On a different stage

The way Herb Alpert sees it, his sculptures are “visual music.” They are songs to be listened to, just like anything the famed trumpeter ever recorded with his Tijuana Brass.

Beginning this week, anyone wanting to take a listen to Alpert’s sculptures will have three opportunities. Twenty-six of his “spirit totems” are on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Another five of his towering, 1,000-pound bronze pieces dot the Pasadena Civic Auditorium Plaza and the Green Street entrance to the Paseo Colorado mall.

Sculpting “is very close to playing the trumpet. It’s very improvisational,” says Alpert, who’s been sculpting for 20 years, painting for 35 and playing trumpet since he was 8. Now 70, he paints, sculpts and trumpets every day.

“Making music, we’ve all heard the great artists and great composers, and you cull from each of them. You pick and choose things you like and come up with your own, hopefully, version of what your insides are responding to,” Alpert says.

“In art, I think it’s the same. I’ve seen the Rodins and Henry Moores, not that I try to copy them, but I certainly bounced off of what I was feeling when I saw their work, so I think of it like a tune -- you take a standard song and you scramble it up.”

*

Susan Carpenter

*

Spirit Totems: Herb Alpert Sculpture 1995-2005, Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E. Union St.; Pasadena Civic Auditorium Plaza, 300 E. Green St.; and Paseo Colorado, 280 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Saturday through Feb. 19. Daily except PMCA (noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday). Free, except PMCA ($6-$4). (626) 568-3665 or www.pmcaonline.org.