaker 1: you've been asked to score a lot of film? Did
Speaker 1: you pass up? And you must have been asked to score?
Speaker 1: I did. I did the title song of y Out
Speaker 1: with Bert Backreck, but that was about it. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's my thing. I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: I didn't feel it. I didn't feel it. You would
Speaker 1: have been great that. Maybe my wife thinks I should
Speaker 1: still pursue that, but you know, I had an experienced
Speaker 1: this is like a little different aside. But I was
Speaker 1: in the studio recording the Going Places album and the
Speaker 1: brass was already going crazy. I mean we were selling.
Speaker 1: You know, it was going well. Yeah, it was going well.
Speaker 1: And I get a call from my partner, I said,
Speaker 1: and the album wasn't finished yet. I get a call
Speaker 1: from Chair and he says, we just have advanced orders
Speaker 1: of a million, four hundred thousand, and I got depressed.
Speaker 1: I felt like tea. You know, if people love the
Speaker 1: album by it, if you don't, you know this. I
Speaker 1: just it was a strange feeling. I I know it
Speaker 1: sounds a little I just didn't want to be prejudged.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wanted people to listen to the album
Speaker 1: here and if they liked it by it, purity is
Speaker 1: what you seem to be after I don't, but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was looking for that real ride. Until we find
Speaker 1: a better word, we'll say purity. Okay, you know I
Speaker 1: was looking for that ride. You like it? By it?
Speaker 1: Where did you meet your second wife? Okay, you're obviously
Speaker 1: madly in love with Yeah, so you don't know that story, right,
Speaker 1: let's hear it. This is good, So you know, musicians
Speaker 1: in love is always a good ninety six I auditioned
Speaker 1: Brazil sixty six. Brazil sixty six. Lonnie was the lead singer,
Speaker 1: Jerry and I signed them to a long term contract.
Speaker 1: This was when the Brass was really cooking, and we
Speaker 1: hired them to open the show for us, so they
Speaker 1: were playing for eighteen thousand people at a time. Lonnie
Speaker 1: and I became friends. We were just really good friends.
Speaker 1: She's very unusual. She's from Chicago. She can sing in
Speaker 1: Portuguese like a like a native, beautiful voice. And she
Speaker 1: loves music. Oh she have you have a similar kind
Speaker 1: of I don't want to say passion for music, but
Speaker 1: you have a similar ethic for music, is she? Oh? Completely?
Speaker 1: She loves jazz, she loves you know, all kinds of music.
Speaker 1: But we are really the opposite. You know, She's well,
Speaker 1: I'm really quiet. I'm really kind of like a low
Speaker 1: key type of guy. She's more, you know, has more
Speaker 1: energy and more zip zap, Yeah, more outgoing. Who makes
Speaker 1: the dinner reser faction is out there in California for you?
Speaker 1: Who's who's picking the restaurants? Your wife? No, she does
Speaker 1: not do that, do you really? Yeah? I just want
Speaker 1: to look at my wife and I want to go
Speaker 1: whatever you say, baby, what do you what do you
Speaker 1: want to have? You want Indian food? You got it? Baby?
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to make those decisions. I
Speaker 1: got of this stuff. I gotta take about it now.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of mutual with us. I mean, she's um.
Speaker 1: You know. I met her at a time and we
Speaker 1: became friendly and she was able to identify my neurosis,
Speaker 1: which is what well, you know, at the time, I
Speaker 1: was going through a divorce and I couldn't play the horn.
Speaker 1: How did that manifest itself? Well, I took a trip
Speaker 1: to Europe. We had a little time off. When I
Speaker 1: got back, we had some obligations to go back to
Speaker 1: Europe and do some concerts. And I had like two
Speaker 1: or three weeks to get back in shape, and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't do it. My tongue wouldn't go in the
Speaker 1: right place. I was all bottled up. I was stiff,
Speaker 1: my neck was tight. I couldn't make a sound out
Speaker 1: of the horn. It was really painful, you know. I
Speaker 1: was really upset about the divorce and I had, you know,
Speaker 1: a bottle of Melanta at my side. There you were unhappy.
Speaker 1: There was a hole in the stomach. You know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't happening and I just couldn't execute. I couldn't play
Speaker 1: that did that last? I lasted for years. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: it did it? I mean it finally wanted down well
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seventy. So right after you have this huge
Speaker 1: crest of the greatest score as a as a performer
Speaker 1: of your life, you kind of crashing and you know,
Speaker 1: did you literally didn't play well? I played, but it
Speaker 1: was painful. I had an experience in Germany. I did
Speaker 1: you know I had this obligation to play these concerts
Speaker 1: in Europe. I was in Germany in Frankfort, and I
Speaker 1: was on the stage, painfully playing, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I had this out of body experience. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I was in the third row looking at me.
Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking to myself, well, gee, this
Speaker 1: guy is usually pretty comfortable on the stage. But when
Speaker 1: he's you know, off the stage, and he's in a
Speaker 1: in a room of you know, at a part already whatever,
Speaker 1: he's totally out of control, which I felt I was
Speaker 1: at the time. I said, when I get back to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles after this series of concerts, I'm gonna either
Speaker 1: throw this horn away, sell a and m do whatever.
Speaker 1: I just want to find out who I am and
Speaker 1: why I'm here. I mean, everybody's looking for the same thing.
Speaker 1: I think a life of purpose and meaning without that,
Speaker 1: what else is there? Luckily I met a teacher in
Speaker 1: New York here. His name was Carmine Caruso. He played violin,
Speaker 1: he played saxophone. He didn't play trumpet, but he taught
Speaker 1: a lot of trumpet players. He likened the musician to
Speaker 1: an athlete, and you had to sink your body muscles
Speaker 1: to rhythm. And over a period of time, I just
Speaker 1: kind of unwildness, terrible problem I had. How long did
Speaker 1: it take? It took before I was really comfortable? Probably
Speaker 1: eight years? Yeah, did you that when you started painting? Well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting question. You know you said you started painting
Speaker 1: it and you and you started to lose your mojo
Speaker 1: horn wise and sixty nine? Did you did painting and
Speaker 1: sculpting come into your life as you found you didn't
Speaker 1: want to play the horn, Well, sculpting came in later.
Speaker 1: Painting was a big relief you didn't have somewhere to
Speaker 1: put that energy exactly. Um, it was a rough period
Speaker 1: for me. I've been there, man, I've been not and
Speaker 1: mine as a result of a divorce too, you know,
Speaker 1: and not like I thought I needed to be to
Speaker 1: stay in that marriage, but it was the way that
Speaker 1: those things ends. Some time. You just sit there and go,
Speaker 1: you know, like, this is not planned. It not what
Speaker 1: I bargained for. Like we can let's hit rewind here
Speaker 1: and go back and try to figure this out man
Speaker 1: and hit delete. Yeah, let's we gotta, we gotta, we
Speaker 1: gotta do this again. When did you marry your current wife?
Speaker 1: What year? Seventy four? So during this time as years
Speaker 1: have you not feeling great and then you meet her
Speaker 1: and you meet this woman who's obviously the love of
Speaker 1: your life. Right, but at the same time I was
Speaker 1: still playing. I was I was forcing yourself, well, forcing myself.
Speaker 1: And seventy four we had a command performance for the
Speaker 1: Queen of England. We played, we played there and the bands, yeah,
Speaker 1: the band sounded great. And then meet Prince Charles who said, oh,
Speaker 1: heav a you records in the in the den. You know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't picture the den. Met the Queen, very lovely,
Speaker 1: nice smile. Uh. This was in nineteen seventy four. I
Speaker 1: was feeling pretty puffed up. I felt good about that.
Speaker 1: So go out the back door and there were hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of people that are just waiting for the
Speaker 1: various artists that were on this show. And this as
Speaker 1: I'm walking through the crowd that I hear these two
Speaker 1: ladies Tarry, I don't know that Chap, who was that Chap?
Speaker 1: And for friends? And I think that Sergio Mendez after
Speaker 1: feeling so good, I gotta get over here more often, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta get these people straightened up. They don't know
Speaker 1: me from Sergio. Well, well, I think that's a great
Speaker 1: thing that you are someone who you weren't feeling all
Speaker 1: that great at that time in your life, but you
Speaker 1: fooled the King and the Queen of England. Man with
Speaker 1: the band sounded no what I'm saying that you got
Speaker 1: you got it done. Yeah, But you know there's something
Speaker 1: about you know, when you're you good at something, you
Speaker 1: can you can fake it and and nobody really knows
Speaker 1: no Now for you, who's a horn player that you
Speaker 1: take your head up? Whose one just giving one? You
Speaker 1: just just really dug Listening to Miles Davis, I love Miles.
Speaker 1: You know Miles was the real thing. Miles Why well,
Speaker 1: because he was completely authentic. He was just playing the
Speaker 1: music that was coming out of him, no compromise. He
Speaker 1: understood space. You know that the the silence that happens
Speaker 1: between the notes. You know, he understood that, and I
Speaker 1: think he was sir, look key, you know, you know
Speaker 1: jazz musician at the twentieth century. I've met some really
Speaker 1: incredible jazz musicians in my day, and each one has
Speaker 1: their own little take on how to do it. Stan
Speaker 1: Guests was like a brother to me. I produced two
Speaker 1: albums with Stan and he played this one song that
Speaker 1: was just men. Goose bumps were flying up my back.
Speaker 1: I said, man, what are you thinking when you're playing?
Speaker 1: And he says, oh, I think it like I'm in
Speaker 1: front of the whaling wall in Jerusalem and I'm dobvining. Oh.
Speaker 1: He was great, man. I love the sky. He wore
Speaker 1: his stuff right close to this if I had an
Speaker 1: experience with gifts where you know, I did these ms
Speaker 1: and he said, can I do anything for you? I said, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: give me. How about giving me some bebop lessons? He
Speaker 1: says sure. He says, how how honest you want me
Speaker 1: to be? I said, just because I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: get up to my own water level. I didn't play
Speaker 1: with Charlie Parker like he did. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: see how far I can take this thing. This is
Speaker 1: fine in my studio at home. And he's sitting down.
Speaker 1: I said, do you think, for one, I should work
Speaker 1: on the two five one chords in every key, which
Speaker 1: is page one if they teach at Berkeley. I mean
Speaker 1: that's how they you know, they start this thing. To
Speaker 1: five one is an all pop songs. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those things. I said, do you think I should
Speaker 1: work on this in every key chords? You know what
Speaker 1: he said? What's that? He didn't think like that though.
Speaker 1: I mean, those old timers didn't play off of that
Speaker 1: that they're teaching at school. You know, who do you
Speaker 1: think made Sinatra? Sinatra? Oh Man very musical? He really
Speaker 1: was smart. He was grateful to the songwriters and the musicians,
Speaker 1: and he knew they made him. He brought what he brought.
Speaker 1: But he was a kind of man. The guy was.
Speaker 1: He was magic and plus the sound in his voice
Speaker 1: was beautiful, his timing. But I learned a great lesson.
Speaker 1: You know, when things started happening for me. My ex
Speaker 1: wife was friends with Nancy Sinatra, and I met Frank
Speaker 1: and I stayed at his house and then we flew
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas and the way after the show. Frank
Speaker 1: comes up to me and says, you want to play
Speaker 1: you some bakra. I said, I don't know how to play,
Speaker 1: but I'll go with you. He says, down the Barbara.
Speaker 1: I'm standing behind him, And in twenty minutes he must
Speaker 1: have went around twenty seven thirty thousand dollars and Nancy
Speaker 1: was standing right next to me. So every time he
Speaker 1: won a party, throw off like ten bills to Nancy.
Speaker 1: So she had this pile looked like a bowling ball
Speaker 1: in her hands of a hundred dollar bills. And so
Speaker 1: Frank gets up abruptly and he just leaves, you know,
Speaker 1: and Nancy looks at me, says, I hear her, wee
Speaker 1: go take some of this and go gamble. And I
Speaker 1: looked at this pilot said, what do you mean takes?
Speaker 1: You want me to take a half a pound you want?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? And I realized at that point, man,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to treat money like that. I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, honor in a whole different ways. It can
Speaker 1: be that frivolous. Herb Alpert established the Herbalbert Foundation in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and he's been getting away money ever since.
Speaker 1: In two thousand seven, he gave thirty million dollars to
Speaker 1: form the Herb Alpert's School of Music at U C
Speaker 1: l A. I love music. I think music needs to survive.
Speaker 1: I think jazz needs to survive. It's a great American legacy.
Speaker 1: It's such an important ingredient for a kid's health, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think through that they learned discipline and which
Speaker 1: can help him in the academics. So it's just a natural.
Speaker 1: It should be a core or subject. Do you teach
Speaker 1: to you over there and us teach and stuff from No?
Speaker 1: I don't, but I you know, I'm not. That's really
Speaker 1: not my strongest I think they would be very happy
Speaker 1: for you to show up, though, wouldn't. Isn't that your
Speaker 1: great gift that you just have to play? So I
Speaker 1: think my great gift is that I have my own
Speaker 1: personality on the horn. A lot of musicians are trying
Speaker 1: to track Miles Davis or try to check Charlie Parker,
Speaker 1: try to play like you know. I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: play like myself, and that's I think what everybody should
Speaker 1: be going for their only unique voice. It's just it's
Speaker 1: been a nice ride. I feel thankful. Herb Alpert continues
Speaker 1: to paint, create sculptures, and of course make music. This
Speaker 1: is Outpert and his wife singer Lonnie Hall. Just another
Speaker 1: afternoon on the sidewalks of London. All the grey and
Speaker 1: rainy days run together in the street. It's of stop. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: I'm not alone. I feel you. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing is produced by Emily Botein named Cathy Russo,
Speaker 1: with support from Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops and
Speaker 1: Monica Hopkins. Thanks to Trey Kay and Luokowski. Rob yourself around,
Speaker 1: my heart, let me feed you. This is Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Mm hmm. But
Speaker 1: I didn't been a minute. The bon