Trumpeter and A&M Records co-founder Herb Alpert, left, with New Orleans Jazz Museum director Greg Lambousy.

Some remarkable numbers relate to trumpeter, composer and music industry legend Herb Alpert.

72 million: the number of albums he sold as leader of the Tijuana Brass. "Whipped Cream & Other Delights," with its Allen Toussaint-penned title track, accounted for several million of them.

$500 million: the sum Alpert and partner Jerry Moss sold their A&M Records for in the late 1980s. The label's catalog included the Police, Janet Jackson, the Carpenters, Cat Stevens, Peter Frampton, Styx, Supertramp, Sting, Joe Cocker, Bryan Adams, the Neville Brothers and many others.

$5 million: the matching grant Alpert's foundation gave the New Orleans Jazz Museum, making him the largest benefactor of the institution inside the Old U.S. Mint at the foot of Esplanade Avenue.

89: Alpert's current age.

On Saturday, Dec. 14, he and his wife, vocalist Lani Hall - a member of Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 when Alpert signed the group to A&M in the 1960s - bring their Christmas show to the Jefferson Performing Arts Center in Metairie. Tickets are still available.

The following interview with Alpert, edited for length and clarity, is from a recent episode of WLAE-TV's "Let's Talk with Keith Spera."

How did you first get involved with the New Orleans Jazz Museum?

I was in New Orleans several years ago and somebody took me through the jazz museum. I was disappointed. I thought, "This should be the No. 1 jazz museum in the world. This is the birthplace of jazz."

In a back room, there were things not on display for the average person walking through the museum, like Louis (Armstrong's) mouthpiece. I was amazed that it wasn't being seen properly.

That building was originally for making money (as a mint). It was designed to keep people out. We have to find a way to bring people in.

People often get involved with a project because they think it's great. You got involved with the Jazz Museum because you thought there was room for improvement.

Quite frankly, I was embarrassed. This is your presentation of a jazz museum? It didn't make any sense.

I'm an outsider looking in. I didn't know to what degree I was going to get involved, but I'm glad I did. I think we have some really good things brewing.

You already have a presence at the museum in the form of your "Bass Man" sculpture on the grounds.

Eventually we're putting in a 14-foot trumpet player. It's an image not of me, not of Miles (Davis), not of Louis (Armstrong), not of any known trumpet player. I was trying to sculpt the feeling of playing jazz, the body motion of what it feels like.

I'm not trying to buy my way into the museum by any means. If people love the work and are touched by it, great.

I was surprised that you didn't perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival until 2017.

As a musician and a producer, as soon as you sell a lot of records, which I did, you get pigeonholed: "Is he a jazz musician or a pop musician? He's making all this music that makes a lot of people happy. He's not playing jazz. Whatever he's playing, he got lucky."

Yeah, I am a jazz musician. I think about jazz. I love jazz. It's my favorite art form. Jazz is freedom.

I started as a classically trained musician. At one point, playing in an orchestra, I just said, "I don't want to play everyone else's notes. I want to play my own feelings." That's when jazz became important to me.

I had this unusual experience with Louis Armstrong. I was the emcee of a show and we played a couple things together. I noticed the sound that was coming out of Louis's instrument was the exact person that I met. His feeling and his essence came right out of the instrument.

There are a lot of musicians that are out to impress you - they play high and low and fast and all that. You have to express your inner feelings. That's what jazz is all about. It's not about technical ability.

Jazz has to be deep. The Louis Armstrongs of the world, there is an authenticity about every note they play.

Did you like the Allen Toussaint composition "Whipped Cream" when you first heard it?

I'll tell you what happened. In 1965, I got a call from Henry Hildebrand, who was the distributor for A&M Records in New Orleans. He said, "I heard a song that Al Hirt turned down."

He played it for me over the phone and I really liked it. It had a lilt to it. I asked him to send the demo record.

Three days later, I recorded it. I was into songs and great melodies, but my partner Jerry Moss was a concept person. He said, "Let's do an album called 'Whipped Cream & Other Delights' with a bunch of food titles." That was the genesis of the "Whipped Cream" album.

That album outsold the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra in 1966.

We were at the right place at the right time. When I recorded "The Lonely Bull" in 1962, it took off like a rocket. People were calling us from all over the world wanting to distribute the record.

The success of the Tijuana Brass contributed to the early success of A&M Records, but you and Jerry also built an incredible roster of artists.

I recorded for a major label prior to A&M for a year and a half. I didn't like the way I was treated. I thought that if I ever had the chance to have my own record company, I'd make it revolve around the artists. So that's basically what we did.

We weren't looking for the beat of the week. We weren't looking for the song or the artists that sounded like the Top 10 artists on the charts. We were looking for artists that maybe didn't have a hit record, but if they were given the freedom and inspiration to make their own music, things could work out. That's what happened.

A&M Records released Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive," one of the best-selling concert albums of all time. Was it you that talked Peter into using the talk-box on the guitar solos?

(laughs) No I didn't. But Peter is one of my favorite artists. He's a tremendous person and a lovely human being.

Speaking of tremendous human beings, Quincy Jones recently passed away. You had a long association with him at A&M Records.

Quincy was a love. He helped people. He was humble in his own way, but he had 18 balls in the air at the same time. He had a crystal-sharp brain.

He did the arrangement of "Last Tango in Paris" for me. And Quincy and I produced a single for (jazz and pop vocalist) Billy Eckstine.

Quincy wrote this extended intro. Billy was listening to the intro on his headphones in the studio and he gets on the mic and says, "Hey baby brothers, you could get laid before it's time for me to sing."

A&M Records released two of the Neville Brothers' best albums, "Yellow Moon" and "Brother's Keeper," as well as "Warm Your Heart," "The Grand Tour" and other solo Aaron Neville albums. Were you directly involved in signing the Neville Brothers?

Not involved, but I certainly liked them. (Aaron) had an amazingly unique sound in his voice and a way of presenting his music that was different but real.

That's the whole key to being an artist. You have to be authentic. You can't try to play like somebody else. The other person has already done it. You try to find your own voice and hope for the best.

And you've to be lucky. Luck and timing plays a part in it. If we had tried to start A&M Records in today's environment, I don't think you and I would be talking.

Isn't the company that now owns A&M's assets reviving the name?

I don't know about that. The day I drove out of the A&M lot, I didn't look back. I had other things I wanted to do. I wanted to paint, I wanted to sculpt.

And I continue to make music. It's part of my way of staying healthy. I'm a right-brained guy. I'm a card-carrying introvert. I can entertain myself in my own studio alone. Let me hear a good song and I'll start finding ways to make some music with it.

In 2024, you released your 50th studio album, called "50," which also coincided with your 50th wedding anniversary with Lani Hall. Why is it important to keep making music?

It's important for me to make music and stay creative and exercise my brain with all the doo-dads...it's a completely different world when it comes to making music.

We've had a jazz club in Los Angeles called Vibrato for 18 years. The sad part is there are so many great young jazz musicians that play at this club that you never hear about. It's hard to break through. I try to do my part to help them.

There is no stopping point for your lifelong creative pursuit.

That's the way I see it. I'm very fortunate that I'm able to do what I love to do. I love the idea of waking up each morning and getting excited that I'm either going to paint or sculpt or make some music.

I make music most every day. I try to take songs that people recognize and do them in a way that they haven't been done before. That's always been what I'm after. I've been very fortunate that a lot of people have come along with me.

"Let's Talk with Keith Spera" airs at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and 9:30 p.m. Sundays on WLAE-TV. It also airs multiple times a week on WWNO 89.9 FM.