Monty Alexander’s Life on the Run

Despite the elements common to West Indian music and American jazz, very few musicians from the Islands have achieved any measure of prominence in the United States. Among those few, pianist Monty Alexander has made the most significant and durable impact.

The charming Jamaican accent he brought with him when he arrived in the U.S. in 1961 (he had just turned 17) has never left him, but the Caribbean flavor in his music ebbs and flows according to the company he keeps.

“I still like to get together with musicians who are into that whole Caribbean experience,” he said recently during a visit to Los Angeles. “I’ve been doing this thing I call Ivory and Steel, working with steel drummers. And I toured Europe recently with a wonderful bass player named David Williams, a full-fledged Trinidadan who grew up among Calypsonians like Lord Kitchener and the Mighty Sparrow. But I have an equally good time with this group.”

“This group” is the trio known as Triple Treat, the other two thirds being bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis. Working with them is something of a dream come true for Alexander, one of whose early idols was Oscar Peterson, with whom both Brown and Ellis worked for years.

His American career began soon after his mother, looking for a better social situation, left Kingston to bring him and his younger brother to Miami. “I had studied privately in Jamaica, and I had fond memories of Nat King Cole.”

In Florida, Alexander gravitated toward what he calls “the Bohemian worlds” of music and boxing. “I’d go to the gym and watch all the boxers train. Later in New York, Miles Davis and I went to Madison Square Garden to see the fights.”

Somewhere among Miami’s later night haunts, Alexander met Steve Stark, whose father, Herman Stark, had been one of the original operators of the Cotton Club during its Duke Ellington glory days. “Steve thought I had potential, but I needed a green card to work. Well, we went to New York and visited Duke’s office.

“He told Duke my situation and had me play for him. Duke wrote and signed a letter saying I was an outstanding talent and I should be important in the United States. I wish I had a copy of that letter. Anyhow, thanks to Duke the immigration people were satisfied. Today I’m a citizen.”

The aura of Nat King Cole and Cannonball Adderley, both natives of Tampa, and Sam Jones, Adderley’s bassist, made a heavy impression on jazzmen in Florida. “We had some real heavy, swingin’ roots going on down there. But when I got a job on the road, it was with a dance band--Art Mooney, who had a big hit with ‘I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover.’ He had a hotel in Hollywood, Fla., where I was accompanying a belly dancer--oh, I’ll never forget Princess Naila--and he decided I should leave her and go with his band to Reno.”

After the job ended in Reno, it was desperation time for a while. “I can play bass, so I borrowed some guy’s Fender and took a job on bass, backing up a singer. Then I went to Las Vegas, where I was at loose ends when one night at the Thunderbird and here come Frank Sinatra and his friend, Jilly Rizzo.

“I had met them before in Miami. Jilly said, ‘You’re the guy I saw in Florida. We’ve got to get you to come to my club in New York.’ Well, I thought maybe it was just late night chatter, but a week later, there was a plane ticket in the mail.”

The move turned out to be a wise one as word spread about the prodigious young pianist from the Islands. Alexander met drummer Mickey Roker, who sent vibraphonist Milt Jackson to hear him; he met Ray Brown, and one night during a spell in Hollywood got to play with Brown at the end of a long night of jamming.

“It was like magic--from the first moment we started playing, we got that thing going, you know?” He snapped his fingers to demonstrate. “After just one tune, we got off the bandstand and Ray said, ‘Where are you gonna be in July? I want you to come and play with me and Milt Jackson.’ ”

From that point on, Alexander circulated among the big boys, in fact became one of them. He played several summer seasons with Jackson and Brown, led his own trio for a European tour in 1974 and recorded regularly.

His partnership with Brown and Ellis has continued off and on since 1982, when they taped a live album at a Tokyo club. When Triple Treat is not working, he may be reminding himself of his Jamaican roots by composing such tunes as “Happy Lypso” and “Reggae-Later” or working out arrangements of folk songs such as “Sly Mongoose” and “Linstead Market.” His original “Accompong” was dedicated to the Maroons, runaway slaves who escaped from British soldiers and settled in the Jamaican town of Accompong in the 18th Century.

On these works, his recordings feature the steel drums of Othello Molineaux and Len (Boogsie) Sharp, both natives of Trinidad.

A third aspect of his career finds him paying tribute to Nat King Cole; he has worked out a night club set in which he sings and plays tunes associated with Cole’s early years and his own childhood.

“Today,” he says in summation, “I’m as busy as I can be, as a traveling musician. I feel a need for variety in my work, and I’m lucky to be in a position where I can pick and choose.”