Monty Alexander at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild

About

A perennial favorite at Jazz Festivals and venues worldwide, and at the Montreux Jazz Festival where he has performed and headlined concerts 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 jazz and Jamaican musical expressions—the American songbook and the blues, gospel and bebop, clypso and reggae—and gives the hardcore-jazz-obsessed much to dig into while also communicating the message to the squarest "civilian."