- Philanthropist with a hands-on approach: the Herb Alpert
Foundation funds deserving arts and education programs selected
by Alpert and his wife Lani for their effectiveness in reaching groups
and communities that would benefit most from such cultural assistance.
No real-life timeline is neat and sequential. But in tracing Alpert’s career,
a consistent creative imperative serves as the logic and link between a
diverse range of struggles and triumphs. Alpert himself admits as such:
“Yeah, it’s been run on instinct. I’m listening to a higher power. I’m not
religious, but I am listening to something.”
He was born Herbert Alpert on March 31, 1935 in Los Angeles, the
youngest of three children born to a tailor who had emigrated from
Russia, and his California-born wife. The future trumpeter came of age
in a house filled with music: his father played mandolin, his mother violin,
his sister piano and a brother who sometimes played drums in Alpert’s
earliest groups. He attended Melrose Elementary School where, at the
age
of eight, he was drawn to the trumpet in a music appreciation class.
“They had a room with a bunch of different instruments on a table and I
picked up the trumpet,” recalls Alpert. “It took a long time before I made
