Herb Alpert Quotations

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

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

Mexican Shuffle was a turning point of the Brass.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

You know, the record business is much different than being artist on stage.

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

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

The Japanese seem to be a loyal audience.

The trumpet was not a lyrical singing instrument.

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

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

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

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.

My first instinct was not to do it. I didn't want to trample on ( Whipped Cream ).

I was obligated to do a bunch of concerts and a television show, but something in my stomach was telling me this wasn't what I wanted to do.

Unfortunately, what they're playing on the radio now is not really fair to a lot of great musicians that are out there struggling to be heard.

This special event at Vibrato brought together many people sharing a common bond - a love of jazz and a desire to support its future, ... It gave them the opportunity to indulge in both passions - to celebrate the great artistry of Dave Brubeck, and to support the Brubeck Institute, a program at the University of the Pacific which, through its Fellowship Program and Summer Jazz Colony, serves to train and nurture the next generation of great jazz artists and innovators.

With tape, you capture the impact, but you bring in some other elements. Sometimes those elements are good and sometimes, they're not.

We were like a trial for the digital process, and I found that in that particular timeframe, there were too many problems with it.

There was a certain naturalness that was happening in the '60s and '70s that felt more like a happening, ... Production wasn't as clean and neat as I'm hearing these days. They're not perfect, but they have an honest feeling, which is what I was going for.

Is there an audience for it? I don't know. I don't think it's the audience who bought it originally. But there's a younger audience that might appreciate it. These are good songs.

It's powerful. 'Whipped Cream' happened 40 years ago. It still resonates with people.

It's certainly an honor. When I got the call I didn't sure how to react, to tell you the truth. It wasn't until my wife's gynecologist called and congratulated me that I figured we were onto something.

I haven't seen this many people since I played bar mitzvahs years ago.

I never thought of myself as a trumpet player in the traditional sense: I never played in a big band... I didn't struggle the normal way.

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

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.

Instrumental music can spread the international language.

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'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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.