jazz saxophonist, composer, educator and producer.
Alex Merritt is a jazz saxophonist, composer, educator and producer who grew up in Cambridge and now works between Bristol, where he now resides, Cardiff, and London. In Cambridge Alex studied with saxophonists Kevin Flanagan and Trevor Barlow, sat in with local and visiting musicians at the Cambridge Modern Jazz Club and then went on to the Jazz Performance Bmus at The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2005. At the college, Alex had the opportunity to study with Mike Williams, Julian Siegel, Hans Koller and Mike Gibbs and found the experience very formative and sparked his interest also in composition and the integration of techniques, and harmonic devices, from contemporary classical music into jazz.
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Alex was based in London for 10 years and during that time released his critically- praised debut album ‘Anatta’ in 2015 featuring Jeff Williams, Sam Lasserson and John Turville. The album was described by John Fordham in The Guardian as “a promising debut, of striking quality”, and the release was followed up with a UK tour. Over the coming years Alex has continued to hone his craft collaborating with German pianist Pablo Held, for a UK Arts council funded tour in 2019 and recently completing a 9 date UK tour, also funded by the Arts Council, with Alex Merritt/ Steve Fishwick Quintet, to coincide with the launch of their new album ‘Mind-Ear-Ladder’ on the Spanish label Fresh Sound New Talent, in January 2022.
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In his role as producer he has choreographed an international collaboration between Fresh Sound New Talent and many leading young voices in UK jazz, and affiliated with the UK jazz scene, to create a 30th Anniversary album for the label called ‘Common Threads’ that was released in Dec 2022. Alex has also put together a collaboration between Trio KAE- that Alex runs with Kevin Glasgow and Eric Ford, and veteran American guitarist John Stowell, for some UK dates and educational workshops.
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Since moving to Bristol in 2020 Alex enjoys a great balance between performing work, and educational ventures such as his work at the RWCMD (where he has been since 2012), Cardiff University and ‘The Shed’- the digital learning infrastructure that Alex set up in 2020.
FEATURED IN
**** Ian Mann
“The writing is consistently intelligent, sophisticated and varied, very much within the jazz tradition but subtly pushing at its boundaries”.
Brian Payne, Jazz Journal
“The group played a superb set of straight-ahead and contemporary originals inspired by Strayhorn, Stanley Cowell, Pablo Held and others”.
*** John Fordham, the Guardian
“A promising jazz debut of striking quality”.
**** Stephen Graham, Marlbank News
“It’s one of the best UK jazz recordings I’ve heard this year”.
***** Adrian Pallant, AP reviews
“Merritt’s warm, dry, Getzian fluency is a joy, whether intertwining with Turville’s mysterious, unpredictable chordal shifts or bubbling with controlled fervour....This feels like just the beginning… and what a beginning”.
Alex has a parallel passion as an educator and has enjoyed 10 years of teaching at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he currently teaches 1-1 lessons to all of the saxophone students, and co-ordinates the transcription and analysis module for all students.
He also currently teaches at Cardiff University and takes private students in Bristol and over Zoom. A very experienced educator of all ages and levels, Alex has been extremely happy to see many of his past students go on to study at top international conservatoires such as The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Trinity College of Music and Birmingham Conservatoire and has been excited to see many of his graduate students go on to forge exciting careers as artistic voices to watch on the contemporary scene.
Alex gets a lot of fulfilment from his teaching endeavours; he is fascinated with how different people learn and progress and consequently seeks to adapt his teaching approach to that most fitting for each individual student.
