Throughout
a career spanning six decades, the New York-based artist Monty Alexander has
garnered acclaim for bridging American jazz, popular song, and the music of his
native Jamaica. The New York Times recently described him as “an effervescent
pianist and one of Jamaica’s proudest musical exports.” The Wall Street Journal
has by turns called him “maybe the first—and certainly the most
successful—musician to combine Jamaican music with North American jazz” and
said that, “Alexander’s blend of jazz and reggae makes for an outrageously good
time.” On April 8, just before Alexander celebrates his 70th birthday, Motéma
Music will release Harlem-Kingston Express Vol. 2: The River Rolls On, the most
seamless integration to date of Alexander’s dual musical heritage.
Although
it accomplished a (seemingly) simple musical hybridization, the eponymous first
release from the Harlem-Kingston Express was not a concept album—at least not
deliberately so. The recording came about serendipitously: It is a 2011 concert
at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York City, for which Alexander merged his jazz
trio with a full Jamaican rhythm section, recorded for broadcast on Sirius XM.
Jana Herzen, founder of Motéma Music, was so moved by the set that she arranged
to release it on her label. The album turned out to be one of the most
acclaimed entries in Alexander’s vast body of work, which includes over 70
recordings with Alexander as leader. Harlem-Kingston Express elicited an
equally warm embrace from reggae and jazz fans and critics, and was nominated
for a 2012 GRAMMY for Best Reggae Album.
For the
new album, Alexander convened the band for its first studio
recordings—primarily at New York City’s Avatar and Dubway. In addition to band
members from the project’s first volume—Alexander (piano), Hassan Shakur
(acoustic bass), Karl Wright and Obed Calvaire (drums), Andy Bassford and Yotam
Silberstein (guitars)—the collection features the keyboardist Earl Appleton,
the electric bassist Joshua Thomas and the percussionist Courtney Panton. They
perform a mix of Alexander originals (which are themselves steeped in both
Caribbean music and American jazz and R&B) and Alexander interpretations of
classics, from the soul hits “People Make the World Go Round” and “What’s Going
On” (here with the alias “Wa’a Gwan”) to Jimmy Cliff’s reggae landmark “The
Harder They Come.” Alexander’s wife, the French-Italian chanteuse Caterina
Zapponi, joins him and the band on the album’s title track.
The
album also includes Alexander’s “Love Notes,” featuring his friends George
Benson, Ramsey Lewis and Joe Sample; a live version of Bob Marley’s “Redemption
Song,” recorded live in 2005 with vocalist Wendel Ferraro; and previously
unreleased live recordings of the Jamaican folk song “Linstead Market” and
Alexander’s “Regulator (Reggae-Later),” both from the original 2011
Harlem-Kingston Express concert at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola.
Harlem-Kingston
Express Vol. 2: The River Rolls On at once encapsulates the current moment in
Alexander’s singular career and finds him returning to its earlier stages: both
his teenage years, when he played on sessions helmed by pioneering reggae
producers Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, Duke Reid and Chris Blackwell, and his first
decades in the U.S., when he had the occasion to record and perform with icons
such as Frank Sinatra, Milt Jackson and Ray Brown, among countless others.
Born on
D-Day (June 6, 1944) and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, he took his first piano
lessons at age six, although he is largely self-taught. As a teenager, he
witnessed concerts by Louis Armstrong and Nat “King” Cole at Kingston’s Carib
Theater. These artists had a profound effect on Alexander’s aspirations. He formed
Monty and the Cyclones in the late 1950s and also recorded on sessions with the
musicians who would catapult Jamaican music to international recognition as The
Skatalites (Bob Marley’s first backing band).
Alexander
and his family came to the United States at the end of 1961. Less than two
years later, while playing in Las Vegas with Art Mooney’s orchestra, he caught
the eye of New York City club owner Jilly Rizzo and his friend, Frank Sinatra.
Rizzo hired the young pianist to work in his club, Jilly’s, where he
accompanied Sinatra and others. There he met Modern Jazz Quartet vibraphonist
Milt Jackson, who hired him and eventually introduced him to former Charlie
Parker collaborator and legendary bassist Ray Brown. Alexander recorded and
performed with the two jazz giants on many occasions. Jazz’s greatest
luminaries welcomed Alexander to their “musical fraternity” in the mid-1960s.
Among these earliest enthusiasts for his playing were none other than Duke Ellington,
Count Basie, and Miles Davis.
Monty
Alexander’s collaborations span multiple genres, styles, and generations. His
projects have been as varied as assisting Natalie Cole in her tribute album to
her father, Nat “King” Cole in 1991 (the resulting album, Unforgettable, won
seven Grammy awards), performing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” under the
direction of Bobby McFerrin at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and
recording the piano track for the film score of Clint Eastwood’s Bird, a movie about
the life of jazz titan Charlie Parker.
In
August 2000, the Jamaican government awarded Monty Alexander the title of
Commander in the Order of Distinction for outstanding services to Jamaica as a
worldwide music ambassador.
In Hal
Leonard’s 2005 book The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time,
Alexander was listed among the top five Jazz pianists of all time.
Alexander
maintains a rigorous touring schedule worldwide, playing in jazz clubs, concert
halls and playing at international Jazz Festivals in the USA and across
continents; from Europe to Asia; in Montreux, Switzerland; Johannesburg and
Cape Town, South Africa; and Japan, Russia, New Zealand, Australia, etc.
To date
Monty Alexander has recorded over 70 albums as a leader. His collaboration with
Telarc label yielded trio sessions (Impressions in Blue) and live concert
recordings (Goin’ Yard). In the late summer of 2005, Alexander traveled to Bob
Marley’s Tuff Gong Studio in Kingston, Jamaica, and teamed up with Jamaican top
session players to record Concrete Jungle, a set of twelve compositions penned
by Bob Marley and reinterpreted via Alexander’s jazz piano-oriented
arrangements. The resulting union of musical perspectives digs deep into the
Marley legend and brings together the two worlds that Alexander most treasures,
building the musical bridges that are the very essence of his craft.
As a
testament to his versatility, The Good Life, on Chesky Records is a collection
of songs written and popularized by one of his all-time favorite artists and
good friends, Tony Bennett. His second release on Chesky, Calypso Blues, is
tribute to another one of his heroes, Nat “King” Cole.
In 2008,
with the invitation of Wynton Marsalis, Alexander conceived and directed the
acclaimed program Lords of the West Indies at Jazz at Lincoln Center, broadcast
nationally on BETJ. Alexander returned to Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2009 with a
new program, Harlem Kingston Express in which he merged classic Jazz with
rhythms and vibrations of his native Jamaica.
In the
winter of 2008 American singer and icon, Tony Bennett personally invited Monty
to record as the featured pianist on his Christmas album, A Swinging Christmas,
with the Count Basie Orchestra. Monty can be spotted on the album cover,
holding a turkey next to Tony Bennett.
Two
collections were released in 2011 that capture the excitement of Monty
Alexander’s live performances around the world: Uplift, a trio album on JLP
Records, and Harlem-Kingston Express on Motema Music.
Harlem
Kinston Express: Live! was singled out by both the recording industry and fans
and received a Grammy award nomination in 2012.
Between
Uplift and Harlem-Kingston Express: Live! Monty Alexander has officially
dominated the US radio charts with three number 1 spots in 2011, as not only
Uplift remained at number 1 for several weeks but Harlem-Kingston Express:
Live! rose to number 1 on Jazz charts and on World Music charts concurrently.
In the
summer of 2012 Monty Alexander was awarded the prestigious German Jazz Trophy,
“A Life for Jazz” and in November 2012 he received the Caribbean American
Heritage Luminary Award from the Institute of Caribbean Studies in Washington,
D.C.
