In a career spanning five decades, pianist Monty Alexander has distinctively bridged the worlds of jazz, popular song, and the music of his native Jamaica. With over 70 albums to his name, Alexander celebrates his 50th year in music with his newest release - Monty Alexander: Harlem-Kingston Express: Live, his debut on the innovative Motéma label. The album presents Alexander's most 'reggaefied' touring group yet, which for past few years has defined a bold new chapter in his life-long journey of uniting jazz with reggae and a wide array of other Island musical idioms that he holds dear.Alexander has been on the express track his whole life and now, in this 50th year of phenomenal musicianship, he shows no sign of slowing down. In 1961, the urban sophistication of jazz and the American songbook, and an invitation to accompany none other than Frank Sinatra, lured the teen prodigy Alexander away from Jamaica and the art form most associated with that nation. The move led to an extraordinary career in jazz, reggae and popular song including collaboration with greats such as Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Bill Cosby and Bobby McFerrin.
Though for a long while, Alexander left behind the down-home, one-love spirit of Island music, through the years - encouraged in part by the emergence of reggae as an international force - he began incorporating Jamaican references into his jazz performances, eventually recording several Bob Marley songbook reggae focused projects in the 1990s. Those efforts involved bringing Jamaican melodic themes into a jazz context, as opposed to reaching for an authentic reggae sound. He has also recorded several specifically reggae focused projects, but this is the first recording to fully incorporate the 'Full Monty' spectrum from authentic jazz to authentic reggae and all of the shadings in between.
Though his widest reputation is as a jazz artist, Alexander actually grew up deep inside the Jamaican "yard" movement. His first band, "Monty and The Cyclones," was focused on native Jamaican music (mento, ska and R&B and his performances can be heard on seminal reggae recordings from Federal Recording Studio (that later launched the careers of Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley, among others). To this day, 'Commander 'Zander' [as his reggae mates have called him since the Jamaican government bestowed the national honor of "Commander in the Order of Distinction" upon him in 2000] - maintains close ties with top figures in the genre, including Ernest Ranglin, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, as well as distinguished producers such as Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd and Duke Reid as well as Island records impresario, Chris Blackwell.
With Harlem-Kingston Express: Live, Alexander returns to his roots, extending all the way into reggae dance-hall territory, while also utilizing the full spectrum of jazz composition and performance that has earned him his moniker as a legend of jazz. A photo of his stage set up in the centerfold of the CD booklet reveals the secret to his new sound: On his left sits "Harlem," a traditional jazz rhythm section featuring Obed Calvaire on drums, Hassan Shakur on acoustic bass, and Yotam Silberstein on guitar; and on his right sits "Kingston," a roots-rock posse featuring the seasoned reggae artists, Karl Wright on drums, Hoova Simpson on electric bass, Andy Bassford on electric skank guitar and Alexander's long-time compadre, Robert "Bobby T" Thomas on hand drums, stretching out across center stage with a dance-hall worthy percussion arsenal. In the middle of these two units sits "Commander 'Zander" happily at the helm, 'driving' his piano and swinging the sound seamlessly from jazz quartet to reggae five-some to nine-piece fusion and back again throughout the night according to his musical whim and design.
Alexander's infectious joy of performing reaches yet a new height in this new configuration. "It was a while before I said [to myself], 'If I want to do this music and [be free to] pick from the whole palette - everything from my own piece to Duke Ellington, to Bob Marley - then I need to bring two rhythm sections together,'" explains Alexander. "That way, it all can be available to me, whatever I feel, the whole time. Because I feel American and I feel Jamaican, and the rhythms that come from the street and the country in America are just as meaningful to me as the vibrations that come from Jamaica. It's like, [my] left hand and [my] right hand."
Monty's Harlem-Kingston Express band configuration is an international crowd-pleaser, as can be heard from the robust and spontaneous applause outbursts peppering the proceedings on this release consisting of tracks drawn from live performances in five countries - U.S., Jamaica, France, Germany, and Holland - over the course of four years (2006 through 2010), and seamlessly assembled into a 'one world' traveling concert that reflects not only Alexander's life experience, but also his life philosophy. The majority of the album was recorded live during the group's triumphant week at New York City's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola (Jazz At Lincoln Center) in June 2010. The Wall Street Journal's Pia Catton hailed that engagement as "an outrageously good time," and later published the performance as number one on his "Top Five" list of favorite New York concerts of that Summer.
Motéma label founder and president Jana Herzen, (a long-time reggae fan who once played professionally in the genre) also caught Alexander at Dizzy's and loved the show. It was Todd Barkan - the distinguished producer, presenter and Dizzy's Artistic Director - who introduced Herzen to Alexander and suggested that Motéma would be a perfect home for Alexander's Harlem-Kingston Express: Live disc.
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