Alex Merritt Quartet Featuring Jason Rebello at Bristol Beacon

Alex grew up in Cambridge, home to a very strong musical education system and to have had some very inspiring teachers before going to Birmingham Conservatoire studying jazz performance.
He had a great experience there studying with Saxophonists Julian Seigel and Jean Toussaint and composer/pianist Hans Koller and Mike Gibbs amongst others.
For his final performance at Birmingham and for the year following Alex performed with the Kit Downes trio; and at this time also formed an early incarnation of the first Alex Merritt Quartet, who developed their group sound over seven years of playing together....

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Alex grew up in Cambridge, home to a very strong musical education system and to have had some very inspiring teachers before going to Birmingham Conservatoire studying jazz performance.
He had a great experience there studying with Saxophonists Julian Seigel and Jean Toussaint and composer/pianist Hans Koller and Mike Gibbs amongst others.
For his final performance at Birmingham and for the year following Alex performed with the Kit Downes trio; and at this time also formed an early incarnation of the first Alex Merritt Quartet, who developed their group sound over seven years of playing together.

Following his graduation in 2009 he moved to New York for further lessons with saxophonists Rich Perry and Ellery Eskelin, pianist Vijay Iyer. Back in London he performed with all the top players on the UK jazz scene; and formed a Quintet with brothers Steve and Matt Fishwick.
Now resident in Bristol he has begun to find new local connections to work with and this is his new quartet featuring top pianist Jason Rebello, from nearby Bradford-upon-Avon; and Dave Smith (Mark Lockheart, Robert Plant) based in Frome

A lot of influences feed into his quartet/s music, many from Alex's parallel interest in composition- composers such as Berg, Bartok and Messiaen and the Carnatic music of Southern India as well many jazz influences. Merritt makes music of shapely robustness, but he builds in options allowing his improvisers to follow his map or pursue their own diversions. His writing is consistently intelligent, sophisticated and varied and now working alongside Jason, this will prove to be a quartet of interest

As an educator he has taught at Birmingham Conservatoire and at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

“Merritt’s rich but dry tone traces a line back to the Cool School jazzers such as Warne Marsh.” Robert Shore, Jazzwise

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