My wife was a puddle of tears at Herb Alpert's show with his wife, singer Lani Hall, at Joe's Pub in New York last week.
If you know Herb Alpert's music, you know it's not the type of thing that starts people spontaneously weeping. "Tijuana Taxi," "The Lonely Bull," "Spanish Flea," "A Taste Of Honey" and his many other hits with the Tijuana Brass made him, for a spell, the most popular musician in America. In 1966, the year of Revolver, Aftermath and Blonde On Blonde, he outsold the Beatles, the Stones and Bob Dylan. But catchy and wonderful though his chirpy, faux-Mexican pop may be, it was meant to make you tap your toes and smile and whistle along, not cry.
Exactly forty years removed from his last #1 album, The Beat Of The Brass, Herb Alpert hasn't suddenly discovered a dark streak. He didn't take the stage at Joe's Pub with his three piece backing band and start doing dissonant takes on early '70s Miles Davis records. But it's not like we were weeping for our lost youth while he took us on a trip down Tijuana Brass memory lane, either. (Anyway, those songs came out long before my wife and I were born.)
The music he played wasn't sad at all, in fact. The set featured standards like "Let's Face The Music And Dance," "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" (sung by Herb in that same shy, modest style that made "This Guy's In Love With You" a classic), some Brazilian tunes that recalled singer Lani Hall's heyday with Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, and even a Corrine Bailey Rae cover.
In other words, Alpert was playing the music that he wanted to play, not what he thought the crowd might want to hear, or tunes from a CD that was being sold out front. (Herb joked during the set, "We've got no keychains, no T-shirts ... sorry").
At age 73 and looking far better than anyone that age has a right to look, Herb Alpert seemed totally at ease and bantered happily with the audience, which numbered no more than a few hundred. It was obvious from the way he and Lani Hall looked at each other while he played and she sang that they're still very much in love after more than 30 years of marriage.
And oh yeah, they sounded great, too.
What surprised me most is that he didn't seem like he was back onstage out of any sort of ego trip. Any time I've seen a Certified Music Legend perform, there's always at least a slight vibe of "Don't forget who I am and what I did 40 years ago ... even if my last dozen albums have been stinkers." With Herb Alpert, the vibe was more like "Aren't these songs great? Isn't this band cookin'? Doesn't my wife sound fantastic? Isn't this a fine way to spend an evening?"
Simply put, the guy didn't take the stage with anything to prove. He didn't need the money, that's for sure. And he didn't need the recognition, although everyone from music industry legend Tommy LiPuma to Bill Moyers was there to pay homage. I got the impression that he was at Joe's Pub for no other reason than he loved to play, and he wanted to share that love with an audience.
It seemed that way to my wife, too. And that's why she was wiping the tears from her eyes for the whole 80-minute set, even though she's never been a big Herb Alpert fan. To tell the truth, I had a bit of a lump in my throat, too.
Herb and Lani and their band are doing a very low-key tour of the U.S. this spring. If they come your way, go see them. You won't be sorry.