Brazil '66 Legend Lani Hall and Herb 'The Lonely Bull' Alpert Help Make a Pretty World of Centered People

Our world is populated with wonderful people, who love, give, create and share with God's own grace.

The Hollywood creeps, the City Hall sneaks, the White House oafs and psychopathic haters who dominate our media would have us believe the world is toast and needs a fork stuck in it.

Not so.

I am an empiricist, a south side Catholic one to be sure , but a skeptical observer of the passing scene -Tell a tourist, Bub,  I live here. I run encounter great people.

Last night, I was treated to a 65th birthday fete, by Miss Sullivan, a woman of extraordinary beauty, grace and deportment, that began with brisk walk through Little Italy to Rosebud on Taylor Street.  The lady enjoyed Veal Piccata and I the sinful Eggplant Parmesan, followed by a shared scoop of Lemon Sorbet.  We walked off this meal and went to my car for the present - Seats at Chicago Winery for Lani Hall and Herb Alpert!

This is what I'm talking about!



We sat with strangers who turned out to share paths in our lives- one woman is the sister of the owner of Katerina's on Irving Park Road, where Terry Sullivan sang with her trios and the other woman and her husband owned property near La Lumiere School, where I taught for years.  We both know and love a woman Jane Lindborg, who cooked for the school and authored the delightful quasi-memoir Tappy in 2002.

Strangers no more three couples two native Lakeview couples, my emigrant Buckeye beauty and this cynical south sider swapped yarns, memories and associations as if were familiars at a Leo Alumni dinner.  We don't know if we were Hilary voters, or Deplorables; we were enjoying each others company.

Lani Hall and Herb Alpert had packed Chicago Winery with people who love their music and what it did for us as people.

The couple is madly in love -- 43 years and change.  Herb Alpert, the Steve Stunning record label tycoon and savvy musician of the 1960's met Lani Hall, a Chicago girl from Lawrence and Kimball and a Von Steuben High grad through Sergio Mendez.  Mendez discovered Lani Hall at a north side pub and added her to the roster of Brazil '66 which had signed with Alpert's A & M records.

The love between is as real the examples I see at Mass at Scared Heart in Morgan Park and all around my immediate neighborhood and beyond.

My empirical senses were reignited after weeks of navel-gazingly horrible news on air and in print.

This is a Pretty World !

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Mas Que Nada!



That's Portuguese for  "Yeah, right!" - in a good way.

The Alperts are Evergreen - Lani and Herb Having a Great Time

I had one hell of a great day yesterday, October 15, 2016.

At 8:30 AM the exquisite Miss Terry Sullivan and I drove through Roseland taking my time-honored 107th Street to Cottage Grove North to 103rd Street East to Torrance Ave, South to 106th East past Pat Carroll's iconic Crow Bar and the mouthwatering Birreria Ocotlon. onto Indianapolis Boulevard south into the wilds of Indiana and the blue collar Gold Coast of Whiting.

We made it from Morgan Park to Whiting in under forty minutes and arrived at St. Adalbert's Catholic Church founded in 1906 by Polish steel and oil refinery workers.  Like Bridgeport, there is a National Catholic Church and more than a few Croatian Hussite, Serbian Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches every fifty feet.  The huge St. John the Baptist Catholic Church was the "english' or American, or Irish church and it dominates the landscape of Whiting/Robertsdale/Hammond along the Skyway over Wolf Lake.

We were guests at a wedding! It was a Tridentine Latin Mass and the music was wonderful.  After the Mass we drove south on Indy to Ridge Road and the Polish Discalced Carmelite Fathers Shrine to Our Lady - a maginficent piece of scared real estate that encompasses shrines, chapels, meeting halls, meditation walks, living rosary paths and a banquet hall.

The wedding party was blessed by the Bishop of Gary.  We sat with couples from Toronto, Minnesota and the Glynns who live across the tracks from me in Sawmill Lane.  There were scores of babies, toddlers and little guys grooving to the tunes. Great food by the way - family style chicken, beef, spuds and vegetables.  We took it easy on the portions - I mean I did, as our early evening appointment was looming - Parker's in Downers Grove.

We said our farewells to Bride and Groom and all and sundry and headed to 80/94 and the route home - Borman to bishop Ford to 1-57 to 111th to 107th and change our Sunday go-to- meeting duds at Casa Hickey. Quick change and onto the peak of the day - dinner at Parker's and the a concert by Herb Alpert and his Chicago-born bride, the brilliant singer Lani Hall.

Lani Hall hit the switch on my adolescent hormones, in 1966 when she and the strawberry blonde ignited males planet wide when introduced to America by Eartha Kitt!



With Sergio Medez, Lani Hall managed to improve tastes in music among my generation. Brazilian jazz, pop improvements - the Beatles wish their version Fool on the Hill was as good as Brazil '66.  Paul McCartney is no Lani Hall, Bub.




Lani Hall was the voice we always recognized, but never seemed to recall the person offering it up.  Who's Lani Hall?  A great lady and married to Herb Alpert.

I never had much love for the Tijuana Brass, though I did love the Whipped Cream album cover.  I always thought Herb Alpert's Brass was too Mitch Miller Square - you know - sounds like Game Show Music. 

Wrong.

Okay I have loved Lani Hall's voice for forty years and change and I sniffed at the work of man with whom she has been married to for as long.

This Guy's In Love With Her!   More so - she with him!

Last night, I wanted to hear Lani Hall and worried that I would be fogged by Lonely Bull, Casino Royale and stuff like that.  Herb Alpert reworks good songs fusing many genres, jazz, pop, hip-hop and innovative flourishes his side men freely work-out beyond the practiced charts.

He and Lani Hall repeatedly used the word Evergreen to connect songs that have worked for generations with people of good natures.  The song Besa Me Mucho *was said to have been written by a 16 year old Mexican girl, but the tune is one of the most recorded worldwide.  Evergreen is a connection and it explains Lani and Herb.  Get a load of this



Herb Alpert is a fun guy.  Alpert laments the loss of good music for inflated bass riffs and idiotic lyrics.  He has a deeply sweet nature that pokes fun at himself and a sharply professional musicianship that offers only what people deserve to hear. He respects his craft, his partners, his wife, himself and most of all the people laying down scores of dollars and filling the seats of McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage - there was not a seat open for this show.

Herb  Alpert founded A/M Records in 1962 with his pal Jerry Moss.  Alpert is a genius and an exacting perfectionist on himself.  His trumpet work is remarkable.  Albert asks the audience to speak up, as do many performers, but Alpert actually means it.  He treats the audience with respect and easy good humor.  For the opening minutes, Alpert and the three great musicians with him.


Lani Hall was sensational, beautiful, sweet and very much in love his her guy - Herb is a lucky guy.