Lani & Herb

We felt a bit like Bea and Angie at the Stardust Ballroom this evening because Jazz at Lincoln Center was certainly full of "middle-aged people reliving their youth" as Herb Alpert (of the Tijuana Brass) and his wife Lani Hall (of Sergio Mendes & the Brasil '66) took the stage to launch their new album I FEEL YOU.

Mr. Alpert is greyer these days and adorably befuddled but, as Miles Davis once said, you only have to hear three notes on a horn to know that it's Herb Alpert. That voice is unchanged (remember "This Guy's in Love With You"?) and time has stood still for the magical Lani. They were joined on the Allen Room stage by pianist and vocalist Bill Cantos...

who has hair like a shampoo commercial...Bass player Hussain Jiffry...

and drummer Michael Shapiro...

who played every percussion instrument in sight: bongos, boxes, bells, maracas, ratchets, strange "dream-catcher"-like objects that jangled and rattled, and even his own chest.

The entire programme was transporting but selected highlights (culled from the new album and their previous release "Anything Goes) included "Viola" (Edu Lobo & Jose Carlos Capinan), a haunting "Let's Face the Music and Dance" (Irving Berlin), Alpert's touching understated "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" sung directly to his wife, "Blackbird" (Lennon/McCartney), "Anything Goes" as a ballad!(Cole Porter), and the obligatory crowd pleasers, the Tijuana Brass medley including "Lonely Bull", "Whipped Cream", "Tijuana Taxi" and "A Taste of Honey", and an all-too-brief tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim. Alpert chatted with a charming vagueness between songs, taking questions from the audience (Did they keep in touch with Sergio Mendes? Yes, they attended his 70th birthday only last week) and showing off some new high-tech gadgets onstage including a sound-delay gizmo that Lani was amusingly terrified to operate during Herb's performance of Gilbert Becaud's  "What Now, My Love".

Again, it was difficult not to be distracted by that floor-to-ceiling glass wall behind the stage offering an intoxicating view of Central Park South.  By a trick of reflection it appears that the lights of 59th St continue forever up into the heavens which caused tt to have something resembling an out-of-body experience while listening to a sublime interpretation of "Laura".

Glorious.