Herb Alpert (center) and Lani Hall (left) with 2013 winners of the Alpert Awards. "When I was 8 years old, I went into a music appreciation classroo...
Some books remain with you long after reading them. Their haunting images or gripping stories stick in your head and reappear in your dreams.
If "This Guy's in Love with You" means anything, Herb Alpert and Lani Hall's show at the Café Carlyle offers, in Alpert's words, "music that is very déjà-vu."
Imagine this... two guys have been partners for 50 years in the volatile music business, and until they sold the company in 1989 (for several hundred million dollars!), they didn't even have a written contract between them!
Lani Hall is a true literary talent who is now one of the major writers of the naturalistic Chicago school and will leave a lasting impact on us all.
"If you're prepared for what you'd like to do with the rest of your life and you're putting in the time and are passionate about what you're doing, you have to just stay with it. There's no magic formula for how to get through the maze."
At first the concept was to have a great jazz club with good food. Now it is is a really great restaurant with exciting jazz.
I recalled that Hillary Clinton famously said, "It takes a village to raise a child," based upon an old African proverb. Well, all of these folks have taken that literally, and... are building a village.
Five exceptional artists have received grants from the Herb Alpert Foundation and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). I recently had the pleasure of meeting each of these extraordinary young individuals.
Lately, says Sergio Mendes, "a whole new audience that has been exposed to my songs because I have guests like will.i.am, Justin Timberlake, and John Legend... I love doing that."
Last Herb and Lani re-emerged, hitting the road for a series of low-key shows which were recorded for the newly-released Anything Goes -- the first time they've ever collaborated musically.
Most of the "new" music I've gotten into this year is actually old music that's never been heard before, dredged up from the vaults just in time to make a buck before recorded music ceases to have any monetary value whatsoever.
