The Hollywood Bowl was by no means a lonely bowl Sunday night, as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass returned to pack the storied venue for the first time in 59 years. The Brass’s Cahuenga Pass comeback came not a moment too soon, with the band leader proudly bragging about his age… as one does, and should, when one is this undiminished by the years. “This is a dream come true for me,” Alpert crowed. “I never thought I’d be doing this at 91.”
Some of the rest of us might have imagined it, if only because Alpert clearly has the best shot of any of us of living forever. But the odds were longer that he’d be doing an official Tijuana Brass show at this age, or any age, because he previously hadn’t shown much interest in reviving his 1960s band brand as a concept for an entire tour. Family members and business partners convinced him that if he built this more purposefully nostalgic a show, they would come, in bigger numbers and with more of a heightened sense of celebration. The prophecy came true last fall, when Alpert and the Brass sold out all shows on a theater tour that climaxed in November in a buzzy pair of appearances down the street at the Dolby Theatre. Clearly it was time to move the party uphill this summer, to a venue where the sense of time travel could be all-encompassing. Alpert at the Bowl, doing a nearly all-’60s set, feels like a case of game recognizing game.
