The Spanish pianist and composer Alexis Alonso (S/C Tenerife, 31/01/1974) has made his way onto the national and international jazz scene with both his solo piano works and leading his own band, the “Alexis Alonso Quartet”. He is also reaping great success with two memorable duos, the one he forms with the great legend of jazz and flamenco worldwide, the flutist and saxophonist Jorge Pardo, and the one he has with the virtuoso North American violinist Maureen Choi, another name in the international jazz/flamenco scene. Alexis Alonso’s talent springs from every note of his works, seeking both compositional excellence and maximum expressiveness in his improvisations, a wonderful journey in search of emotion.
In addition to Jorge Pardo and Maureen Choi, Alexis Alonso has featured collaborations with world jazz stars such as Seamus Blake, Ralph Alessi, Pedrito Martínez and Marco Mezquida on his latest albums. The success that Alexis Alonso is reaping with the public and critics with all his projects places him at the forefront of a new vision of jazz, very intimate and personal as well as exciting, always prioritizing the beauty and intensity of that moment that stays with you for life…
Chronology
Alexis’ story is one of the most unusual within the panorama of contemporary music and jazz. He began his career in the field of rock (May Day, Siglo XXI) and jazz (Nine Seconds Quartet) also developing his work as a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist at Estudios Ignis (Tenerife, Spain). He made numerous soundtracks for film and advertising, standing out for their elegance and extreme beauty…
In 2012 the life of Alexis Alonso took a turn marked by tragedy, his son Adrián died unexpectedly at the age of three, marking a before and after for the career of the Spanish musician. He quickly realized that he needed to transform everything that was happening inside him into music and decided to embark on the adventure of composing a piano-only album. The result of this work is “El Paisaje” (Piano Melodies for Adrián, Vol. 1) (2014). This album was unanimously
acclaimed by critics in Spain and represents the dazzling takeoff of Alexis’ career as a solo composer and pianist. The subsequent tour highlights Alexis Alonso’s ability to transmit feelings both with his great melodies and with his exciting improvisations that, together with his unquestionable personal charm, give each of his concerts an unforgettable life
experience for the audience.
After his nomination in 2015 for the best short film soundtrack at the prestigious Fimucité festival for the soundtrack of “Nocturno”. In 2016 he published “The Birth of Time” the second and last part of the “Piano Melodies for Adrián” work with which he conquered the hearts of the public inside and outside Spain in such important stages as London, Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia among others. “The Birth of Time” is defined by Alexis Alonso himself with the following words…
“With “The Birth of Time” I intend to share a “magical” journey, from the moment after your universe explodes and you stop feeling the ground under your feet until you begin to see an inner light that silently guides you with the help of wonderful
beings… challenging the concept of “time”, connecting you with the Universe, with the past and the future but above all… with the present. As in every journey of discovery, you have to overcome great challenges and overcome fear by gathering all your courage to be able to move forward. In my case, the piano and its incredible sound manage to take me to the most incredible places that one can dream of, as well as reminding me how much love we carry inside and what a privilege it is to share it with the people we love, whether they are with us or not.” (Alexis Alonso, January 2016)
“The Birth of Time” shows Alexis Alonso in all his splendor, halfway between jazz and contemporary music. It is an incredible work on all levels, the emotion of his music takes the listener on a great and unforgettable adventure.
In addition to continuing his career as a solo pianist, Alexis Alonso led a new project that enjoyed great success in all its stages, it is his band “Alexis Alonso Quartet” whose first album titled “IN” (2018) has an unconventional line-up but that provided an incredibly suggestive bet: Ciro Hernández (cello), Roberto Amor (drums) and Agustín Buenafuente (double bass).
After the publication of “IN”, the album has received numerous supports in the jazz world at the highest level, including the presence of the band at international festivals (Canarias Jazz and Más Heineken…) and in halls of great importance in Europe (Jamboree Jazz / Barcelona, Sala Clamores / Madrid …), as well as 4 nominations for the Min Awards, including the “best jazz album of the year”.
“Alexis Alonso Quartet is a challenge for the band, and it is a great opportunity for the band to be present in the world of jazz.
This is for the emotion, for the importance and the value of the themes at a compositional level, as well as “an inner look” towards the best that we have and the opportunity to share it among melodies and improvisations that come from the heart … “(Alexis Alonso, February 2019).
The performance that Alexis Alonso Quartet gave at the emblematic Jamboree hall in Barcelona earned them the award as one of the most outstanding of their programming and was chosen to be published with the “Jamboree Live” label. This is how the emblematic live album was born: Alexis Alonso Quartet – Live in Barcelona – Jamboree Live 19 where the “IN” tour reaches its maximum splendor.
For the next studio work, the highly anticipated “Out” in 2020, Alexis Alonso Quartet take a further step in terms of daring and evolution in their sound, contributing new timbres (winds, percussion, strings …) in several songs. They also had the participation of world jazz stars such as saxophonist Seamus Blake, trumpeter Ralph Alessi and percussionist Pedrito Martínez. The double bass player Moisés García also joined the band to replace Agustín Buenafuente.
The result was an album acclaimed by the specialist press and consolidated Alexis Alonso’s band in the first row of jazz in Spain and accumulating merits for the conquest of the international market.
At the end of 2021, Alexis Alonso surprised everyone with a new solo piano album. He had not released anything in this format since a video single called “Carrie Fisher’s Last Flight” at the beginning of 2018. On this occasion, the new work was called “Love in Floating Bridges”, a slow-burning work inspired in part by the times of the pandemic and the difficulties of a world stunned by a new reality and in part by a careful collection of songs that the Canarian composer has been selecting over the last few years for the solo piano format.
“Love in Floating Bridges” has also had two world-class collaborators, in this case without leaving Spain. The legendary flutist and saxophonist Jorge Pardo and the pianist Marco Mezquida have accompanied Alexis Alonso on three of the eleven songs that make up this work. Like his predecessors, Alexis Alonso’s work has been recognized for its brilliance, beauty and daring by a jazz scene that has once again fallen at his feet.
In 2022, in addition to continuing the promotional tour for “Out” and “Love in Floating Bridges”, Alexis Alonso embarked on a duet tour with Jorge Pardo called “La Vida en el Agua”, the same name as the song on which the legendary Madrid musician collaborated on “Love in Floating Bridges”. Both musicians presented unreleased songs composed mostly by Alexis Alonso where the styles of both artists combined in a magical way, exciting all the stages they visited with a mix of contemporary jazz, flamenco airs and a complicity that filled the stages with magic.
In 2023, another change takes place in Alexis Alonso’s quartet, the brilliant bassist Aileen López replaces Moisés García in the formation of Alexis Alonso Quartet, so the Canarian pianist, together with his “inseparable” Ciro Hernández and Roberto Amor, is ready to shape his new work that is beginning to take its first steps…
On December 14, 2024, “Maires” will be published, the album resulting from the project by Alexis Alonso and Jorge Pardo, a work recorded live that combines seven original songs composed for the album with other songs from the careers of Alexis and Jorge adapted to the duo format, a definitive step for the consecration of this project that is filling the panorama of jazz and fusions with flamenco in Spain and the world with freshness.
Alexis Alonso Quartet will publish their new and highly anticipated studio album, “Hypenosis”, in 2025. The group led by Alexis Alonso has the collaboration of the incredible Maureen Choi, the virtuoso North American violinist has magically blended with Alexis Alonso and they present an incredible show both in its complete version and in its duet version. Maureen Choi is a world reference in the jazz/flamenco framework and the journey of “Hypenosis” has had its first “stops” in 2024 with a huge success representing in the words of Alexis Alonso himself, “A wonderful journey into the unknown…”.