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Herman “Trigger” Alpert was born on September 3, 1916 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Attending Indiana University, he studied the bass and soon after was playing with guitarist Alvino Rey in New York City. In the early 1940s he toured with the Glenn Miller band and his enthusiastic playing style can be witnessed during a 1941 performance of In The Mood in Sun Valley Serenade.

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.

Until the late 1960s, Trigger was a member of the CBS Orchestra and the CBS band for the television series the Garry Moore Show with Carol Burnett and the Barbra Streisand television specials My Name Is Barbra and Color Me Barbra.

Alpert wrote two instructional books: Walking the Bass in 1958 and the Electric Bass in 1968. He recorded a single album as a leader titled Trigger Happy on the Riverside label in 1956.

Retiring from music in 1970, he made his longtime interest in portrait photography a full-time profession. Bassist Trigger Alpert passed away on December 21, 2013 at an assisted living facility in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

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