PLAYING LIFE: At 82, Monty Alexander Celebrates a Lifetime of Joy, Memory and Musical Freedom on 'A Jamarican in Paris'
At 82, after nearly seven decades on stages around the world, more than 75 albums, collaborations with jazz royalty and the rare distinction of becoming one of Jamaica’s greatest cultural ambassadors, Monty Alexander has earned every accolade attached to the phrase “living legend.”
Yet spend even a few minutes talking with the Grammy-nominated pianist and it quickly becomes clear that he has little interest in celebrating milestones. Instead, he tells stories—about sneaking away from school to see Louis Armstrong, the unforgettable afternoon Nat King Cole changed his life, Frank Sinatra discovering him in a Miami nightclub, hanging out with Miles Davis, or the enduring friendship he shared with his beloved mentor Ahmad Jamal. More importantly, he lets the piano weave those musical narratives for him.
That indomitable spirit animates A Jamarican in Paris, an exhilarating new recording that feels far less like a conventional collection of songs than a richly textured musical autobiography. Instead of tracing his remarkable life chronologically, Alexander revisits the people, philosophies and places that shaped him, weaving together jazz, reggae, blues, gospel, ska, calypso and the Great American Songbook into a deeply personal statement that could only have come from someone whose life has been spent erasing stylistic boundaries.
“When you become 82,” he says with a laugh, “you start thinking about your journey. Mine has been miraculous and unbelievable. I came from a reasonably humble childhood in Kingston, Jamaica. I never thought about becoming a professional musician. I never went to music school. There wasn’t any grand plan. Then I came to America at seventeen, Frank Sinatra heard me play and gave me my first job in New York. People tell me I ought to write a book. Well, when I play music, that’s my book.”
That perspective explains why A Jamarican in Paris unfolds less like an album and more like a conventional album than a conversation with an old friend, each performance reflecting another chapter of a life lived through music. Long before jazz audiences embraced his seamless blending of bebop virtuosity with Caribbean rhythms, Alexander understood that music was never about categories. Growing up in Jamaica during the 1950s, he absorbed everything around him with equal enthusiasm—American jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, ska, mento, calypso, classical music and the sounds drifting from neighborhood churches and dance halls. To him, they all belonged to the same musical family. “I love Rachmaninoff,” he says. “I love the blues from Mississippi. I love Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Nat King Cole. I love reggae. I love gospel. I don’t think of myself as just a jazz piano player. I love music.”
That openness has guided every chapter of his extraordinary career, but its roots stretch back to one unforgettable childhood adventure. At eleven years old, Alexander desperately wanted to see Louis Armstrong perform at Kingston’s Carib Theatre. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be in school miles away in the Jamaican countryside, wearing braces on his teeth after a recent visit to the dentist. So the mischievous youngster devised a plan worthy of Tom Sawyer.
“I pulled one of the wires out of my braces on purpose,” he recalls, laughing. “It got stuck in my jaw. My father had to drive me back to Kingston so the dentist could fix it. The dentist wrote a note saying Monty had been there. Then after the appointment we went straight to the Carib Theatre.” His father’s friendship with the concert promoter led to an even greater surprise. “I got backstage. There was Louis Armstrong. Here’s my hero standing right in front of me. I shook his hand. A few months later I saw Nat King Cole. Those two men just zapped something into my spirit. As a kid I’d see people smiling, clapping their hands, tapping their feet. I realized music brought people joy. That’s what stayed with me. Right from the beginning, I wasn’t just playing music. I was playing life.”
That philosophy continues to define A Jamarican in Paris, whose title playfully references George Gershwin’s An American in Paris while celebrating Alexander’s lifelong identity as both Jamaican and American. “It’s a touch of silly fun,” he says. “I’m a Jamaican living in America. Gershwin wrote An American in Paris, so here’s A Jamarican in Paris. But it also represents something deeper. I blend my Jamaican heritage with my love of American classical music—which people call jazz—and all the influences I’ve gathered around the world.”
Recorded in Paris with bassist Luke Sellick, drummer Jason Brown and longtime percussionist Bobby Thomas Jr., A Jamarican in Paris captures the easy rapport of musicians who trust one another enough to let the music unfold organically. Alexander insists there was never a master plan. "It all emerges instinctively," he says. "Just like this conversation we're having. The words come out because they're sincere. That's the way music works for me. Nothing is fabricated. I want them telling their stories, too."
That generosity is especially evident throughout the album’s tributes, where Alexander honors musical heroes without ever lapsing into imitation. The exhilarating opening medley, “Marcus Garvey/So What,” imagines an unlikely conversation between two revolutionary figures separated by discipline but united in purpose. Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican philosopher who championed Black empowerment, meets Miles Davis, the fearless musical innovator who challenged artistic convention throughout his career. Alexander knew Miles personally from his earliest days in New York, where the trumpeter became both friend and inspiration.
A spirit of fearless individuality courses through the medley’s exhilarating twists and turns. Alexander’s piano darts effortlessly between buoyant Caribbean rhythms, muscular swing and daring improvisations while the trio responds with almost telepathic intuition. The performance plays like an imagined dialogue between two uncompromising visionaries who believed freedom begins by refusing to accept limitations imposed by others. “Miles and Marcus both came from dissatisfaction,” Alexander says. “They were saying, ‘Don’t treat us badly just because we’re Black.’ I wanted to imagine them hanging out together.”
Yet for all the dazzling virtuosity displayed throughout the album, its emotional center lies elsewhere—in three original compositions whose titles reveal Alexander’s deeply optimistic worldview: “Look Up,” “Hope” and “Just Wait.” They tap into the philosophy that has sustained him through triumph, hardship and even a battle with pancreatic cancer. “I’ve always believed it’s better to think about the positive,” he says. “I have a little saying. I think more about the donut than the hole. I’m just an average human being. I know depression. I know sadness. I play the blues too. But something happens when you tap into hope instead of hopelessness. Music helps take you there. I don’t want to stay in the negative. I want people to leave feeling uplifted.”
That conviction transforms the shimmering reggae-inflected optimism of “Look Up” and the meditative grace of “Hope” into something far more personal than attractive melodies. They become musical affirmations, reminders that even life’s darkest moments are temporary when viewed through the lens of gratitude and faith…
That philosophy became intensely personal in 2012 when Alexander was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy left him exhausted and nauseated, yet even in the middle of the night, when anxiety threatened to overwhelm him, he instinctively turned toward the piano rather than away from it.
“I’d come home after chemotherapy—what I called my ‘chemosabe,’” he says, laughing at the nickname that helped rob the experience of some of its fear. “Around two in the morning I’d sit down at the piano. I was nervous. I didn’t feel well. Then these chords came to me and I heard myself saying, ‘Just wait, Monty. Just wait. It’ll pass.’”
The result became one of the album’s most intimate originals. Listening to “Just Wait,” it’s impossible not to hear the emotional journey unfolding inside the music. Gentle, reassuring phrases give way to darker harmonies before gradually opening again into brighter melodic passages, as though hope and uncertainty are carrying on a quiet conversation. That optimism surfaces again in “Come Fly With Me,” an exuberant salute to Frank Sinatra, whose belief in a young Alexander forever altered his life. Playing in a Miami nightclub in the early 1960s, he attracted the attention of Sinatra and the singer’s close friend, legendary restaurateur Jilly Rizzo. Alexander suddenly performing at Jilly’s, one of Manhattan’s legendary celebrity gathering places.
If Sinatra gave him his first great opportunity, Ahmad Jamal shaped the way he thought about the piano itself. Alexander speaks of the late pianist with unmistakable affection, referring to him simply as “Pasha.” Their friendship grew over decades, but the connection began long before they ever met. “My first revelation about the thrill of music came when I heard Ahmad play ‘Poinciana,’” he says. “I was about fourteen years old. That rhythm connected to Jamaica. It grabbed me spiritually.”
His elegant interpretation of “Yellow Bird” becomes less a folk song than a heartfelt thank-you to the mentor who expanded his musical imagination. Beginning with reflective simplicity before blossoming into waves of rhythmic invention, the performance captures admiration without imitation, honoring Jamal’s spirit while remaining unmistakably himself.
Alexander's Jamaican identity remains inseparable from everything he plays. Raised in Kingston before the island's independence, he absorbed the rhythms and traditions that would later become the foundation of his musical voice. While reggae introduced much of the world to Jamaica through Bob Marley, Alexander has spent his career serving as another kind of ambassador, blending the island's musical spirit with jazz on stages around the globe. His homeland has recognized that lifelong contribution with both the Order of Distinction and the prestigious Order of Jamaica.
That heritage resonates beautifully throughout A Jamarican in Paris, perhaps most spiritually in his meditative interpretation of Bob Marley’s “Natural Mystic.” Rather than simply revisiting the reggae classic, Alexander approaches it as a conversation with Marley’s spirit. “When Bob wrote ‘Natural Mystic,’” he says, “he was talking about something spiritual. I feel that same natural mystical feeling when I play it. Sometimes I feel it over my own music. Sometimes I feel it when I’m playing Frank Sinatra. I actually experience these people. Maybe that’s why I’m here. I tell a story.”
By the time A Jamarican in Paris reaches its joyful conclusion, it has become far more than a tribute to the artists who shaped Monty Alexander’s life. It is a celebration of gratitude—for mentors who opened doors, friendships that shaped a lifetime, a homeland that never left his heart and a lifelong belief that music exists to uplift, connect and heal. Spend an evening listening to A Jamarican in Paris, and you’ll understand something even more enduring. He has never simply been playing music. He’s been playing life.
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