Los Angeles Times Magazine
Adam Robert, Los Angeles Times Magazine -

Herb Alpert, the Latin-influenced jazz-pop trumpeter and bandleader who topped the charts in the '60s and '70s with the Tijuana Brass, has taken home seven Grammy Awards during his four-decade career. And if all goes well tonight at Staples Center, he will need to make room on the mantel for No. 8, he's nominated for a tune called "Chasing Shadows."

Although Alpert is best known for his music, the Los Angeles native has piled a lot on his plate during the last 40 years as a record company mogul (A&M Records), Broadway producer ("Angels in America") Abstract Expressionist painter and philanthropist. Just last year, he added restaurateur to his credits when he opened Vibrato, a grill and jazz club at he top of Beverly Glen, with the Pasadena-based Smith Brothers Restaurant Corp.

That may not come as much of a surprise to anyone who remembers Alpert's 1965 break-though album "Whipped Cream & Other Delights," a food-themed album with a track listing that reads like a shopping list ("Whipped Cream," "Ladyfingers" and "Peanuts" to name a few). One song, "A Taste of Honey," won him his first three Grammys. But what made it memorable to legions of American males was an album cover that pictured a young woman wearing nothing more than whipped cream.

"At the time my partner and I both thought it was pushing the envelope," Alpert says of the dairy-clad dame. "A lot of people did come up to me, and they were particularly crazy about it- not necessarily the record but the album cover."

As for the countless meals he's consumed on the road, he says " the food [at the jazz club] has always been a kind of second-class citizen. It's the music first, and then let's throw a pizza on or something."

Now Alpert, who once hoped to open a place his buddy Stan Getz, the late jazz saxophonist, has an upscale jazz club with food to match. "I was involved in everything," he says. "The look, the feeling of the place, the music, the food. I was very concerned that the acoustics be beautiful." For the right sound, he hired the acoustical engineer who worked on his A&M studios.

And what does the man who topped the charts with a dessert-topping title have for dessert at his restaurant? "We keep changing the menu," he says. "But at the moment there's Up-Side-Down Banana Cake, which is quite good." It's served with whipped cream. - ADAM ROBERT, Los Angeles Times Magazine, February 13, 2005.

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