Interviewed: Herb Albert

Louis Armstrong

 

Close My Eyes

By a Herb Alpert 


"I have a classical background. I studied classical music for 12 years. Then, all of a sudden, I heard Louis Armstrong and Miles, Clifford Brown and Chet Baker and I wanted to do some of that. I wanted to close my eyes and just play whatever came out. When you're playing classical music you're interpreting the music through the composer. Not only the notes but above the notes he has how he wants it played (loud, soft etc). You don't really have a chance to be creative. You have to be creative through the eyes of the composer. When I started playing my music I started copying my favorite musicians. I could play a little bit like Louie, all the guys that I liked. After awhile I realized, "who really wants to hear that?" They've already done it. That was my "ah-ha" moment. I had to come up with my own voice, my own style, my own way of doing it if I was ever going to succeed in that business.

"When I met the great Sam Cooke I learned a lot of lessons. He didn't know he was giving me lessons but I was watching how he approached everything. He was a great artist and a genius. He came out of "the gospel field" and everything he sang was meaningful."

There's two groups of musicians; especially improvisational musicians. There are the musicians that are playing the right notes. They play high and low, all the right notes and chords. They have everything going but you're listening to them and you're staring at the wall wondering why it's not getting to you. Then they're the musicians who are searching for the right notes. Guys like Miles, Coltrane, Chet, Louie and Coleman Hawkins. They didn't care if you liked it or not they were just playing stuff that was coming from a very deep place.

One of things I'm really thinking about these days is that jazz needs a renaissance. We need the new Miles coming out here. The new guys who are going to push it forward. To play the song and take a chorus or take three choruses and let the piano player do it and give the bass player a chance to play I think is old stuff."

Excerpt from my interview with Herb Albert from today's (8.16.15) broadcast of the Jake Feinberg Show 

John Coltrane