Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Monty Alexander: Impressions in Blue

182

Monty Alexander: Impressions in Blue

By

View read count
Monty Alexander: Impressions in Blue
Monty Alexander covers a wide swath of musical territory on Impressions in Blue. The Jamaican-born pianist leads his fine trio (with Hassan Shakur on bass and Mark Taylor on drums) from the Caribbean to Spain to the American West, with stops in the land of Duke and the kingdom of Cole, over the course of the eleven numbers here.

A versatile musician with chops to spare, Alexander is equally at home on adaptations of classical pieces like Rodrigo's "En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor" (the oft-recorded composition first made popular by Miles and Gil Evans) and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" as he is on a pair of gospel-tinged Ellington tunes. Of special note are a trio of songs associated with Nat King Cole, which feature some fine swing guitar work from John Pizzarelli, taking time off from those ubiquitous casino commercials.

As an heir to the mainstream piano trio tradition of Oscar Peterson (and Cole and Art Tatum before him), Alexander certainly knows how to swing hard, but there's also an underlying breeziness to his playing that comes to the fore on three original tunes (collectively titled "Where the Trade Winds Blow"), each inspired by a different Caribbean island.

Alexander heads way out west to close this enjoyable journey, following in Sonny Rollins' footsteps with a lighthearted romp through Johnny Mercer's "I'm an Old Cowhand."

Track Listing

Blue Rhapsody; En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor; Come Sunday; Creole Love Call; Accompong; Point-A- Pitre; Eleuthra; Jumpin At Capitol; It

Personnel

Monty Alexander

Album information

Title: Impressions in Blue | Year Released: 2003 | Record Label: Telarc Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Monty Alexander Concerts

Sep 16 Tue
Sep 16 Tue
Sep 17 Wed
Sep 17 Wed
Sep 18 Thu
Sep 18 Thu
Sep 19 Fri
Sep 19 Fri

Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.