Herb Alpert (Photo: Dewey Nicks; used with permission)
Herb Alpert has a busy 2025 ahead with a 2025 tour as he is reforming the Tijuana Brass Band for the first time in over four decades. With an all-new lineup, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass & Other Delights will commemorate the 60th anniversary of his historic album Whipped Cream & Other Delights performing hits like “The Lonely Bull,” “Spanish Flea,” “Taste of Honey” and his vocal smash, “This Guy’s In Love With You.” The tour includes a performance on March 31 at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center when the legendary musician and label executive will turn 90. Tickets for that special performance go on sale October 25 at 10 a.m. All other dates are already available here.
Alpert also has concerts with his wife Lani Hall, this December, in support of his latest album, 50, along with a 2023 release, Wish Upon a Star. The landmark new album, 50, which arrived on September 20, 2024, marked a tremendous milestone in a storied music career that began over 60 years ago in 1962: 50 is the Tijuana Brass maestro’s 50th studio album. Listen to many of the tracks below.
50 also commemorates 50 years of marriage to Hall, their golden anniversary. The album is a mix of reimagined classics covered in Alpert’s instantly recognizable style, highlighted by The Chords’ doo-wop classic “Sh- Boom” and “Baubles, Bangles And Beads” (famously recorded by Frank Sinatra, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Wes Montgomery, among others), and more. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
“Dancing Down 50th Street,” one of his several brand new original compositions featured on the album, is an infectious dance track mixing the flavor of his Tijuana Brass days with a modern groove.
Listen to several other tracks from 50.
“East Bound And Down” from the 2023 album, Wish Upon a Star, found the legendary musician, artist, record label executive and philanthropist revisiting the buoyant, upbeat sound of the Tijuana Brass Band. It was written by Jerry Reed and is known as the theme song for the classic action-comedy movie, Smokey and the Bandit.
“I couldn’t get this song out of my mind after seeing [the movie] many moons ago……thought it would make a great instrumental,” says Alpert.
On Wish Upon a Star, Alpert’s 49th studio album, he explored songs written in different eras of pop music history, from venerable Great American Songbook standards (“On the Street Where You Live,” rendered as a bossa nova) to torch songs (a sultry “We’ve Only Just Begun”) to Beatles classics (“And I Love Her”).
Alpert and his partner, Jerry Moss, started A&M Records in 1962 as a home for Alpert’s Tijuana Brass projects, but within a few years grew into an unusually creative independent imprint, releasing landmark records by Wes Montgomery, Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Police, Joan Armatrading and dozens of others.
Related: Moss died on August 16, 2023, at age 88
“I signed the Carpenters to A&M,” Alpert says, recalling that some at the label expressed doubts about the wholesome duo. “I found them, and I remember the first time I heard them I loved them. They knew how to put songs across.”
Related: Our interview with Herb Alpert
Alpert celebrated his 89th birthday on March 31. He was reminded of another personal milestone in September 2023, when Taylor Swift made headlines for having four albums in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 charts at the same time, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished by a living artist since 1966 when Alpert did so with Going Places, Whipped Cream & Other Delights, South of the Border, and The Lonely Bull.
Related: Our Album Rewind of Whipped Cream & Other Delights
Herb Alpert & Lani Hall 2024 Tour Dates (Tickets are available here and here)
Dec 10 – Nashville, TN – Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater
Dec 11 – Chattanooga, TN – The Walker Theatre
Dec 13 – Atlanta, GA – Buckhead Theatre
Dec 14 – Metairie, LA – Jefferson Perf. Arts Center (A Christmas Wish)
Dec 15 – Houston, TX – Cullen Auditorium
2025 “Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass & Other Delights”
Feb 11 – Ft Lauderdale, FL – Wells Hall at The Parker
Feb 12 – Sarasota, FL – Van Wezel Perf. Arts Hall
Feb 13 – Orlando, FL – Dr Phillips Center Steinmetz Hall
Feb 15 – Augusta, GA – Miller Theater
Feb 16 – Lexington, KY – Lexington Opera House
Mar 25 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Cathedral Theatre
Mar 26 – Akron, OH – Goodyear Theater
Mar 28 – Buffalo, NY – Buffalo State PAC
Mar 29 – Boston, MA – Shubert Wang Theatre
Mar 31 – New York, NY – Jazz at Lincoln Center – Rose Theater
Many more dates to come.
Albert’s catalog is available here.
1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationWe LOVED the 2020 Documentary, “Herb Alpert Is…” and have already rewatched it! What an amazing man!