Eight-time Grammy Award-winning jazz icon Herb Alpert is also a platinum-selling musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist and philanthropist. He was born in Los Angeles. He grew up in a house filled with music. His early music career just grew from there. By mid-year 1962, Alpert and Jerry Moss formed a partnership they called Carnival Records. This name was later changed to what would become the iconic and highly successful label, A&M Records.
"By August 1962, Alpert and Moss released their third single The Lonely Bull by The Tijuana Brass with Alpert. Festival Records in Australia licensed the single, and on December 22, 1962, it reached number one on the Australian singles chart," says the label. "On October 27, The Lonely Bull entered the Billboard Pop Singles Chart. It peaked on December 8, 1962 at the number six position. The single sold about 700,000 copies and netted about $180,000. The Lonely Bull album was then released in December and on December 29, it too entered the Billboard charts."
From there A&M grew to become the largest independent record label in America. A&M has worked with such important and influential icons as: Joan Baez; the Flying Burrito Brothers; The Carpenters; Joe Cocker; The Courteneers; Sheryl Crow; Duffy; Peter Frampton; The Horrors; Janet Jackson; Carole King; The Police; Cat Stevens; Patrick Wolf. Alpert and Moss sold A&M in 1990. Future releases are to come from the now reignited label with upcoming works from Chapel Club, The Cheek and Daley.
Alpert received the Grammy® and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Awards fir his legendary talent. He also has a 40-year career as a professional painter and sculptor.
“You don’t have to hear but three notes before you know it is Herb Alpert,” The late Miles Davis once remarked.
Alpert explains, “There is a certain satisfaction and energy that comes from playing the horn – a feeling that I am really in my element. I am passionate about what I am doing. I am just playing what comes out, and I try to stay conscious of things that are happening in the spontaneity of the moment.”
Herb Alpert and his wife Lani Hall have been performing together, with their band, since 2006 and have 2 CD’s, Anything Goes and I Feel You. Their newest CD, Steppin’ Out, is to be released in the summer of this year. Hall began her professional career as the original lead singer with Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘66. It was in 1966, while singing with the group in an audition for A&M Records, that Hall met Alpert. They married in 1973, and since then their lives and musical gifts have mingled.
Alpert and his internationally renowned and Grammy Award-winning singer wife, Hall, will return June 2, 2013 to Chicago for An Evening with Herb Alpert & Lani Hall at Park West. They will perform songs from their next album, Steppin Out to be released later this year. The program will also include a jazz set and American songbook favorites: Puttin';#82on the Ritz, And The Angels Sing, Anything Goes, Moondance, La Vie en Rose, plus a nostalgic Tijuana Brass medley. Also, within the set will be some Brasilian songs and an Antonio Carlos Jobim Medley.
Alpert and his wife are known for their transformative, arts and education focused philanthropy, as well as their prominent place in musical history and fine art. They began their philanthropic work in 1982, and oversee The Herb Alpert Foundation. The foundation's significant commitments include: the 2007 formation of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, devoted to the performance and study of music in all of its global diversity; The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts; The Herb Alpert Scholarships for Emerging Young Artists; The PS Arts Lawndale Elementary School District Initiative, which has brought arts education to more than four thousand children annually for the past seven years. Paul Cummins, for the past twenty years, has enjoyed the support of Alpert in the visionary work of founding of the New Roads School, PS Arts and the planning and development of The Herb Alpert Educational Village.
Located in the heart of the City of Santa Monica mixed use creative district, The Herb Alpert Educational Village is home to the New Roads School, the New Visions Foundation and other non-profit organizations working in the fields of education, the arts, the environment, and social justice. The goal of The Herb Alpert Educational Village founders and supporters is to create a new model for innovative, collaborative, and inclusive education. In addition to providing office space for the non-profit partners, and specialty classroom space for the New Roads School, the new green facility houses the seat state of the art Ann and Jerry Moss Theater, the Capshaw-Spielberg Center for Arts and Educational Justice and a 2,000-square foot community forum. These spaces allow for enhanced programming at the New Roads School and provide a resource for the entire community.
An Evening with Herb Alpert & Lani Hall:
June 2, 2013, 7:30 p.m., Park West, 322 W. Armitage Ave., Chicago, IL.
Tickets are $45. To order tickets call ETix at 800.514.3849 or visit etix.com. Tickets are also available at the Park West Box office: M-F 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., and on the evening of a concert (cash only).
