Trigger Alpert

Music career

A native of Indianapolis, Alpert attended Indiana University, where he studied music. Soon after, he played with guitarist Alvino Rey in New York City, then toured with the Glenn Miller band in the early 1940s. During the rest of the decade, he worked with Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Bud Freeman, Woody Herman, Jerry Jerome, Bernie Leighton, Ray McKinley, Frank Sinatra, and Muggsy Spanier. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he recorded as a sideman with Don Elliott, Coleman Hawkins, Gene Krupa, Mundell Lowe, Buddy Rich, Artie Shaw, and the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra. Alpert's only album as a leader was Trigger Happy (Riverside, 1956), which he recorded with Al Cohn, Urbie Green, Tony Scott, Ed Shaughnessy, Zoot Sims, and Joe Wilder.

He was a member of the CBS Orchestra with a rhythm section of Hank Jones, Sonny Igoe, and Chuck Wayne until the late 1960s. He was with the CBS band for the television series the Garry Moore Show with Carol Burnett and with Barbra Streisand for the television specials My Name Is Barbra and Color Me Barbra.

Alpert wrote two instructional books: Walking the Bass (1958) and the Electric Bass (1968).

In 1970 he made his longtime interest in portrait photography a full-time profession. He died on December 21, 2013, at an assisted living facility in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

As leader

As sideman

With Coleman Hawkins

With Mundell Lowe

With Glenn Miller

With Ella Fitzgerald

With Buddy Rich

With others