Marian McPartland's guest in 1991. Known for his rhythmic approach and melodic and harmonic inventiveness, Alexander solos in his original "Look Up" and teams up with McPartland for an unusual duet.
PRESS & MEDIA
An outrageously good time.
Pia Catton,The Wall Street Journal
He is a bebop virtuoso who apprenticed with the
originators of the form, a stalwart champion of the great American songbook, and the world’s foremost avatar of Jamaican jazz.
Will Friedwald, New York Sun (1/2/2023)
Featuring tender ballads and classic swing, the jazz pianist’s trio set was an impeccable performance full of beauty and joy.
Michael J. West, The Washington Post (3/11/2022)
Photo Anatholie
When Monty Alexander sits down at the piano, you can't help but smile. Go ahead, try not to. The jazzman plays with such delight and sense of humor that if your foot's not tapping chances are you might be dead.
Guy MacPherson, The Globe and Mail
Monty Alexander, an effervescent pianist originally from Jamaica, leads a trio powerfully conversant in groove.
Nate Chinen, New York Times
His work is in a sense, a history of Jazz piano … and yet, he distills all these influences into his own style.
Derek Jewel, The London Sunday Times
With his Harlem-Kingston Express, he brings together musicians versed in both reggae and straight-ahead jazz, creating a brew that’s danceable and lilting and often ramps up from hypnotic to electrifying.
Will Friedwald, The Wall Street Journal
Audiences find Monty Alexander’s music instantly accessible, exciting and exhilarating, and they quickly warm to it and respond to it.
Mike Hennessey, Jazz writer/critic, Billboard
Alexander, like film-maker Alfred Hitchock, thrives on suspense and surprise, forever challenging the listener to anticipate his next move, whether a mid-stream shift in key, rhythm, tempo, texture, chord progression, or even song form.
AllaboutJazz
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PRESS THROUGH THE DECADES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
WATCH VIDEOS
Piano solo - Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall
"Abide with Me" - JazzBaltica, Germany 2024
"Restoration" - JazzBaltica, Germany 2024
"D-Day" album teaser (PeeWee! 3/29/2024)
"Eleuthera" - Stockholm Concert Hall
"Sweet Jamaica" - Jazzwoche Burghausen
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BIOGRAPHY
“Even now, it’s one world of music for me,” Alexander says. “I try to remove all the lines. Even though I do this thing and that thing and the other thing, at the end of the day it’s Monty Alexander.”
Nearly sixty years after he moved to the United States from Kingston, Jamaica, his hometown, Grammy nominated legendary pianist Monty Alexander is an American classic, touring the world relentlessly with various projects, delighting a global audience drawn to his vibrant personality and soulful message. A perennial favorite at Jazz Festivals and venues worldwide and at the Montreux Jazz Festival where he has performed and headlined concerts 23 times since 1976, his spirited conception is one informed by the timeless verities: endless melody-making, effervescent grooves, sophisticated voicings, a romantic spirit, and a consistent predisposition, as Alexander accurately states, “to build up the heat and kick up a storm.” In the course of any given performance, Alexander applies those aesthetics to a repertoire spanning a broad range of jazz and Jamaican musical expressions—the American songbook and the blues, gospel and bebop, calypso and reggae—and gives the hardcore-jazz-obsessed much to dig into while also communicating the message to the squarest “civilian.” Documented on more than 75 recordings and cited as the fifth greatest jazz pianist ever in The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time (Hal Leonard Publishing), the Jamaican government designated Alexander Commander in the Order of Distinction in 2000.
Alexander is most widely known as an upper echelon master of the swinging piano trio function, as he has demonstrated with several top-shelf groups, including iconic units with bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton, and with the legendary bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis. The most recent demonstrations of his creative, charismatic trio sensibility are the percolating 2011 dates Uplift and Uplift 2 (JLP), following the sublime 2008 albums, Calypso Blues: The Music of Nat King Cole and The Good Life: Monty Alexander Plays the Songs of Tony Bennett (Chesky). Also in 2008, Alexander was featured pianist on the Tony Bennett-Count Basie Orchestra, A Swinging Christmas.
A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Alexander also performs frequently with Harlem- Kingston Express, a double trio in which he coalesces his love for hard-swinging jazz with musical flavors that reflect his Jamaican heritage, shifting between an acoustic trio and master Jamaican practitioners of electric bass and drums. He debuted the project at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2009, and documented it both on the Grammy-nominated 2011 CD, Harlem-Kingston Express: LIVE, and its 2014 Soultrain Award nominated followup, Harlem Kingston Express 2: The River Rolls On (Motéma).
Born on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Alexander was playing Christmas carols by ear at 4, entertaining neighbors and relatives by 5, taking his first piano lessons at 6. He resisted formal instruction, but still, as a child, absorbed all the musical flavors that comprise his mature sonic palette.
Alexander began playing in local Kingston clubs at 14, when he also made his first recordings, some as leader of a group called Monty and the Cyclones, others as a sideman for such legendary producers as Ken Khouri (Federal Records), Duke Reid (Treasure Isle), and Clement Coxsone Dodd at Studio One. These early sessions for Federal, which Alexander describes as “not calypso music, but the beginning of Ska,” included such subsequently famous talents as trombonist Don Drummond, tenor saxophonist Roland Alphonso and guitarist Ernest Ranglin.
After moving to Miami in 1961, Alexander sublimated Jamaican roots towards establishing a jazz identity. By 1963, he was ensconced in New York City, working regularly at Jilly’s, the West 52nd Street piano bar owned by Frank Sinatra’s close friend Jilly Rizzo. There, for the next four years, Alexander’s trio swung until the wee hours for Sinatra, a mix of celebrity entertainers, tough guys, and iconic jazz musicians like Miles Davis, Count Basie, Milt Jackson, and Roy Haynes. As the 1960s progressed, he also held regular gigs at Minton’s (the iconic Harlem lounge where bebop gestated) and at the Playboy Club, where he met and became friends with Quincy Jones. During these years, he also met Ray Brown and piano giant Oscar Peterson, who recommended Alexander to Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, the proprietor of Germany’s MPS label, for which he made a dozen records between 1971 and 1985.
On two other MPS albums, the still-sampled Rass and Cobilimbo, Alexander explicitly explored Jamaican folk forms, sharing solo and ensemble duties with Ranglin. On Jamento, a 1978 recording for Norman Granz’s Pablo label, he introduced his “ivory and steel” concept of “marrying” steel pan and hand-drums to the acoustic piano trio, foreshadowing his decision on the 1996 album Yard Movement (Island Jamaica Jazz) to play acoustic grand piano with a reggae ensemble incorporating electric guitar and electric bass.
He would continue these explorations on a series of recordings for Telarc—a collaboration with drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare titled Monty Meets Sly and Robbie; interpretations of Bob Marley’s music on Stir It Up and Concrete Jungle, and of a broader Jamaican spectrum on Goin’ Yard.
Alexander’s Jamaican roots also include witnessing the legendary singer-pianist Nat Cole in concert in 1953 at Kingston’s Carib Theater, an experience he regards as transformational, as was his participation in the 1991 CD Unforgettable, Natalie Cole’s 7-Grammy Award winning homage to her father. Other signposts include his performance of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with a full orchestra under the direction of Bobby McFerrin at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, playing piano on the soundtrack of Bird (1988), Clint Eastwood’s Charlie Parker biopic, and on Quincy Jones’ For Love Of Ivy (1968) film score.
In 2012, the Institute of Caribbean Studies in Washington, D.C. honored him with the Luminary Award. In 2012 he also received the German Jazz Trophy, A Life for Jazz.
In 2015, the great modern pianist Donald Vega released With Respect To Monty, which included his interpretations of seven Alexander compositions.
In 2018 the University of The West Indies bestowed him with an honorary doctorate degree (DLitt) in recognition of his accomplishments.
2019 will mark the tenth year anniversary of the Monty Alexander Jazz festival held in Easton, Maryland, every Labor Day weekend since 2010, where Alexander served as the Artistic Director and perennial performer.
In 2022 the Jamaican government conferred on Monty Alexander the national honor of the Order of Jamaica for "Sterling Contributions to the Promotions of Jamaican Music and the Jazz Genre Interpretations Globally".
June 6, 2024, marked the 80th anniversary of the Normandy Landings. It’s also the day Monty Alexander turned 80. The latest release, D-Day (PeeWee!, March 2024) commemorates these events with 11 tracks of war time standards and Monty's original compositions.