Herb Alpert was several years into his successful career as leader of the Tijuana Brass when he decided to become a visual artist. Visiting art museums while on tour, he saw what they were showing as great modern art and thought, “I can do that.” At first, in his own words, Alpert painted “like a monkey.” Then he got serious. He studied technique and the creative opportunities available in different media, and found that he enjoyed creating abstract impressionist paintings and sculpture.
Alpert soon found that other people liked his work, too. He has had parallel careers in music and the visual arts ever since.
In 1985 Alpert and his wife, Grammy Award-winning vocalist Lani Hall, created the Herb Alpert Foundation to support the arts and arts education. On May 20 the Herb Alpert Foundation and the California Institute of the Arts
(CalArts) will present the 2021 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. This year, because of COVID-19, there are
10 award recipients instead
of five, with two awards in each of five disciplines: dance, film/video, music, theater and visual arts. Each honoree receives $75,000 and a residency at CalArts, which administers the prize on behalf of the Herb Alpert Foundation.
“These are strange times, and musicians are getting the raw end of the deal,” Alpert said Monday during a call from his oceanfront home in Malibu, Calif., explaining his decision to double the number of awardees. “Musicians are like the second responders. We need music, we need the artists, and I want to make sure that they are still in play.”
Also in play through June 30 is an exhibition of Alpert’s recent paintings, “Herb Alpert: The Coffee Paintings,” at Heather James Fine Art in Jackson Hole, Wyo. The series, created using coffee instead of paint, began with a housewarming gift for his daughter.
“She’s an organic person, and I thought,‘What could I get her that’s a little off the wall but different than just a nice plant?’ and I thought, ‘Why not try painting with organic coffee?’”
“I had a hell of a great time doing it, and I decided to keep going. I’ve been painting for over 50 years, and I’ve always been experimenting.”
To see Alpert’s coffee paintings, visit 808ne.ws/herbalpert.
Painting with coffee is only one of the things that have kept Alpert busy while he waits out the pandemic.
In June he partnered with keyboardist Jeff Lorber to record and release a new arrangement of “Slick,” a song he co-wrote and originally recorded with the Tijuana Brass in 1968.
In October he was the subject of an official documentary film, “Herb Alpert Is…,” and a limited-edition multi-CD retrospective, “Herb Alpert Is…The Box Set.”
In March he released “Zoo Train 21,” a dramatic reworking of the arrangement of the song heard on his 2014 album, “In the Mood.”
One of Alpert’s oldest friends in Hawaii is real estate broker Carl Smigielski. They met when Alpert bought his beachfront home here 20 years ago. Smigielski has great admiration for Alpert personally and professionally. His collection of Alpert memorabilia includes a set of Alpert CDs up through the rare and expensive “Herb Alpert Is…The Box Set,” a coffee-table book of Alpert’s art — and a check Alpert wrote him a year ago that he is keeping for its sentimental value.
“He is an amazing, warm, genuine human being,” Smigielski said recently.
Smigielski has more than a dozen Alpert paintings on display in an oceanfront Diamond Head townhouse he is staging for potential buyers.
“I needed something to dress it up, so I called Herb (in Malibu) and asked if maybe he could help me out,” said Smigielski. “People don’t know that when he’s here he does more paintings. He said, ‘Take what you want.’”
Back in Malibu, Alpert, 86, is looking forward to creating more art and more music.
“You never get to the end product. You don’t want to get there because you can’t ever get to the point where you think you got it mastered,” Alpert said. “You’re always looking for something new. That’s the beauty of being an artist.”
