Herb Alpert: 'What's Beautiful About Music Is It's Personal'

Herb Alpert has worn many hats throughout his long career in the music business: songwriter, trumpeter, bandleader, record label founder and producer. He won his first Grammy Award in 1965 -- and he won his seventh last Sunday, for his latest album, called Steppin' Out. 

Yet in recent years, Alpert has also become known as a visual artist -- his work as a sculptor has been featured in art shows throughout the country, and is currently on display in New York -- and, as a philanthropist. The Herb Alpert Foundation virtually saved the Harlem School of the Arts from shutting down in 2012, and every year the Herb Alpert Awards give five mid-career artists $75,000.

Alpert and Soundcheck host John Schaefer settle in for a conversation at the New York City restaurant P.J. Clarke's, across from Dante Park where three of Alpert's large black-bronze spirit totem sculptures were recently installed. 

This segment originally aired on Jan. 29, 2014.

Interview Highlights

Alpert, on how his visual art is similar to jazz improvisation:  

That's the beauty of abstract art. I was always curious about what is that thing that makes something engaging to look at? What makes that thing that's engaging to listen to? If you think too hard about it, if you try to analyze a piece of art, I think you kind of miss the point. Art should resonate in the soul, and music should resonate not in the ears but in the soul as well. 

On the inspiration behind "The Lonely Bull": 

"Lonely Bull" was the result of me going to bullfights.... We used to go in the springtime to Tijuana and hear this brass band in the stands. It wasn't a mariachi band, it was just a little brass band, and they'd play these fanfares for each individual event. And I went home and tried to capture the feeling of the afternoons that I spent there. 

On what A&M Records was looking for in an artist: 

We were always looking for somebody who was a little left of center. An artist that had something that was a little bit different than what was on the radio. We weren't looking for the beat of the week. We were looking for the Cat Stevens of the world, and the Joe Cockers, and the Supertramps, and those people. And we always gave them their opportunity to flag themselves down to the runway, which they eventually did. And so we had a roster of really amazing artists.