Herb Alpert Quotes

When I finish an album and I find myself listening to it in the car, because it makes me feel a certain way, that’s the time to try to let other people know about it.

Selfishly, I make music for me. I like to make music. I like looking for songs. I like working with interesting musicians. I like producing records. It’s something I will always do.

I like to listen to classical music… I like mainline jazz.

I think we as human beings need to be able to appreciate each other’s differences and I think jazz really takes us in that direction.

I think President Obama really does get the value of the arts.

I play every day. It’s like a habit for me now. I just, if I don’t play, I kind of miss – something’s off.

I think jazz is a phenomenal creative force, because it’s one man, one vote as you’re playing, but it’s a collective thing, what you’re doing. You’re listening to all the musicians around you and you’re working within that structure.

We finally got our big break when Ed Sullivan put us on his show.

The reaction to this album has just been fabulous around the world… and I’ve had offers to perform from around the world and I’m tempted to do it. I’ve got itchy lips.

I practice every day. I’ve been doing it since I was eight.

Mexican Shuffle was a turning point of the Brass.

I’m an old-timer in the business from the sense that when you do something that you feel good about there might be another person out there who feels the same way, or a hundred or a couple million.

This was during a period when I was producing Brazil ’66 records and got infected by Brazilian music.

I don’t think radio is selling records like they used to. They’d hawk the song and hawk the artist and you’d get so excited, you’d stop your car and go into the nearest record store.

We always felt that if you do something with quality and integrity, then it’s going to come back to you.

The Japanese seem to be a loyal audience.

I wake up in the morning, I do a little stretching exercises, pick up the horn and play.

It’s – as opposed to tape where you have a magnetic tape that’s excited by frequencies that you hit, digital was a process where musical sounds are transferred to numbers and stored as numbers.

I’m sure I’ll go back again and record in the digital process.

I find that it’s nice to work with somebody and spin off on someone else’s feelings. You get a little jaded by yourself.

Although there was a point with the Tijuana Brass where we were playing for such huge crowds that I kind of lost contact. At one point, the only connection I had with the audience was with people out there lighting cigarettes.

The trumpet was not a lyrical singing instrument.

I’m seduced by the arts in general. Arts is like the power of now.

I like to listed to the adventurous guys – the Coltranes, Miles Davis, the guys who just let it loose.

It’s very clean. With tape, you get noise.

Arts is like the power of now. When you’re performing, when you’re playing, when you’re sculpting, painting, it’s that moment. I’m in the moment of my life, and that’s what I love to do.

You can have a great lyric and a so-so melody; it’s going to be a tough sell.

He has a method that likens the musician to an athlete, so I do physical exercises designed to keep a musician in shape in order to perform the function, which is to play music.

There’s something interesting about playing live; you’re in the moment, and I think it would be beneficial.

If you look at a record under a microscope, the high frequencies are short jagged edges… and the low frequencies are long swinging ones are deep bass sounds. When it cut it at half speed, you’re getting more of those on the record.

I was taken in by the bravado and the sounds of Mexico… not so much the music, but the spirit.

I confess that I listen to my own music for my own pleasure.

Clifford Brown was in the jazz circles considered to be probably the greatest trumpet player who ever lived.