Customer Reviews

My America

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When Jamaican born Monty Alexander was a young boy, he idolized the American heroes of the silver screen. Among his favorites were the singing cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers-pop culture icons of the post-WWII era who embodied the most universal and appealing aspects of the American Dream: freedom, individualism, strength of character, and a frontier spirit.
"They sang melodic songs that evoked a feeling of freedom and liberty," Alexander recalls. "You'd watch these movies and you just wanted to be riding along with the good guys...As the years went by, I was capturing all these songs and playing them on the piano."

Years later, Alexander embraced the dream first-hand when he came to America with his family in the early 1960s at age 17. By then, the aspiring young pianist had adopted a new set of American icons as his heroes-an eclectic cross section of musical giants that included Count Basie, Nat Cole ("a staple in our house"), Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and many others.

In tribute to the cowboys, crooners and other legends who have inspired him since his childhood, Alexander has recorded My America. The album is a twelve-track homage to the musical and cultural ideals that have drawn hundreds of millions of immigrants to the United States since the 1800s. While the songs are American in origin, Alexander brings a distinctly Jamaican groove to most of the tracks.

Many of the titles are familiar touchstones of 20th century popular music: Al Green's "Love and Happiness," the Louis Armstrong/Bobby Darin classic "Mack the Knife," and instrumental versions of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" and James Brown's "Sex Machine."

"It became like a party," says Alexander, recalling the extended "Sex Machine (Soul/Yard Meeting)" jam session. "We just started recording, and the next thing you know, it was eight or nine minutes long. We just kept the tape rolling."

Joining Alexander throughout My America are a few Telarc labelmates. Freddy Cole lends a hand in a syncopated rendition of Nat Cole's "Straighten Up and Fly Right," while John Pizzarelli steps in for an easygoing duet on the nostalgic "Summer Wind." Jazz vocalist Kevin Mahogany helps conjure up the spiritual element with a churning version of "Hallelujah, I Love Her So."

It all comes together in a rich melting pot that celebrates a nation's finest musical traditions. Experience Monty Alexander's America through the eyes and ears of an artist whose craft is a direct reflection of the dream. "It's a privilege for me to do this recording and play music by some of my favorite people," he says. "Because it's the music that brings people like me here."

Call it panoramic, diverse, or merely eclectic, this portrait of the artist puts most similar attempts to shame. This isn't another one of those pretentious adaptations of American country or folk by some self-important jazz "innovator." Monty is, as always, the pre-eminently swinging musician applying his interpretations not to the usual Great American Songbook of Kern, Gershwin, Porter, etc., but to many of the pop standards and styles of the last half century. The beat is hard, loud, funky--insistent on making even Ellington and Sinatra meet the pianist in the realm of rock and reggae. More than any other musician who comes to mind, Monty proves that "contemporary," or "easy listening," jazz need not be the music of wall flowers. Get on your dancing shoes, man!

At the same time, identifying the audience for this project may be tricky. It's probably too commercial for the Downbeat critics who normally praise crossover and fusion; too pop and electric for the fans of piano trios; and finally Monty's reincarnations of Al Green and Marvin Gaye are probably too removed from the originals to satisfy fans of Motown nostalgia. The pop music climate of the late sixties and seventies has by now been recognized as the toughest ever for jazz musicians, so one might question the wisdom of resurrecting any part of it.

As a listener who long has maintained Monty Alexander is one of the 3 best pianists playing jazz, I'll confess the relentless electric bass/bass drum thumping tends to get on my nerves after a while. The musical allusions to Roy Rogers' "Happy Trails" and yet another fresh treatment of Monty's signature tune, "Battle Hymn," tempt me to say all is forgiven. But it would require a reference to Gene Autrey's "Back in the Saddle Again" before I'd go that far.

(After another listen, I've got to retract my final sentence. Monty actually does manage to inject a phrase from Gene Autrey's theme song in the closing bars of "Don't Fence Me In." Indeed, his arrangement is so clever and inventive that a listener might forgive Cole Porter for writing the tune in the first place.)