jazz saxophonist, composer, educator and producer.

Alex Merritt is a jazz saxophonist, composer, educator and producer from Cambridge who lives in Bristol. Alex studied with Mike Williams, Julian Siegel, Hans Koller and Mike Gibbs at the Birmingham Conservatoire, where he graduated with 1st class hons in 2009. He found the experience very formative, and it sparked his interest in composition and the integration of techniques, and harmonic devices, from contemporary classical music into jazz.

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Since this time Alex has released two well received albums for the Spanish label Fresh Sound New Talent- Common Threads (2022), Mind-Ear Ladder (2022) as well as his debut recording, ‘Anatta’, on F-ire Records (2015). This album, featuring Jeff Williams, Sam Lasserson and John Turville was critically- praised as “a promising debut, of striking quality” by the Guardian’s John Fordham on its release and was followed by a successful UK tour in 2016. Alex has also been successfully awarded ACE funding for tours with leading UK and European musicians such as the German pianist Pablo Held (2019) and Steve Fishwick, with whom Alex toured Mind-Ear-Ladder’ on a 9 date UK tour in 2022. These tours saw Alex performing at venues such as Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Pizza Express Jazz Club and The Vortex amongst others.

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Further collaborations have seen Alex performing with veteran American guitarist John Stowell (in 2023/2024), Italian drummer Antonio Fusco (2024) as well as top UK musicians Jason Rebello, Iain Ballamy, Dave Smith, Elliot Galvin, Jeremy Stacey, Nick Malcolm and Rebecca Nash, with whom Alex is presently working on a new duo album to be released in 2026.

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Interested in building networks of like minded musicians internationally, Alex had a unique honor to produce and curate a 30th Anniversary album for Fresh Sound New Talent in 2022. This commission from the labels founder Jordi Pujol resulted in ‘Common Threads’; an album that required Alex to build on his abilities to choreograph a large-scale international that featured many leading young voices in European jazz, including Tom Ollendorff, Alex Hitchcock and Adele Sauros. Alex hopes to build on the skills he learnt from this project to seek opportunities to amplify a diverse range of musical personalities from within the UK scene and more widely.

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Alex enjoys a great balance between his performing/ composing work, his educational work at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, family life, his private teaching practice and gig co-curation for the Fringe In The Round in Clifton, Bristol.

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.

TEACHING.

  • I studied with Alex for 4 years, and can safely say I learnt something new in every single lesson! His lessons covered a huge range of topics, from technique to transcription, and were always tailored to me and what I needed to work on. Not only this, but I always left his lessons knowing exactly how to apply what I had just learnt in to my own practice. Throughout my time studying with Alex, I was able to discover my own sound and work out how I want to progress as a musician, and for that I am very grateful!

    Rachel Head, Alto Sax Class of 2018 graduate of the RWCMD

  • I have been having lessons regularly with Alex for about a year now, he is a real teacher. His lessons are always different and he tailors them to the specific individual. We find something that I want to improve on and we will go step by step on how to practice it. If you go to a lesson with Alex with nothing in mind it is also not a problem as he will pull something out of the bag which will blow your mind! Improvisation, technique, sound, composition, harmony, rhythm, repertoire, anything you want to work on he can help. A teacher that I would recommend to everyone and will continue to have lessons with!

    Rob Griffin, Tenor Sax Graduate of the Trinity College of Music Jazz Course

  • When Alex and I had to switch to online lessons via Skype, I assumed they would inevitably be a less complete experience than in-person lessons. Instead, Alex has made a virtue of the technology we use, providing helpful links and notes in the chat, and we have had some fantastic sessions that are just as rich in content, inspiring and challenging as if we had met in person. I highly recommend his teaching through this medium.

    Sam Edenborough (Private student)