Listen by Herb Alpert c1988

Listen by Herb Alpert: launched in 1988.

In 1986, Herb Alpert started the H. Alpert and Co., a short-lived perfume company, which sold their fragrances through higher-end department stores like Nordstrom and Macy's. The company launched with two scents, Listen (for women) and Listen for Men.

Herb Alpert's Listen played on his fame as a musician. The ad slogan read: "Once in a great while there comes a fragrance that hits the perfect note. All you have to do is listen."

Alpert saw a connection between music and fragrance, saying "yeah, some music stinks bad." He recalled times where he shook hands with others and their too-heavily handed fragrances lingered unappealingly on him. 

Herb Alpert`s press release explains his entrée into the world of perfume this way: "I was tired of being attacked in elevators by pungent fragrances. About three years ago I was hugged by a woman who was wearing a very strong fragrance. To me, the scent was too sweet, biting and offensive. It lingered on my suit, face and hair and I couldn't get it off for the rest of the day! I thought this is silly. Maybe it's time to come up with something softer and easier to be around. I should do my own fragrance. It was at that moment the seed was planted. Probably to outdo hers."

Later on, he`s quoted as saying, "Fragrances are very important to people. They're very romantic and memorable. Now and then I pass by someone with a fragrance that reminds me of a girl I used to date in high school. When you get the first hit of the fragrance, that's the knockout punch, it`s like a great sound you want to hear over and over again."

HE claimed he got the initial idea for the fragrance by mixing various bottles of perfume and cologne in his bathroom, or as he put it, "my chemistry lab at home." Alpert said "I never thought I'd be involved in the cosmetic business. It was the farthest thing from my mind. During the last five years, I would take various fragrances and try to combine the, to come up with something that would be fun for me to wear - all the popular fragrances, musk and Chanel and Old Spice and a bunch of things you'd neve think of mixing. And every now and then I'd come up with something interesting, but with the worst look - it would be all foggy." Alpert said he initially wanted to create a unisex fragrance, and said "I came up with one, but it didn't quite materialize. I actually took the fragrance to a lab in LA and they tried to synthesize it." But something was lost in the translation and Alpert said he was "turned off" with the idea of the unisex fragrance and the project was shelved.

He said he "saw fragrances as beautiful songs. When they're right, they can last forever. It's like a great album. I like Joy, it's a perennial that lives on. I like L'Air du Temps. I could write a song for Chanel No.5 if they paid me enough money."

Alpert met his partner Miriam Novalle, when he was working on a music video in New York. Novalle who described herself as a "self-taught nose", told Alpert that she at one time owned a custom fragrance boutique on Martha's Vineyard. Alpert must have been impressed as he said, "I told her if I ever could find a magical scent I would go into it because we don't need just another women's perfume, there are hundreds out there, and she took the ball and started running with it."

The two met up, exchanged ideas and formed the H. Alpert & Co business. Alpert said he had a definite idea about the kind of scent he wanted. "I wanted a floral scent, and nothing tacky, not like when you get into an elevator and it's like - tag, you're it - and you've got it all day - it's there for ever whether you like it or not, like Giorgio. I wanted it to be positive."

Alpert said that he went to New York to meet the executives at different perfume companies. "I was astounded, because they were talking to me in the same jargon that exists in music. And little by little, I finally found a fragrance that I thought was really wonderful."

He said Novalle came up with a "brilliant" idea to have the perfumers listen to his music through headphones while mixing fragrances, so they went to Roure, Inc, one of the world's largest perfumers, with their idea for a new woman's fragrance. They requested that while the perfumers worked on the formula for Listen, they would have to listen to Alpert's albums from his Tijuana Brass days onward. Alpert said that "was Miriam's idea. It was a stroke of genius."

The working titles in progress bore not numbers as is the general custom, but musical names such as "Brass," "Flute, "Trumpet," and "Cello." Alpert said he was involved with every decision in the development of the fragrance. He said that "In fact, the last description I gave the perfumers was that I wanted the sound of a good Frank Sinatra record, where his voice was the distinctive personality, yet ut was surrounded by complementary players, horns, guitars, bass, etc. Sometimes you hear a record and there's a confused arrangement, no one personality leading it. It becomes a very crowded listen. That seemed to spark an idea from Roure."

"Like music, perfume is composed of many different notes, which are blended together in harmonious compositions," said Jim Bell (who helped jazz trumpeter Herb Alpert create Listen), "Whether you're inventing a fragrance.." Bell said he spent five years mixing his own curiosities in a lab at home before coming up with the final formula for Listen.

Alpert was pleased with the result, saying that it has its own identity, its own scent-sound. "When I smell Listen it brings certain romantic, lovely, sensual memories to mind. Listen is a woman's fragrance from a man's point of view. It is the way I've always thought a woman's fragrance should be...vibrant and romantic with a lyrical quality - like the notes of a wonderful song."

Tom Virtue, Roure's president explained that Alpert "always wanted [a fragrance]. He feels it's an extension of music. He wanted to create in another art form. He'll have a wonderful top note in a high floral pitch."

Alpert said that he discovered that the perfume industry borrows freely from music, saying, "When I started dealing with perfumers, they talked my language, musical terms - high end, low end, top note, attack, opening note, mid range, bass, and treble - you can direct your scent in those terms. That's what intrigued me. The idea that I could communicate to perfumers, that they speak a similar language as I do when I'm making a record."

However, he said that the perfume business is not as easy as the music business.

Alpert mentioned that cosmetics companies don't just package a good product like an album, "they ram it down your throat...the smell is not that important." Although Alpert said that "I'm not looking at it as celebrity just using his name. I think of it as a wonderful song that will linger on. I think of placing 100% of the importance on the fragrance itself. It bothers me that all these celebrities are doing these perfumes. I don't think it's fair. I think they're just lending their name to it and they're really not involved in the perfume at all, although I think Cher is probably the exception to that rule. I don't want to be just another celebrity lending his name to a fragrance. I'm not going to be going out there doing major promotion. I'm not endorsing it; I'm part of the company. I'm going to play businessman and let "Listen" survive on its own merits."

Alpert said that he wasn't getting involved in the fragrance business for the money, "I got into it for the excitement. I think that its possible for people who live out of the right side of their brain...if the dollar isn't the goal...it's just about doing nice and creative things."

Alpert introduced his fragrance for women early at a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in August of 1988. Each woman in the crowd was handed a long-stemmed red rose and a small folded card. "The scent of music is in your hands," said the card, which was saturated with "a noteworthy new fragrance for women from H. Alpert & Co." More than a week after the concert, some women said that the card could still be smelled from several feet away. The card had a phone number to call for more information on the perfume. The fragrances would not hit the shelves until a few months later so operators took down customer's names and addresses so that an information packet could be sent out a few weeks later. 

Alpert composed and performed the score for the perfume's television commercials. Although Alpert is never mentioned by name (only H. Alpert & Co.), he is shown in silhouette playing the trumpet. He jokingly said "It's not really me. It's Chuck Mangione - just kidding." The unusual tv ad featured women in futuristic silver suits forming the perfume bottle as it emerges from Alpert's trumpet. The women are transformed into musical notes which then disappear into thin air.

Alpert's formal introduction of the fragrance was launched at a swanky Los Angeles party at A&M Studios in December 1988.

The jazz trumpeter did do a series of tours around the nation in order to introduce the public to his fragrance. After having a small reception with the store's salespeople, he met with customers and signed their bottles. Department stores were redecorated in honor of the perfume, the windows of all the quality Broadway shops were all devoted to Listen, even the landmark Macy's awnings were replaced with new ones with the name "Listen" on them. A roll of carpet also featuring the perfume name was rolled from the front door of the store to the back and every column and pedestal was adorned with a white neon trumpet. The last time Macy's went bonkers with a perfume promotion was in 1987 when Cher revealed her Uninhibited fragrance. 

In 1990, in the spirit of environmental goodwill, Herb Alpert and the American Forestry Association offered consumers a way to help reforest the planet with minimal effort. Each shopped who bought a gift bottle of Listen could also have a tree planted in their friend's names. When shoppers purchased a Listen product, they filled out a card and sent it back to H. Alpert & Co. Each card returned represented one tree planted. The project was called Listen/Global Releaf, and its goal was to plant 100 million trees by 1992. Experts on the project said that by planting a tree, consumers could help ease the "greenhouse effect," decrease the need for air conditioning and heating and help replenish forests in which millions of trees had been lost because of fire and drought.

Fragrance Composition:

So what does it smell like? It is classified as a fruity floral chypre fragrance for women. It is vibrant, original - a delightful melody of florals, spices and woods. It blends delicate notes of lily of the valley with lemon and bergamot, layered over warm, woody tones entwined with the seductive musky accord close this lingering, whisper soft fragrance.

• Top notes: marigold, ylang ylang, lily of the valley, geranium, tangerine, bergamot, peach, melon, neroli, coriander, grapefruit
• Middle Notes: gardenia, rose, jasmine, hyacinth, eucalyptus, violet, lilac
• Base Notes: oakmoss, musk, vetiver, patchouli, sandalwood

Bottle:

The bottle was shaped like the bell of a trumpet and designed by Pierre Dinand in 1988. It was manufactured by both Verreries Brosse and Pochet et du Courval with plastic components supplied by Auriplast. The original bottle was made of glass and silvertone metal and a frosted plastic cap. 

Listen was available in the following:

• 1/4 oz refillable parfum purse spray
• 1/2 oz Parfum Splash
• 1.7 oz Eau de Parfum Splash
• 1.7 oz Eau de parfum Spray
• 3.4 oz Eau de Parfum Spray
• soap

Fate of the Fragrance:

The perfume was a failure but was reformulated sometime in the early 1990s, the bottle was changed to an all glass version. The perfume has since been discontinued since about 1994-1995.