Famous Trumpeter, Herb Alpert of Tijuana Brass Band, , Son of Ukrainian Immigrants

 Nadene Goldfoot

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                                     

Herb Alpert,  born March 31, 1935 in the Boyle Heights section of Eastside Los Angeles, California; 

Son of Tillie Goldberg and Louis Leib Alpert from Radomyshi, Ukraine and Romania, Jewish immigrants to the States.  They married on June 30, 1925, In Los Angeles.  

 Radomyshl is a historic city in Zhytomyr Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine. Prior to 2020, it was the administrative center of the former Radomyshl Raion, and is located on the left bank of Teteriv River, a right tributary of Dnieper River. Its population is approximately 13,973. So it was the Alperts that came from Ukraine.                             

  He is a famous American trumpeter who led Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s.  During the same decade, he co-founded A&M records with Jerry Moss.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vtF5GjVeaY (play while you read further)

I was just talking with Victor Sharpe, writer, musician, and he reminded me of Herb Alpert, of the Tijuana Brass band of Brazil, we think it was.    "Alpert" is the surname of a genealogist who has found many of her relatives through using DNA testing with Family Tree DNA.  I'm her 3rd cousin, found in this testing process.  

                                               

 Creator and innovator, musician and producer, artist, and philanthropist, Herb Alpert is a man with a profound passion and may be her relative, as her maiden name is Alpert.  She has been able to trace her family line back to RASHI, the famous rabbi of France.  

                                                 

"Born in Los Angeles, the future trumpeter came of age in a house filled with music. At the age of eight, he was drawn to the trumpet in a music appreciation class in his elementary school.

“I was very fortunate that I had that exposure to music and was encouraged to stick with it. Years ago, when the arts programs were cut out of our public schools, so many kids stopped having that kind of opportunity.”                     

A legendary trumpet player, Alpert’s extraordinary musicianship has earned him five #1 hits, nine GRAMMY® Awards, the latest from his 2014 album, “Steppin’ Out,” fifteen Gold albums, fourteen Platinum albums and has sold over 72 million records. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass propelled his sound into the pop music limelight, at one point outselling the Beatles two to one. In 1966, they achieved the since-unmatched feat of simultaneously having four albums in the Top 10– and five in the Top 20. Herb Alpert also has the distinction of being the only artist who has had a #1 instrumental and vocal single.

                                Titled:  Relatives:

A painting by Herb Alpert. "Relatives" is an abstract painting, acrylic on canvas in a colorful palette of blues and reds by American artist Herb Alpert.
Herb Alpert is an American Jazz musician who maintains a second career as an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. During the height of his music career, he began painting, and in the early 1980s, he began to sculpt as well. His paintings and sculpture, though a different art form, still speak to his love of music and his musical style. His sculpture has been termed “lyrical” and his latest works are meant to capture the feeling he gets when he plays jazz. They are improvisational, much like jazz, and he says he gets the same rush of energy and the same satisfaction from creating visual art as he does from creating musical art.

Herb Alpert has continually explored other artistic ventures, always acknowledging a connection between music and visual art in his creative process. A painter for over four decades, Alpert’s bold, abstract expressionist canvases have been exhibited internationally and are a part of the permanent collections of MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles, the Tennessee State Art Museum in Nashville, the Kranzberg Arts Foundation in St. Louis as well as the University of California Los Angeles. Herb’s work has been exhibited in galleries around the U.S, Europe and Asia.

A sculptor for over three decades, Alpert has installed his lyrical sculpture and his massive, bronze Totem sculptures on public display throughout Los Angles, New York City, Nashville Tennessee, and most recently a permanent installation at the Field Museum in Chicago.                                 

         The Tijuana Band with Herb in middle sitting on drum

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, whether painting, sculpting or playing the trumpet. I am just trying to create whatever comes out in the spontaneity of the moment.”

Broadway theatre is another arena in which Alpert has enjoyed success. His producing credits include the Tony Award/Pulitzer Prize-winning production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Jelly’s Last Jam, Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass, August Wilson’s Seven Guitars and The Boy from Oz.

With his desire to bring the arts back to young people, the Herb Alpert Foundation is helping to change the educational environment.  The Herb Alpert Foundation supports a number of educational, arts and compassion oriented programs, dedicated to serving young people to help them reach their potential and lead productive, fulfilling lives and to support their unique creative energies and special talents. HAF supports young people to live free from prejudice and, with its many programs, nurtures a capacity for empathy, compassion, mutual respect, tolerance and kindness.

Herb at age 80 in 2015.  He's a year younger than me.  

The Herb Alpert Foundation, which Herb created with his wife Lani Hall Alpert in 1985, was instrumental in establishing the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz graduate program at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, founded with an endowment from the Foundation in 2007, aspires to educate the whole student through productive collaborations between performance and scholarship and preparatory training for a broad range of careers in music.

                         Herb Alpert and Singer, Lani Hall: Mimi Pollack wrote-as a young teen, Sergio Mendes and Brasil’66’s first album came out. The lead singer was Lani Hall, Alpert’s future wife, married in 1974. I marveled at her voice and sang along to “Mas Que Nada.”She sang in Portuguese and English.

       Herb Alpert and wife, singer Lani Hall

In 2008, through an endowment from the Foundation, the school of music at CalArts was named for Herb Alpert. This gift continues to support music scholarships, endow three faculty chairs, and fund faculty programs at a school known for its rigorous training in a variety of musical styles and cultures. Continuing their support of arts education, the Foundation created an endowment in 2016 to provide music majors at Los Angeles City College tuition–free attendance, additional private lessons, and further financial aid to enable them to succeed in their community college experience. Over the past nine years Herb has come to the rescue of the legendary Harlem School of the Arts, establishing an endowment that not only prevented the school from closing its doors but has led to a major redesign of the campus, financial aid and the funds to thrive as a key arts destination for the community.

Over the past 25 years, 125 mid-career, risk-taking artists have received the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, an award administered by the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), which also houses the Herb Alpert School of Music at Cal Arts.

In addition to his on-going creative outlets in music, philanthropy and the arts, Alpert owns the noted Vibrato restaurant/jazz club in Bel-Air, California. He also continues to perform and tour across the country with his wife, Grammy-winning vocalist, Lani Hall and their band.                                       

         He's standing by his canvasses, I would guess.  

Herb’s priorities derive from the same sense of generosity and humility that has guided him through a long, illustrious career. In all of these ventures, there is a harmony not unlike Alpert’s music. A flowing of energy and sound, a dedication to quality, which sustains everything Alpert does. With more than 40 years of continuous philanthropic, musical and artistic activity, Alpert has established a legacy that reflects his firm belief that the arts can make a difference in the world and in the lives of each of us."