By Don Heckman
It’s always a pleasure to hear Herb Alpert and Lani Hall up close and personal. The veteran showbiz couple, whose prolific careers reach back to the ’60s, are still at the peak of their considerable creative powers.
On Thursday night at Vibrato Grill Jazz…etc., the elegant, Bel Air night club founded by Alpert, they celebrated the release of their new album, Steppin’ Out, with one of their too-rare Southland appearances.
And the results were memorable – as they so often are when Alpert and Hall are on stage, especially in their own room, working before an enthusiastic, supportive crowd, backed by the stellar accompaniment of pianist/singer Bill Cantos, bassist Hussain Jiffry and drummer Michael Shapiro.
The selections reached across the Great American Songbook, providing an especially gripping set of classic tunes for Hall to display her mesmerizing story-telling skills. Among the most compelling interpretations, her songs ranged from “Moondance,” “Fever,” “Fly Me To the Moon” and “Let’s Face the Music” to “All In the Game” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (brightened by a hard grooving scat contribution from Cantos).
On some pieces, Alpert played burnished trumpet solos before joining Hall in intimate vocalizing. On “This Guy’s In Love with You,” he sang (and played) the 1968 Burt Bacharach/Hal David song that resulted in Alpert’s first #1 single. Both his trumpet playing and his singing affirmed the lyricism – vocally and instrumentally – that is at the heart of his music. Gifted with a knack for melody, he applied it to every song he touched, whether singing with a warmly intimate vocal interpretation or arching through his characteristically embracing trumpet lines.
I’ve been writing about this remarkable couple – individually, paired and collectively (Alpert with the Tijuana Brass, Hall with Brazil 66) – since the late ’60s. And each performance I’ve experienced, live and on recording, was the work of a pair of gifted musical artists. As recently as last July they opened the Hollywood Bowl’s summer jazz schedule on a brilliant program with Sergio Mendes’ Brazil 66.
This time out, more than six months later, they played much of the repertoire heard at the Bowl. But there was no resisting the appeal of whatever they played, however familiar it may have been.
The unforgettable performance ended with an entertaining selection from the new Alpert album, Steppin’ Out, scheduled for release on November 19. On either side of the stage, big screen projections displayed the album’s prime video, “Puttin’ On the Ritz,” with the music performed live, in perfect sync with the video images. It was the perfect closure for an evening of superb offerings from a pair of the music world’s most creative practitioners.
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Video courtesy of Herb Alpert.
Photos by Faith Frenz. To see more photos by Faith Frenz click HERE.
The International Review of Music 