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What do Biggie Smalls, The Dating Game and TikTok have in common? Herb Alpert, proud nonagenarian.
The namesake leader of the Herb Alpert & Tijuana Band & Other Delights (the touring ensemble based on his legendary studio band) was as spry as anyone when he took to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Nov. 10, one of the few venues he’s played that, as he noted, is older than him.
When you’ve outsold The Beatles during peak Beatlemania and are introduced with archival footage of Louis Armstrong saying your name, one might say you can do and say what you want. Alpert told the sold-out Schnitz that he enjoys how happy his music makes people. Thanks to TikTok alone, Alpert says more people have heard his music than were alive across the world when he was born (2.7 billion people for more than 4 billion plays of videos). And it seemed he sincerely gets joy from bringing joy through his arrangements. Alpert let his audience bask in his greatness, in a rare way lacking egotism and defying ironic cynicism.
Alpert turned 90 in March, yet he led a two-hour show playing trumpet, conducting a band behind his back and bantering with the audience with more energy than people half his age. Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass’ iconic album Whipped Cream & Other Delights has lived a multiverse of lives, from scoring The Dating Game to being sampled by The Notorious B.I.G., Queen Latifah and Dua Lipa, to pick three among hundreds of other musicians. The album’s expertly upbeat songs with its racy cover made it a lock for the summer of ’66.
Alpert’s partner, Lani Hall, joined him onstage, singing songs from her band Brasil 66 and its leader, the late Sérgio Mendes. Though it could easily have been a somber occasion, Alpert seemed thrilled that his life and work touched so many people. Indeed, the theater of mostly but not exclusively older patrons visibly enjoyed themselves. A man old enough to be my father bounced in his seat like my grade school–age nephew when he heard the first notes of his favorite songs, and waved to Alpert from the audience with all his might during breaks. Whipped Cream & Other Delights hasn’t lost any of its magic, and neither has Alpert.
