About the Event

Groove along to vibrant brass-driven classics—spanning American standards, Brazilian jazz, and more—with renowned trumpeter Herb Alpert and his wife, vocalist Lani Hall. As the bandleader of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, he made the Top 40 chart 14 times with hits like “A Taste of Honey,” “This Guy’s In Love With You,” and “Rise.” A music legend, Alpert is co-founder of the independent record label A&M Records and the winner of nine Grammy Awards®. Hall, formerly the lead singer of Brasil 66 with Sergio Mendes, has recorded more than twenty-two albums in three languages and sang the title song to the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. She won her first Grammy in 1983 and her second in 2013.   

The power couple’s performance includes stories about their lives, A&M Records, and the many legendary artists they’ve collaborated with over the past 50 years. This multimedia tribute to the couple’s illustrious careers also features hundreds of classic photos, videos, and memorabilia collected over the decades.

Herb Alpert 

Creator and innovator, musician and producer, artist and philanthropist, Herb Alpert is a man with a profound passion. Alpert’s extraordinary musicianship has earned him five #1 hits, nine Grammys (the latest from his 2014 album, Steppin’ Out), fifteen gold albums, fourteen platinum albums, and 72 million records sold. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass propelled his sound into the pop music limelight, at one point outselling The Beatles two to one. In 1966, they achieved the since-unmatched feat of simultaneously having four albums in the Top 10 and five in the Top 20. Herb Alpert also has the distinction of being the only artist who has had a #1 instrumental and a #1 vocal single. 

As an industry leader, Alpert’s commitment to artists with personal vision guided A&M Records (with partner Jerry Moss) from a Hollywood garage operation into one of the most successful independent record labels in music history. It started in 1962 with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and stars like Janet Jackson, Quincy Jones, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, Stan Getz, Cat Stevens, Supertramp, The Carpenters, Carole King, Sheryl Crow, Peter Frampton, The Police and scores of others are evidence of the consistent quality and diversity of the A&M Records family. 

In 2006, Alpert and Moss were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in recognition of their accomplishments, and they are a part of the Grammy Museum’s Icons of the Music Industry series. In 2013, Herb Alpert was awarded The National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama for his musical, philanthropic, and artistic contributions. 

In addition to his on-going creative outlets in music, philanthropy, and the arts, Alpert owns Vibrato Grill Jazz in Bel-Air, California. He also continues to perform and tour across the country with his wife, Grammy-winning vocalist, Lani Hall and their band. 

Lani Hall 

Two-time Grammy-winning vocalist and producer Lani Hall started her singing career in 1966 as the lead singer of Sergio Mendes’s breakthrough group, Brasil ’66. She left behind her city roots in Chicago and for five years performed throughout the world. In 1966, A&M Records signed Brasil ’66 and Hall met her future husband, Herb Alpert. Alpert and Hall married in 1973. 

Hall has the distinction of recording more than 22 albums in three different languages (English, Portuguese, and Spanish), and in 1983, she sang the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. In 1986, Hall won her first Grammy for Best Latin Pop Performance for her album Es Facil Amar. Hall picked up her second Grammy as producer on Alpert’s 2013 Grammy-winning album, Steppin’ Out. 

In 1985, Hall created The Herb Alpert Foundation with her husband. The foundation was instrumental in establishing the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz graduate program at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Herb Alpert School of Music. The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, founded with an endowment from the foundation in 2007, aspires to educate the whole student through productive collaborations between performance and scholarship and preparatory training for a broad range of careers in music. 

After establishing a successful solo career in music, and becoming a wife and mother, Hall began to explore new creative outlets for her writing. In the early 1980s, while singing in Mexico City, she started writing in short story form. Her writing process is similar to her singing process, in so far as she can visually see a song/lyric unfold before her, as if she were watching a movie. Her debut book, Emotional Memoirs & Short Stories, compiles 10 short stories from 30 years of writing short fiction and true stories from her life—all woven together by a connecting personal narrative with the city of Chicago as the backdrop. 

Thank you to our Jazz Series Sponsor