Monty Alexander

A perennial favorite at Jazz festivals and venues worldwide and at the Montreux Jazz Festival where he has appeared 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 classic Jazz and Jamaican musical expressions.

Documented on more than 75 recordings, the Jamaican government conferred on him the national honor of the Order of Jamaica in 2022 for "Sterling Contributions to the Promotions of Jamaican Music and the Jazz Genre Interpretations Globally". He was designated Commander in the Order of Distinction in 2000 and in 2018 the University of The West Indies bestowed him with an honorary doctorate (DLitt) in recognition of his accomplishments.

Monty’s latest album (November 2022) is titled The Montreux Years and was recorded during four of Monty Alexander’s iconic performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival between 1993 and 2016. The Montreux Years was hailed as best Jazz album of 2022. His latest studio album (August 2022) is titled Love Notes and is his first recording featuring his vocals.

“The Monty Alexander Movie,” a documentary on Monty’s life and music directed by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Jefferson Miller, and veteran filmmaker Arthur Gorson, is currently in production in Jamaica, the U.S., and Europe.
In 2024 Monty is poised to release a new recording and embark on a very special tour of France and Europe in the summer of 2024 in celebration of his 80 th birthday: June 6, 1944, a.k.a. D Day, a day he proudly shares with World History.

The Real Deal – A Living Jazz History

Monty Alexander will reflect musically on his extraordinary experiences in the early 1960’s at the center of the most exciting music capital of the world, New York City, sharing stories of his earliest encounters with Jazz and music royalty, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Tony Bennett, as well as his magical encounter with a figure at the highest pinnacle of the entertainment world, Frank Sinatra. The spontaneous program will be culled from 80 years of a life spent touring music venues worldwide as a band leader and in collaborations with artists from all corners of the musical and entertainment world: Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Natalie Cole, Tony Bennett, Clint Eastwood, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, Sonny Rollins, and many more.

The musical reflections will also feature original compositions and stories of his earliest musical formative experiences as a teenager in the late 1950s, and his role as a pioneer musician in the first recording studios of his native Kingston-a role that resulted in his unwitting participation in the creation of Jamaica’s popular music.