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 n it
Speaker 1: was a true hodgepodge of what was then considered popular music.
Speaker 1: And right up there with the Supremes and Simon and
Speaker 1: Garf Uncle and Frank Sinatra and even the Beatles, was
Speaker 1: this guy, Yes, that signature Tiajuana Brass sound. Herb Albert
Speaker 1: had no Latin roots, but wanted to recreate the sound
Speaker 1: he'd heard at the bullfights in Tijuana. When he decided
Speaker 1: to overdub his trumpet on two different tape machines, he
Speaker 1: captured it, and he captured more than that. Whipped Cream
Speaker 1: and Other Delights was the number one album in the
Speaker 1: country in nineteen sixty remaining on the charts for three years.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, the Tijuana Brass sold over thirteen
Speaker 1: million records, out selling the Beatles. I started playing when
Speaker 1: I was eight, and I was earning a living on
Speaker 1: weekends playing. I love playing. What happened when you were eight? Well,
Speaker 1: what had you seen or heard that made you say
Speaker 1: I want to pick up a trumpet? Some fine? 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? Melrose
Speaker 1: Elementary School in Los Angeles. What did your dad do?
Speaker 1: Ladies coats and suits? Yeah, that was he was in
Speaker 1: the clothing business. He was a Schneider. You know. My
Speaker 1: brother was a professional drummer. My sister played the piano,
Speaker 1: mother violin, and my dad played the mandolin by ear.
Speaker 1: So your parents were musical, very musical, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: their professional No, not at all. What did your parents
Speaker 1: think about when you were so devoted to music? Were
Speaker 1: they discouraging you? We doing there? Then? Dad wasn't so
Speaker 1: crazy 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. The Brass as they were called,
Speaker 1: toured often as a kind of review in the sixties.
Speaker 1: We played some college affairs in uh, Upper California. What
Speaker 1: do you Allen opened the show for us as a
Speaker 1: stand up comic. Yeah, it wasn't a concert style music.
Speaker 1: You had comics open for you in different kinds of Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are you open for us? George Carlin opened for us,
Speaker 1: Jim Carey opened for us. I go back aways, Man,
Speaker 1: I'm older than dirt, you know. At the time he
Speaker 1: didn't know it, but Albert was on just beginning an
Speaker 1: extraordinary 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 kind of act one
Speaker 1: to his later, unimaginably successful career as a music producer.
Speaker 1: We've only just speak use. In nineteen sixty two, with
Speaker 1: his friend Jerry Moss, Albert founded what would become the
Speaker 1: world's largest independent record label, A and M Records. They
Speaker 1: signed such artists as The Carpenters, Cheryl Crow, Janet Jackson,
Speaker 1: and the Police Rocks You Don't Have to the Red
Speaker 1: Night those days to the nine. Albert and Moss started
Speaker 1: the whole thing with two hundred bucks and a handshake,
Speaker 1: ultimately selling A and M to PolyGram Records for half
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. Today, Albert's a prolific sculptor and painter
Speaker 1: and continues to make music, touring occasionally. He's seventy six
Speaker 1: and still as handsome as ever. Herb Albert has always
Speaker 1: had matinee idle looks, but 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 says, man, you look like you should be
Speaker 1: in the movies. So I said, well, what can you
Speaker 1: do for me? He set me up with the people
Speaker 1: at Paramount. I auditioned. They said I was a little green,
Speaker 1: so I started taking lessons. I studied with Jeff Corey
Speaker 1: and also Leonard Nimoy, and I realized I didn't have it.
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about playing the horn. What's the music scene
Speaker 1: like in Los Angeles? Then? For a young guy who
Speaker 1: wants to play, well, it was quite different. It was
Speaker 1: shah Boom, shah boom, sixty minute man in those type
Speaker 1: of songs that were kind of popular at the time.
Speaker 1: I had a great experience, though. I was partners with
Speaker 1: Lou Adler at the time. How did you become partners
Speaker 1: with him? Well, he was dating my ex wife. Oh Hollywood, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot. We're talking about l a. Lou was writing
Speaker 1: poetry and I started writing some some you know, music
Speaker 1: to his poetry. And he's kind of a knock on
Speaker 1: every door type of guy, and I'm on the shy one.
Speaker 1: So we got this job at Keen Records in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and started working for Bumps Blackwell, who was the
Speaker 1: producer for Sam Cook and Lou and I became really
Speaker 1: close friends with Sam Cooke. We wrote Wonderful World together
Speaker 1: with him. He was really special. He had something very unusual.
Speaker 1: He's very unpretentious guy, but very elegant. What did he
Speaker 1: teach you? Sam had this number one records you sent
Speaker 1: me and his follow up was I love you for
Speaker 1: sentimental reasons. And so the owner of this company that
Speaker 1: I was working for was like an amateur piano player.
Speaker 1: So Sam was recording, goes into the control room and
Speaker 1: starts listening to a playback. I was there with this owner,
Speaker 1: and the owner walks up to Sam and says, Sam,
Speaker 1: you know in bar twelve you can put in a
Speaker 1: whoa whoa, and in bar thirty five you can put
Speaker 1: it in another wow. You know. He had the sheet music,
Speaker 1: and Sam looked at the guy and says, it's jack, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just put in a whoa whoa whenever you want. Man,
Speaker 1: you gotta feel it, 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 nub. For me, what's interesting about your career
Speaker 1: is not just virtuosic musicianship, but 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
Speaker 1: skills wise. No, in producing wise. I didn't even think
Speaker 1: about it. I had an experience at a place, uh
Speaker 1: called the Annex in Los Angeles, a recording studio, and
Speaker 1: I was watching a reasonably famous producer producer record. So
Speaker 1: the musicians rehearsing. Plas Johnson was a saxophone player. He
Speaker 1: was a saxophone player that played on the Pink Panther. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they rehearse Plas played this incredible solo. Producer gets on
Speaker 1: the horn and said, okay, Plass, beautiful, just play the
Speaker 1: same thing again. Plas, what do you mean? He said,
Speaker 1: just play that solo again? I love that. He says,
Speaker 1: did you record it? He says, no, but you know what,
Speaker 1: you know what you did? Just play it again? I said,
Speaker 1: well I can do this. This is always be rolling.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I always do that. Oh yeah, No, great
Speaker 1: success for you with t Juana Brass and great success
Speaker 1: for you recording albums. And when does producing become something,
Speaker 1: if ever, that was as important to you? I mean
Speaker 1: A and M is not some mom and pop shop.
Speaker 1: You and Moss set up a huge company that you
Speaker 1: sold to PolyGram for an enormous amount of money. Could
Speaker 1: you strike me as a guy that's there is a
Speaker 1: real artist. You're painting and your sculpting, and you're playing music.
Speaker 1: When does it start to really take over the business side?
Speaker 1: And A and M? Well, you know, I surround you
Speaker 1: let Jerry do that well exactly, and I surround myself
Speaker 1: with really quality people that people that can do things
Speaker 1: that I can't. And I'm a right brain guy, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm percent on the right side of my brain. So
Speaker 1: business is 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 and it was so successful? He's just a
Speaker 1: really good guy. He's an honest he has a lot
Speaker 1: of integrity. He doesn't lie. It sounds strange, but we
Speaker 1: never had a contract. Jerry and I had a and
Speaker 1: M on a handshake and the only time we ever
Speaker 1: signed a contract was when we sold to PolyGram. Now,
Speaker 1: during that period when you're producing, I know nothing about
Speaker 1: how records are made, which must be just completely unrecognizable
Speaker 1: now from what it was back in technically completely I
Speaker 1: did an album called Whip. We ripped, we whipped, you know,
Speaker 1: re whipped. Yeah, thank you very much. I'm your pr
Speaker 1: man than the guy who got the concept for this album.
Speaker 1: You know, got a bunch of young producers together to
Speaker 1: redo the Whip prim and Other Delights album. So they
Speaker 1: sent me music files on a c D or on
Speaker 1: a DVD or through the net. I would put my
Speaker 1: trumpet on, put the trumpet on a CD because it's
Speaker 1: all time coded, send the CD back to them. They
Speaker 1: would slip it right into their master recordings. And I
Speaker 1: never met these guys. I spoke to one, but ultimate
Speaker 1: Internet dating. These guys could have been in Afghanistan. It
Speaker 1: will work the same way. What was it like before
Speaker 1: when you recorded Whip Creaming of the Delights, which is
Speaker 1: obviously one of the most famous records you ever made.
Speaker 1: Where did you record that album? Well, it was recorded
Speaker 1: at gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. But you know,
Speaker 1: prior to that, my first recorder recorder was a wire recorder.
Speaker 1: I had a webcord wire recorders. If you wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, inter cut some things, you need a soldering iron. Yeah.
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 all the way through anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't think it makes them lazy. I think it gives
Speaker 1: them too many options. You know, now with the digital
Speaker 1: you know set up, you have empty album tracks and
Speaker 1: you can just keep going and keep going, and then
Speaker 1: you can tune them up and you can shift it around,
Speaker 1: take something that was happening at the end of the
Speaker 1: song and move it up to the front. Too many options.
Speaker 1: I think it takes some of the hardaway. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I also wonder people say, what's the difference between
Speaker 1: you know, theater and film and more and more the
Speaker 1: 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. Yeah, that's the way the music businesses now. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean it depends on you
Speaker 1: know what artists you're talking about. Who's someone that you
Speaker 1: recorded that 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 men. We had a must incredible artists with
Speaker 1: the name A couple that you dug cast Stevens was wow,
Speaker 1: unusually special. Now I've been happy lately thinking about the
Speaker 1: good things to come and believe it could be something
Speaker 1: good at it begun, get us something magical. You guys
Speaker 1: signed him. Oh yeah, but I mean he was so
Speaker 1: passionate and so you know, the lyrics and so unusual.
Speaker 1: He had his own interpretation of all these songs that
Speaker 1: it was. He was beautiful. I remember those records, and
Speaker 1: of course, you know the police. Sting just writes a
Speaker 1: great song. And when we saw them, you know, Sting
Speaker 1: was bouncing around the stage like he was on a
Speaker 1: pogo stick. They were great to watch. And of course
Speaker 1: I had an unusual experience with the carpenters. I signed
Speaker 1: the carpenters, and on my iPod I have the Carpenters,
Speaker 1: I have Sting, and then I have Home. On a second,
Speaker 1: I have Cat Stevens on my iPhone. Oh yeah, you
Speaker 1: got a lot of my money. Man. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty this is an interesting story if you
Speaker 1: want to hear this joke. In nineteen sixty uh six seven,
Speaker 1: were I was doing a special for NBC. Jack Hayley Jr.
Speaker 1: Was directing. He said, why don't you sing a song?
Speaker 1: I said, well, if if I can find the right song,
Speaker 1: I'll give it a go. So, you know, I go
Speaker 1: through my brolla decks and I called Bert back rack.
Speaker 1: I said, Bert is there a song that you have
Speaker 1: that do you think I could handle? That you have
Speaker 1: tucked away in your drawer someplace where you find yourself
Speaker 1: whistling in the morning, or you know a tune that
Speaker 1: haunts you well. Three days later he sent me this
Speaker 1: Girl's in love with You? You see this guy? This
Speaker 1: guy love with you? Yes? Uh? Who looks at you
Speaker 1: the way? When I watched the video this morning of
Speaker 1: what have you singing the song? When he saw my
Speaker 1: ex wife, then that's your wife. Cute? I record the song,
Speaker 1: I go, I fly to New York. So how David
Speaker 1: Hell David would change you know, the lyrics to suit me.
Speaker 1: As I'm marking out of Hell's door, I said, how
Speaker 1: is there a song that do you think I might
Speaker 1: be able to handle? Or song that you have talked
Speaker 1: away in the door in the same yard I gave Bert.
Speaker 1: Two days later he sent me close to You, which
Speaker 1: was going to be the follow up to This Guy's
Speaker 1: in Love with 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 look to 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 nineteen seventy, they had an album that
Speaker 1: didn't sell. I mean, the first album was zero and
Speaker 1: people have 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 I
Speaker 1: when I listened to the recording, I said, no, it's
Speaker 1: a little too too light. You know, we need some more.
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. They held Held
Speaker 1: Blame 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, like I'm saying that Cat Stevens and
Speaker 1: the artists we chose, we're artists that just had their
Speaker 1: own little identity which we loved, and the carpenters had that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I signed them because it wasn't the type
Speaker 1: of music that I normally listened to. But they were
Speaker 1: so sincere about it, and we were so passionate about
Speaker 1: the music. Apologetic, Oh beautiful, one of the most clarion voices. Well,
Speaker 1: when I heard the original tape, you know they are.
Speaker 1: And the original tape was presented to me like studied
Speaker 1: one era tape, you know, And when he handed me
Speaker 1: a tape through the gates at A and M and
Speaker 1: I sat down in my couch at in my office
Speaker 1: at a m and I did what I usually do,
Speaker 1: put on the tape. The speakers were on the floor
Speaker 1: about ten feet in front of me. Closed my eyes
Speaker 1: and it felt like Karen's voice was sitting right next
Speaker 1: to me on the on the couch. So I was
Speaker 1: just really intrigued to meet them. And when I did,
Speaker 1: I just realized, this is the real deal. So you
Speaker 1: build this big company, you know, you gotta, you gotta,
Speaker 1: You've got a great record company, you and Jerry, and
Speaker 1: then the time comes and aside from deal making and
Speaker 1: aside from you know, PolyGram making it well worth your while,
Speaker 1: what was it like in terms of the decision to
Speaker 1: let it go and to sell the company. Well, I
Speaker 1: felt something coming. I felt the music file sharing, and
Speaker 1: something just just felt like the time is right. It
Speaker 1: was well in most of these companies were run by
Speaker 1: these big corporations, and you know, they were throwing millions
Speaker 1: and millions and dollars around for new artists, and we
Speaker 1: felt that, you know, you make one mistake at our
Speaker 1: size and then you your your ship is sinking. So
Speaker 1: we just thought it was it was time. And originally
Speaker 1: we were just going to sell, which we held on
Speaker 1: too for a long time, and then they said, look,
Speaker 1: we'd like to gobble the whole thing. And I thought,
Speaker 1: what can I do to throw in a little something.
Speaker 1: I'd like my catalog back, her Bopera, Tijuana Brass and
Speaker 1: her boper single catalog plus Lonnie Hall's catalog. And I
Speaker 1: got it. I mean, that's what all artists crave, right,
Speaker 1: is to control their own music. I wanted it back,
Speaker 1: and they agreed to it. We signed the contract and
Speaker 1: you may the deal and sold the company. Yea, to them,
Speaker 1: was painting and sculpting becoming more important in your life
Speaker 1: right at the same time you decided to get rid
Speaker 1: of A and m to polygraph. Not really those two
Speaker 1: things intersecting. No, no, no, I've been painting for forty
Speaker 1: two years. I started painting in nineteen seventy. I'm not
Speaker 1: a Sunday painter. I'm not a Sunday artist. I do
Speaker 1: it every day, you know, traveling in the sixties with
Speaker 1: the two Wanter Brass around the world, I used to
Speaker 1: go to museums and I go to the modern arts section.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, that just appealed to me. And you know,
Speaker 1: I see these paintings like a black painting with a
Speaker 1: purple dot or something hanging on the wall, and I think,
Speaker 1: let me try something like that. I wasn't doing it
Speaker 1: to think something would come of it. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what's great. And I know, Alec you know about this.
Speaker 1: It's just there's something about being an artist, being a musician,
Speaker 1: being a painter, being a sculpture. When you're doing it,
Speaker 1: you're in the exact moment of your life, and that's rare.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're not in that mode, you're you're
Speaker 1: thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or some other house a
Speaker 1: rye that really doesn't make any sense. But when you're
Speaker 1: doing it, man, it just feels so right on the moment.
Speaker 1: I feel that we would have'm on my boat. Well
Speaker 1: I don't paint, and I don't I wish I could paint.
Speaker 1: Well I should try it. I mean when I started painting,
Speaker 1: I painted like a monkey, you know. I would just
Speaker 1: I squeezed some paint on a canvas and moved it
Speaker 1: around with Yeah, you had no training, no training. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing. But I think there's
Speaker 1: an advantage to that. I think when you're an amateur
Speaker 1: and 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. Now,
Speaker 1: these are obviously immense pieces there in bronze, and these
Speaker 1: exclusively for people who have cliff side homes in Malibu
Speaker 1: with Really, I'm not interested in really selling, you know.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm to say 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 way. 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, but they're absolutely stunning. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and I'm talking with Herb Albert. More in
Speaker 1: a minute. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing today. Talking with Herb Albert. What is
Speaker 1: music for you? Now? I know that's the 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 a 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: Missoursky wrote it, Ravel arranged arranged it good for you,
Speaker 1: and they were playing the last Monte rate Gate of Kiev,
Speaker 1: you know, And I was like, so intrigued with the
Speaker 1: sound of the orchestra. I was leaning forward listening to
Speaker 1: everybody and sounded like, wow, it's like natural stereo, and
Speaker 1: I forgot to come in. I've had to come in
Speaker 1: on my part. Right at that moment, I thought, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't for me. What I really want
Speaker 1: to do is just close my eyes and play. I
Speaker 1: love Miles Davis, I love Louis Armstrong. I love those
Speaker 1: guys that just, you know, create I want to try
Speaker 1: doing that. And so I started, you know, working on jazz,
Speaker 1: which is a very specific language. I mean, just because
Speaker 1: you want to play jazz doesn't mean you can play jazz.
Speaker 1: Had you been asked to score a lot of film,
Speaker 1: did you pass up? And you must have been asked
Speaker 1: to score? Well, I did. I did the title song
Speaker 1: of or I out with Bert backrack, but that was
Speaker 1: about it. Now, I don't think that's my thing. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I didn feel it. I didn't feel it.
Speaker 1: Maybe my wife thinks I should still, you know, pursue that.
Speaker 1: But you know, I had an experience this is like
Speaker 1: a little different aside by it. I was in the
Speaker 1: studio recording the Going Places album and the brass was
Speaker 1: already going crazy. I mean, we were selling you know,
Speaker 1: it was going well. Yeah, it was going well. And
Speaker 1: I get a call from my partner. I said we
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 what
Speaker 1: a yeah. I don't don't mean to be but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was looking for that real ride. Until we find
Speaker 1: a better word, will say purity. Okay, you know I
Speaker 1: was looking for that ride. Do you like it? By it?
Speaker 1: I love him? Where did you meet your second wife? Okay,
Speaker 1: you're obviously madly in love? Yeah so you don't know
Speaker 1: that story, right, let's hear it. This is good. So
Speaker 1: you know musicians as the nineteen sixty 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 out 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 zapp. Yeah, more outgoing. Who makes
Speaker 1: the dinner reservations out there in California for you? Who's
Speaker 1: who's picking the restaurants? Your wife? No, she does not
Speaker 1: do that? Or 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 want to you
Speaker 1: want Indian food? You got it there. I don't want
Speaker 1: to have to make those decisions. I got this stuff
Speaker 1: I gotta think about. You know, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: mutual with us. I mean, she's um. You know. I
Speaker 1: met her at a time and we became friendly and
Speaker 1: she was able to identify my neurosis, which is what well,
Speaker 1: you know, at the time, I was going through a
Speaker 1: divorce and I couldn't play the horn. How did that
Speaker 1: manifest itself? Well, I took a trip to Europe. We
Speaker 1: had a little time off. When I got back, we
Speaker 1: had some obligations to go back to Europe and do
Speaker 1: some concerts, and I had like two or three weeks
Speaker 1: to get back in shape. And I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: HUNG wouldn't go in the right place. I was all
Speaker 1: bottled up. I was stiff, my neck was tight. I
Speaker 1: couldn't make a sound out of the horn. It was
Speaker 1: really painful, you know. I was really upset about the
Speaker 1: divorce and I had, you know, a bottle of Melanta
Speaker 1: at my side there because you were unhappy. There was
Speaker 1: a hole in the stomach. You know. I just wasn't
Speaker 1: happening and I just couldn't execute. I couldn't play the
Speaker 1: home I lasted for years. Really, yeah, it did it?
Speaker 1: I mean it finally wanted would play down well nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seventy. So right after you have this huge crest
Speaker 1: of the greatest score as a as a performer of
Speaker 1: your life, you kind of crashing and you know, did
Speaker 1: you literally didn't play well? I played, but it was painful.
Speaker 1: I had an experience in Germany. I did you know
Speaker 1: I had this obligation to play these concerts in Europe.
Speaker 1: I was in Germany in Frankfort, and I was on
Speaker 1: the stage, painfully playing, and all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: had this out of body experience. Of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: was in the third row looking at me. You know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself, well, gee, this guy is
Speaker 1: usually pretty comfortable on the stage, but when he's you know,
Speaker 1: off the stage, and he's in a in a room
Speaker 1: of you know, at a party or whatever, he's totally
Speaker 1: out of control, which I felt I was at the time.
Speaker 1: I said, when I get back to Los Angeles after
Speaker 1: this series of concerts, I'm gonna either throw this horn away,
Speaker 1: sell a and m do whatever. I just want to
Speaker 1: find out who I am and why I'm here. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody's looking for the same thing. I think, a life
Speaker 1: of purpose and meaning. Without that, what else is there?
Speaker 1: Luckily I met a teacher in New York here. His
Speaker 1: name was Carmine Caruso. He played violin, he played saxophone.
Speaker 1: He didn't play trumpet, but he taught a lot of
Speaker 1: trumpet players. He likened the musician to an athlete. And
Speaker 1: you had to sink your body muscles to rhythm. And
Speaker 1: over a period of time, I just kind of unwoldness,
Speaker 1: terrible problem. And how long did it take? It took
Speaker 1: before I was really comfortable? Probably eight years? Really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you when you started painting? Well, that's interesting question,
Speaker 1: you know you said you started painting? Its Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you and you started to lose your mojo horn wise
Speaker 1: and sixty nine you did, painting and sculpting come into
Speaker 1: your life as you found you didn't want to play
Speaker 1: the horn. Well, sculpting came in later. Painting was a
Speaker 1: big relief. You had't have somewhere to put that energy exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: It was a rough period for me, but I've been there, man,
Speaker 1: And mine was 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. Oh yeah, need to sit there and
Speaker 1: go You're like, this is not not when you planned it,
Speaker 1: not what I bargained for. Let's hit rewind here trying
Speaker 1: to figure this out man, and he had the lete, yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta, we gotta, you gotta do this again. When
Speaker 1: did you marry your current wife? So during this time
Speaker 1: as years have you not feeling great when you meet
Speaker 1: her and you meet this woman who's obviously the love
Speaker 1: of your life, right, But at the same time I
Speaker 1: was still playing. I was like I was playing forcing yourself, well,
Speaker 1: forcing myself. And seventy four we had a command performance
Speaker 1: for the Queen of England. We played, we played there
Speaker 1: and the bands, yeah, the band sounded great. And then
Speaker 1: meet Prince Charles who said, oh heavo you record in
Speaker 1: the in the den? You know I couldn't picture the den.
Speaker 1: Met the Queen, very lovely, nice smile. Uh. This was
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four. I was feeling pretty puffed up.
Speaker 1: I felt good about that. So go out the back
Speaker 1: door and there were hundreds and hundreds of people that
Speaker 1: are just waiting for the various artists that were on
Speaker 1: this show and this as I'm walking through the crowd
Speaker 1: that I hear these two ladies Tarry, I don't know
Speaker 1: that Chap. Who was that Chap? And for friends it
Speaker 1: I think that Sergio Mendez after feeling so good, I
Speaker 1: gotta get over here more often, man, I gotta get
Speaker 1: these people straightened up. You don't know me from Sergio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's why I think that's a great thing that
Speaker 1: you're someone who you weren't feeling all that great at
Speaker 1: that time in your life, but you fooled the King
Speaker 1: and the Queen of England. Man with the band sounded
Speaker 1: no what I'm saying that you you got you got
Speaker 1: it done. Yeah, but you know there's something about you know,
Speaker 1: when you're you're good at something, you can you can
Speaker 1: fake it and and nobody really knows you know. No
Speaker 1: Now for you, who's a horn player that you take
Speaker 1: your head up? Whose one just giving one? Years? Just
Speaker 1: really dug? Listening to Miles David, I love Myles. You know,
Speaker 1: Myles was the real thing. Miles y well because he
Speaker 1: was completely authentic. He was just playing the music that
Speaker 1: was coming out of him. Uh, no compromise. He understood space,
Speaker 1: you know, the the silence that happens between the notes.
Speaker 1: You know. He understood that, and I think he was
Speaker 1: the key you know, you know, jazz musician of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. I've met some really incredible jazz musicians in
Speaker 1: my day, and each one has their own little take
Speaker 1: on how to do it. Stan Guests was like a
Speaker 1: brother to me. I produced two albums with Stan and
Speaker 1: he played this one song. It was just men. Goose
Speaker 1: bumps were flying up my back. I said, man, what
Speaker 1: are you thinking when you're playing? And he says, oh,
Speaker 1: I think it like I'm in front of the whaling
Speaker 1: wall in Jerusalem and I'm dobvining stand. Oh. He was great, man.
Speaker 1: I love the sky. He wore his stuff right close
Speaker 1: to the surface. I had an experience with Guests where,
Speaker 1: you know, I did these amms and he said, can
Speaker 1: I do anything for you? I said, yeah, Man, give me,
Speaker 1: how about giving me some bebop lessons? He says sure,
Speaker 1: He says, how how honest you want me to be?
Speaker 1: I said, just because I'm just trying to get up
Speaker 1: to my own water level. I didn't play with Charlie
Speaker 1: Parker like he did. I just wanted to see how
Speaker 1: far I can take this thing. This is fine in
Speaker 1: my studio at home, and he's sitting down. I said,
Speaker 1: do you think, for one, I should work on the
Speaker 1: two five one chords in every key, which is page
Speaker 1: one if they teach at Berkeley. I mean that's how
Speaker 1: they you know, they start this thing. To five one
Speaker 1: is an all pop songs. It's just one of those things.
Speaker 1: I said, do you think I should work on this
Speaker 1: in every key five one chords? You know what? He said?
Speaker 1: What's that? He didn't think like that though. I mean,
Speaker 1: those old timers didn't play off of that ship that
Speaker 1: they're teaching at school. You know, who do you think
Speaker 1: made Sinatra? Sinatra? Oh Man very musical? He really was smart.
Speaker 1: He was grateful to the songwriters and the musicians whom
Speaker 1: 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: It's in bakra. I said, I don't know how to play,
Speaker 1: but I'll go with you. He says, down on the Barbara.
Speaker 1: I'm standing behind him, and in twenty minutes he must
Speaker 1: have went around twenty seven thirty thou dollars, I know,
Speaker 1: and Nancy was standing right next me. So every time
Speaker 1: you want 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 he just leaves, you know,
Speaker 1: and Nancy looks at me, says, I hear her. We
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 could
Speaker 1: be that frivolous Herbalbert established the her Balbert Foundation in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, giving away money his way ever since.
Speaker 1: In two thousand seven, he gave thirty million dollars to
Speaker 1: form the Herb Alpert's School of Music. How do you see,
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 portant ingredient for a kid's health, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think through that they learned discipline and what's
Speaker 1: gonna help him in the academics. So it's just a natural.
Speaker 1: It should be a core subject. Do you teach to
Speaker 1: you over there and guest teach and so no, I don't,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I'm not. That's really not my
Speaker 1: strongest I think it would be very happy for you
Speaker 1: to show up, that wouldn't Isn't that your great gift
Speaker 1: that you just have to play? I think my great
Speaker 1: gift is that I have my own personality on the horn.
Speaker 1: A lot of musicians are trying to track Miles Davis
Speaker 1: or trying to check Charlie Parker, try to play like
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just trying to play like myself, and
Speaker 1: that's I think what everybody should be going for their
Speaker 1: only unique voice. It's just been it's been a nice ride.
Speaker 1: I feel thankful. Herb recently finished a sold out two
Speaker 1: week run at the Carlisle Hotel with his wife, singer
Speaker 1: Lonnie Hall, and I mean sold out. He couldn't get
Speaker 1: me any tickets. This is Albert and Hall performing I
Speaker 1: Feel You. Just another afternoon on the sidewalks of London,
Speaker 1: all the green and rainy days run together, hidden in
Speaker 1: the streets of stone. Suddenly I'm not alone. I feel you.
Speaker 1: I feel every time I think I have lost you,
Speaker 1: it seems like you find me, blowing through me, like
Speaker 1: the winds of decad where though you've gone away so far,
Speaker 1: still I turn and there you are. I feel you.
Speaker 1: I feel you. I feel you beside me, my head
Speaker 1: on your shoulder, your fragrance, your laughter, your ti I
Speaker 1: must in remembering reasons I miss you. So how could
Speaker 1: I ever think about a lifetime that happens without you,
Speaker 1: even if my only hope is a mad Please start,
Speaker 1: let us be apart, rub yourself around, mind, let me
Speaker 1: feed you. This is al Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: here's the thing