Biographies
Herb Alpert and Gil Friesen
Alpert and Friesen were two-thirds of the remarkable triumvi-
rate that, with Jerry Moss, headed the A&M record label.
They sold the company to Polygram for more than $500 mil-
lion in 1990. As a performer, Alpert and his Tijuana Brass
were an important part of the popular music scene of the
1960s. In addition to accumulating platinum records and
Grammy Awards, Alpert is an inventive business leader, artist,
and head of the Herb Alpert Foundation. Friesen, who started
as general manager of A&M, became president in 1977. After
broadening A&M’s musical mix, Friesen established A&M
Films. The sensitive study of adolescence, The Breakfast Club,
was among the operation’s box-office successes. Friesen left
the company in 1997 and was a founding partner of Classic
Sports, a cable network sold to ESPN in 1997. In 2000, Alpert
and Moss sold Rondor, their music publishing company, to
Universal Music Group for an estimated $400 million. In
2002, they stood to make more than $200 million on the deal,0465014088_rm.qxd:0738208175_rm.qxd 12/5/08 10:54 AM Page 227