Alex Wilson - R&B Latino

Take Britain's most exciting young Latin-jazz pianist, a handful of London's top r&b vocalists and the production skills of Craig David's musical director and what you get from Alex Wilson's new album is exactly what it says on the label. A magnificent slice of prime quality 'R&B LATINO' which fuses the two most exciting dance beats in contemporary music into a unique and dynamic new sound.

At 30, Wilson is already a veteran of the British jazz and Latin scenes, a scintillating and versatile pianist with a virtuoso style who has played with Courtney Pine, Roberto Pla, Gary Crosby's Nu-Troop and a host of other bands, in addition to making two critically acclaimed solo albums.

Yet in 'R&B LATINO' , Wilson has undoubtedly made the finest album of his career to date . Accessible, imaginative and audacious, it's a record which breaks down cultural barriers and opens up new musical vistas. "I'd been hearing records by people like Sisqo and Destiny's Child on the radio and I was struck how much the drum programming borrows from the Caribbean," says Wilson. "So there's a direct link to Latin music. Rhythmically r&b is very sparse and Latin music tends to be very busy. But they both fitted like a glove."

Working with a team of co-writers, Wilson came up with a body of material which he demoed and played to Frank Tontoh, musical director for UK garage phenomenon Craig David, during a trip to Barbados last year. "Frank's the man with his finger on the pulse.But he loves Cuban music,too, so he was the ideal person to work with," Wilson enthuses. "My experience was all in Latin and jazz and I was determined not to make one of those terrible salsa crossover records that sounds like an 80s easy listening album. I knew Frank was the man who could move it in a more contemporary direction." Much of Latin music is loop-based, says Wilson, and so the fusion of Cuban timba and son montuno rhythms with contemporary r&b grooves was entirely naturally. "I could have easily made another salsa piano album. Latin music is so seductive it sucks you in. But I wanted to create my own sound. I'd spent a year in Courtney Pine's band playing not only jazz but everything from drum'n'bass to hip-hop. After that I felt equipped to try something different."

The sophisticated fusions of 'R&B LATINO' features a number of guest singers who help give voice to Wilson's vision. They include Maryanne Morgan on the hypnotic "Tell Me How It Feels", Jocelyn Brown on the infectious "If You're Out There", Mary Pearce from Courtney Pine's band on the sensuous "Freedom In The Frame" and Noel McKoy of Incognito on a cover of Steve Wonder's "Another Star." Other key collaborators include Lauren Dalrymple, who has been in Wilson's band for the past two years and sings on three tracks, Thomas Dyani, trumpeter Shanti Paul Jayasinha and long-time musical ally Davide Giovannini, who helped develop the concept of grafting a broken beat style onto Wilson's Latin grooves, an approach heard to dramatic effect on "A Guarachar con Alex".

The cosmopolitan nature of Wilson's musical fusions reflects his upbringing. Although he was born in Britain, his grand-father was a minister in the government of Sierra Leone and he spent the first two years of his life in west Africa, before the family returned to Britain. Then when Wilson was ten, his father's job took the family first to Vienna and then Geneva, where he spent his teenage years. Wilson's father was an enthusiastic amateur pianist and he taught his son to play piano from an early age. But he also had classical guitar lessons and auditioned on both instruments for the Vienna Conservatoire when he was 11. The rollicking dose of boogie-woogie he gave them on the piano did not go down well and he was told to stick to the guitar. Seven years of serious tuition turned him into a virtuoso , but he found classical guitar a "beautiful but solitary" instrument. "I love playing with people and the bigger the band the happier I am," he says. "So that led me back to the piano."

By now he was living in Geneva and attending an international school which boasted 42 different nationalities among its students. Switzerland was also fertile jazz territory, and via the Montreux Festival and the progressive music policy of Swiss television, Wilson received a crash course in jazz. Suitably inspired, he formed a high school jazz band, composed a jazz concerto for the school orchestra and augmented his piano playing by learning saxophone, trumpet and bass. "That gave me an awareness of different instruments which has helped me hugely as an arranger," he says.

Yet he had still not decided to become a professional musician and took a degree in electronic engineering at York and Santa Barbara, California, where he played in a West Coast fusion band. Back in Britain he attended a jazz summer school at London's Guildhall and was a finalist two years running for the Young Jazz Player of The Year. A chance encounter with John Dankworth, one of the judges in the second year, was to prove criticial. "I hadn't won and I was feeling a bit despondent when I saw him in the canteen," Alex recalls. "I asked him what he thought I should do and he said he'd get me a scholarship to his summer jazz school." Inspired by the musicians he met at Dankworth's school, Wilson took a fateful decision and in September,1993 he turned professional. His first gig was a jam session for which he was paid the princely sum of a tenner. But soon he was playing five or six gigs a week "getting my chops together and inching my way up."

Gigs with Snowboy and piano lessons with Conal Fawkes, pianist with Robert Pla, got him onto the salsa scene and by 1996, he had become one of the most in-demand keyboard players on both the London jazz and Latin scenes. Gary Crosby invited him to join his Nu-Troop, there were gigs with bands led by Cleveland Watkiss and Alan Weeks and then Alan Bates at Candid offered him a record deal. His debut solo album, Afro-Saxon , was released in 1997. "It was mostly Latin, but it was a typical first album with me just feeling my way around,"he says today. The follow-up, Anglo-Cubano in 1999, found him travelling to Cuba to record and received rave reviews from both jazz and world music critics.

By 2000, Wilson's his growing stature had led to a call to play in Courtney Pine's band. "I'd never met him but he'd checked out my playing and he rang out of the blue," he recalls. He put his own activities on hold and spent a year touring the world with Pine. Leaving was the hardest decisions he's ever taken, he says. "I'd learned so much in that year and to me Courtney is a model of how to run a band. But I wanted to concentrate on my own projects." Hence last year found him back on the road with his own band, playing a week long residency at Ronnie Scott's jazz club and a support slot on tour with the Afro-Cuban All Stars. He also began recording the album that was to become R&B LATINO, although the record went through several changes of title before Wilson settled on the final name. "In the end I decided to tell it like it is.It isn't an r&b album and it isn't a Latin. It's both," he says. "I hope it opens the eyes of r&b fans to Latin music and vice versa. It's a fusion. But they fit like they were made for each other."

Nigel Williamson (The Times)

"R&B Latino" - Alex Wilson

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