MONTY ALEXANDER
Steaming Hot
Concord
Read
the Jazzitude review of Monty Alexander w/Ernest Ranglin/Rocksteady
Since arriving at the Telarc label in 1999,
pianist Monty Alexander has been a prolific recorder, producing
five recordings in as many years under his own name as well
as appearing on the final recordings by jazz great Ray Brown.
Brown and Alexander worked together a great deal in the
years before that, in the Triple Treat trio along with Herb
Ellis as well as in traditional piano-bass-drums trios.
Before he began explicity exploring his Jamaican background
by interpreting the music of the island, Alexander was a
pretty straight ahead jazz pianist, albeit an overlooked
one. His style, which directly referenced Oscar Peterson,
Nat “King” Cole, Ahmad Jamal, and Errol Garner,
was a great fit for the trio conception that he put together.
Steaming Hot,
an Alexander twofer from Concord, reprises to excellent
piano trio albums from his years at that label. The first,
originally released in 1985 as 
Full
Steam Ahead, finds him in the company
of Brown and drummer Frank Gant. Alexander swings easily,
making him quite a fit for the effortless walking of Brown’s
bass lines. He gravitates toward the blues regardless of
the structure of the tune he is addressing, as demonstrated
by his solo work in the opening track, “Freddie Freeloader.”
He provides just the right touch for the bossa rhythms of
Jobim’s “Once I Loved,” and Brown demonstrates
on this track just why he was so sought after. He is always
there to fill the space with just the right inflection or
comment, but never creates an overly busy sound. What he
plays is always so completely right that it often seems
he could not have played anything else in that spot. Other
standouts from this set include the Ray Brown bebop composition
“Ray’s Idea” on which Alexander gets to
demonstrate his bop chops. The weirdest item is a lightning-fast,
less than three minute take on the Rolling Stones’
“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” but the
other song selections are spot on: “Happy Talk,”
Randy Weston’s classic “Hi-Fly,” and the
standard “Just Friends.”
The second disc, originally released in 1995
under the title 
Steamin’,
finds Alexander in the company of bassist Ira Coleman and
drummer Dion Parson. By this time Alexander’s penchant
for choosing great songs that hadn’t been done to
death on jazz recordings was in evidence. He leads off with
a completely charming rendition of Anthony Newley’s
“Pure Imagination” from Willie Wonka &
the Chocolate Factory, a number that you’d think
would have been performed by more jazz artists because of
its very melodic nature. He also takes a crack at Bob Marley’s
“Lively Up Yourself,” foreshadowing his first
album for Telarc, Stir It Up, which was made up
entirely of Marley tunes. There are also two lively Alexander
originals, “Dear Diz,” a remembrance of Dizzy
Gillespie that sometimes recalls Gillespie’s “Manteca”
in its rhythms, and “Tucker Avenue Stomp,” a
32-bar tune that harkens back to the neighborhood in which
Monty grew up. The date ends with Alexander providing a
solo stride rendition of the standard “Young At Heart.”
