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Alex Wilson (born 21 November 1971) is a British pianist, composer, producer, arranger, and educator. [1]
Alex Wilson was born in the UK and was brought up in Sierra Leone, UK, Austria and Switzerland.
In 1993, after gaining a degree in electronics from the University of York, he embarked on a professional career as a pianist, performing and recording with Courtney Pine, [2] Jazz Jamaica, Sandra Cross, Adalberto Santiago and Jocelyn Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Masakela & Ernest Ranglin quickly being signed to the Candid label. He won the Rising Star award at the 2001 BBC Jazz Awards. [3]
To date, he has released eight solo albums in a Latin Jazz and salsa vein; he also composes commissions, produces Latin hip hop, runs a 12-piece salsa band, works as a session keyboard player and works in educational institutions. His commissions include NITRO (a British black theatre company), the Royal Opera House, the Royal Northern College of Music, and several library music companies. He also works with in schools in London such as Essex Primary School.
Wilson is Special Lecturer in the Department of Music at University of Nottingham. [4]
In 2011, Wilson was invited to be pianist, arranger and musical director for guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela on their album Area 52 which was recorded in Havana, Cuba, with C.U.B.A., a 13-piece Cuban orchestra, and special guest musicians (Anoushka Shankar on sitar and Le Trio Joubran on oud). The album was released in January 2012. [5] [6] [7] The project toured the world in 2012, during which Wilson continued his role as pianist and musical director. [6]
2013 saw the release of his first album for the trio with Davide Mantovani on bass, and Frank Tontoh and Tristan Banks on drums. The album, Trio, was released on Alex Wilson Records.
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Selected Discography as sidesman
1997 Migrations Gary Crosby’s Nu Troop 1998 Dreams Come True Sandra Cross
1999 Just a Dream Sandra Cross
2001 Victory’s Happy Songbook Cleveland Watkiss
2004 Massive Jazz Jamaica pianist / arranger
2005 Tears of Joy Antonio Forcione
2005 Motor City Roots Jazz Jamaica pianist / arranger
2007 I Love Louis Gwyn Jay Allen musical director, arranger, producer
2007 Boulevard de l’Independence Toumani Diabate
2008 Afropeans Courtney Pine featured guest
2008 Transition in Tradition Courtney Pine
2012 Area 52 Rodrigo y Gabriela - pianist/arranger
2012 Diaspora Wilber Calver - pianist/arranger/producer
Panama is a Central American country, inhabited mostly by mestizos. The music of Panama is heavily based on the folk music of Spain, particularly that of Andalusia and was influenced first by the indigenous populations of Kunas, Teribes, Ngobe Bugle and others, and then by the black population who were brought over, first as slaves from Africa, between the 16th century and the 19th century, and then voluntarily to work on the Panamanian Railroad and Canal projects between the 1840s and 1914.
Courtney Pine,, is a British jazz musician, who was the principal founder in the 1980s of the black British band the Jazz Warriors. Although known primarily for his saxophone playing, Pine is a multi-instrumentalist, also playing the flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and keyboards. On his 2011 album, Europa, he plays almost exclusively bass clarinet.
Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican guitarist and composer who established his career while working as a session guitarist and music director for various Jamaican record labels including Studio One and Island Records. Ranglin played guitar on many early ska recordings and helped create the rhythmic guitar style that defined the form. Ranglin has worked with Theophilus Beckford, Jimmy Cliff, Monty Alexander, Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Bob Marley and the Eric Deans Orchestra. He is noted for a chordal and rhythmic approach that blends jazz, mento and reggae with percussive guitar solos incorporating rhythm 'n' blues and jazz inflections.
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Enrique Arsenio Lucca Quiñones better known as Papo Lucca, is a Puerto Rican multi-instrumentalist best known for his pianist skills. His main musical genres are Salsa and Latin Jazz. He ranks with the late Charlie Palmieri, as one of the best piano instrumentalists in Latin Jazz and Salsa. He is the co-founder with his father Don Enrique "Quique" Lucca Caraballo of the Puerto Rican band La Sonora Ponceña. He has also played and recorded with the Fania All-Stars, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colón, Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, Bobby Valentín, Ismael Quintana, Gloria Estefan, Adalberto Santiago, Andy Montañez, Pablo Milanés, and Rubén Blades. He is also a well-known music arranger.
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Juan Pablo Knipping Pacheco, known as Johnny Pacheco, was an American musician, arranger, composer, bandleader, and record producer. Born in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco became a leading figure in the New York salsa scene in the 1960s and 1970s as the founder and musical director of Fania Records.
Rodrigo y Gabriela are a Mexican acoustic guitar duo whose music is influenced by a number of genres including nuevo flamenco, rock, and heavy metal. The duo's recordings consist largely of instrumental duets on the flamenco guitar. Currently residing in Mexico City, they began their career in Dublin, Ireland, during an eight-year stay. They have toured internationally and in 2010, performed at The White House for President Barack Obama. In 2020, their fifth studio album Mettavolution won a Grammy Award for the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. Their most recent album, In Between Thoughts…A New World, was released in April 2023.
Zoe Rahman is an English jazz composer and pianist.
The Jazz Warriors were an English all-black London-based group of jazz musicians, that made its debut in 1986. The idea for the band came from the Abibi Jazz Arts, a London organization that promoted black music and black culture. The Jazz Warriors provided black British musicians with a venue to showcase their talents, which until that time was limited mostly to funk music and reggae.
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Israel Tanenbaum-Rivera is an American pianist, music producer, composer, arranger and audio engineer who has produced more than 50 albums and participated in over 100 recordings.
David Newton is a Scottish jazz pianist, composer, arranger and educator.
Area 52 is a 2012 album by acoustic duo Rodrigo y Gabriela and the Cuban orchestra known as C.U.B.A. It is Rodrigo y Gabriela's fifth album overall, and their first collaboration with another group. Their aim was to 'do our music with a Cuban orchestra that plays in a very traditional way, a fusion'. All the songs on this album are re-recordings of songs previously released in their previous two studio albums. The duo spent 20 days recording in Cuba where 'the pianist also made the arrangements for the orchestra. We’d play along with the musicians so they could hear our energy'. Afterwards, the band overdubbed solo parts at their own studio.
"Morning" is a Latin Jazz standard written by American pianist/composer/arranger Clare Fischer, first heard on his 1965 LP, Manteca!, Fischer's first recording conceived entirely in the Afro-Cuban idiom, which, along with the Brazilian music he had explored at length over the previous three years, would provide fertile ground for Fischer's musical explorations over the next half-century.
Rodrigo Sebastian Ratier is an Argentine composer, arranger, conductor and pianist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has developed his career as an arranger and a performer in the area of the new Argentine tango, jazz, Latin jazz and classical contemporary music.
This is a list of notable events in Latin music that took place in 2003.
Hector Martignon is a Colombian pianist and composer of Italian descent living in New York City. Two of Martignon's albums have been nominated for a Grammy Award: Refugee (2007) and Second Chance (2010). Martignon is known for crossbreeding the improvisational language of Jazz with diverse musical idioms, such as Classical European, Latin American folklore and World Music. On its exhibit Latin Jazz, the Smithsonian Institution lists Martignon among the leading artists “exploring the regional sources of Latin Jazz”.