“I really wasn’t aware of what was happening in New York at the time. But L.A. seemed to have its own flavor. There was the Lighthouse at Hermosa Beach and [drummer] Shelly [Manne]’s Manne Hole, a great venue for jazz musicians.” Alpert’s ears were wide open: Cool jazz trumpeters were but one style in a litany of influences shaping his instrumental approach during the first half of the ’50s.

“I started by copying others – I was [big-band leader] Harry James for a minute. I was [Mexican virtuoso] Rafael Mendez, and a little bit of [swing-era star and “Dragnet” theme composer] Ray Anthony thrown in there. [Swing-era stalwart] Randy Brooks was another one that I used to listen to, and [traditionalist] Ruby Braff.

“Then when we got to [hard bop great] Clifford Brown, that scared me. I wanted to put my horn in the case for a while. It hit me that who cares to hear a copy of someone else’s thing. So that’s when I started thinking about my own sound.”

After a stint in the Army, Alpert returned home determined to find “my own identity.” Taking a cue from the guitarist Les Paul, he began to experiment with sound-on-sound techniques: recording one musical performance on top of another, doubling trumpet lines, playing with call-and-response ideas.

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