MONTY ALEXANDER
Concrete Jungle: The Music of Bob Marley

Telarc

Read the Jazzitude review of Monty Alexander, Ray Brown, Herb Ellis/Straight Ahead
Read the Jazzitude review of Monty Alexander/Steaming Hot
Read the Jazzitude review of Monty Alexander w/Ernest Ranglin/Rocksteady

Kingston, Jamaica native Monty Alexander first recorded in Jamaica’s Tuff Gong studios back in 1958, before reggae music had arrived on American shores. Alexander, however, arrived in 1961, where he worked in Vegas and eventually proceeded to New York where he proved a jazz pianist with a rhythmic edge, performing with Frank Sinatra and Milt Jackson. Alexander has a swinging style that sometimes approximates that of Wynton Kelly or Ahmad Jamal, but he also leans heavily on his Caribbean heritage, and on reggae music in particular, having recorded such reggae-laced projects as Stir It Up, Rocksteady, Goin’ Yard, and Monty Meets Sly and Robbie. Now Alexander and a group of musicians that includes bassist Hassan Shakur and trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis return to the Tuff Gong Studios for Alexander’s latest encounter with his musical heritage, Concrete Jungle: The Music of Bob Marley.

The results are really pretty cooking, because one of the virtues of this CD is that it approaches Marley’s music completely on its own terms—it does not try to present ‘jazzed-up’ interpretations, instead actually playing bona fide reggae rhythms, much as Alexander and guitarist Ernest Ranglin did with ska music on Rocksteady. The introduction to “No More Trouble,” featuring Marsalis’ trombone, is distinctly presented in American blues style, but once the song locks into its bubbling reggae rhythm, it becomes a real reggae-based cookout, even though Alexander works up some McCoy Tyner-esque sparks during his solo, and Marsalis blows a solid solo as well.

One thing that gives Alexander’s work so much of its charm is his ability to fuse idioms that have been somewhat ill at ease with each other. Though there is jazz music that is imbued with Carribean rhythms, very little relies on a true reggae rhythm, and while some ska outfits (the Skatalittes, for example) feature horns and solo in something of a jazz idiom, they are not really jazz bands, nor do they aspire to be. Alexander brings his piano technique and his real feel for American swing to authentic reggae rhythms and the results are urbane yet truly smokin’.

Listen, for example, to Alexander go swingin’ nuts like Wyn Kelly while at the same time offering Red Garland chord blocks before fading back and allowing a strong reggae rhythm section to come to the fore and have its say. Drummer Herlin Riley, a New Orleans native who played with Jamal from 1984-87, solos, and then Marsalis comes back for some more. Marsalis is heavily featured on this disc, and he plays really well in a very favorable context for the trombone.

I’m not quite sure what groups of listeners will enjoy this disc most. Mainstream jazz fans who enjoy reggae beats played by top-notch musicians will enjoy, and some of the jam band crowd may find this to their liking as well (those who enjoy, say, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey). Rock fans may feel it’s a bit reggae lite, but there’s so much great musicianship on display here that Concrete Jungle: The Music of Bob Marley never sounds contrived or inauthentic, just great music interpreted by a set of great and sympathetic musicians.