‹In a city rich with jazz talent, bassist Alex Bellegarde is surely one of the best players around, constantly finding new types of projects and new musicians with which to extend the range of his jazz vocabulary…› Neil Brouillet ° montreal.com
Montreal bassist Alex Bellegarde is an energetic player with a mean ‘groove’ and a broad imagination. Composer and master of improv he creates music drawn from a wealth of sources and loves to collaborate with poets, actors and visual artists. His compositions, along with a great performance by his quartet, merited the Grand Jazz Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival, 26th ed.
A much sought-after Latin bassist when local Cuban players or latin stars from out of town need the right sound, he has performed with renowned percussionist Candido Camero, Cuban vocalist Chiquitin and Puerto Rican vocalist Viti Ruiz.
With three albums to his credit, his release Caminando (Justin Time Records), received excellent press reviews and was a Coda Jazz Magazine’s top tens pick for 2006. He has recorded with a range of artists: Yoël Diaz Y Su Team Timba, Eval Manigat, Denis Chang and Maânouche Swing to name a few, as well as visiting American artists: Neal Haiduck and Taurey Butler.
Born in Montreal, Alex grew up in Quebec’s Eastern townships, where throughout high school he played with the award winning Ensemble Davignon and Massey Vanier Band. By 97, he was back in town checking out Montreal's effevescent jazz scene and playing at many of the weekly jam sessions.
Influenced greatly by bassist, the late Skip Bey, he was member of the Vic Vogel Octet and played with Vogel’s guest, saxophonist Jimmy Heath, at the Montreal Jazz Festival. He has performed in events such as Generations Jazz, TrioFF Jazz and L'Off Festival de Jazz... all highly representative of the Montreal jazz scene.
He leads a number of groups in different formats and performs in festivals across Canada, Mexico and the US. He hosts a killer weekly jam session, which draws promising talents and renowned jazz musicians from near and afar and is also a frequent guest artist at multidisciplinary events such as Viva Confusion 2009, Poetry from Three Americas 2008 with Mexican poets Pedro Serrano and Andrea Montiel, Exit Sur Scène (10 years of poetry in Quebec), Émergence Énergie (multimedia). Plays in Montreal: Cornemuse by Larry Tremblay, Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui and Hamlet Machine by Heiner Müller, Place des Arts… to name a few !
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