Veteran trumpeter Herb Alpert shows no signs of slowing down. He released his 49th studio album last week. And his 1965 tune "Ladyfingers" has somehow resurfaced and chalked up more than 200 million views on TikTok.
"Do you know TikTok?" Alpert asked a capacity crowd Tuesday night at the Ordway in St. Paul.
Few in the baby-boomer audience responded affirmatively. But they had plenty of questions for him, which he invited throughout his 1¾-hour crowd-pleasing performance with his singing wife, Lani Hall.
"What's your favorite song?" "Do you paint with watercolors?" "How long have you been married?"
Alpert may be a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, the cofounder of hugely successful A&M Records (Peter Frampton, the Police, Janet Jackson) and the leader of one of the best-selling pop instrumental groups of all time (the Tijuana Brass). But he's really a jazz musician at heart, and improv is his thing. He's an in-the-moment kind of guy.
That was the theme of his delightfully informal and thoroughly enjoyable concert.
When you're 88 years old, celebrating the 60th anniversary of your recording career and 50th anniversary of your marriage, you've probably got some leeway. So you have a set list but you still wing it. You talk a lot, turning the concert into a rambling but informative monologue about your songs, life and career — with a few fun tangents like why a musician friend who spoke little English named an instrumental "Push Pull" (because he saw signs on restroom doors). And you let your three musicians — six-string bassist Hussain Jiffry, drummer Tiki Pasillas and keyboardist Bill Cantos — stretch out during their solos.
To be sure, there were well-rehearsed medleys, especially the trumpeter's big instrumental hits starting with 1979's "Rise" and then breezing through several 1960s Tijuana Brass favorites including "Spanish Flea," "The Lonely Bull" and "A Taste of Honey."