You are a respected jazz musician, why did you decide to pursue a career in the world of Latin music?
Well actually, I have always had two parallel careers — the Latin career cutting my teeth with bandleaders such as Roberto Pla & Snowboy and the jazz career playing with Courtney Pine & Jazz Jamaica.

You will find most musicians who play Latin in this country have a jazz background — both styles are very challenging to learn and master and although they are performed in very different contexts the skills needed are similar.

Latin music, in the widest sense, has always attracted me — I love the energy and the musical teamwork it requires and its sophisticated mix of african-originated percussion with big-band jazz influenced horn section and the Spanish vocal thing is unique in the musical world.

Being a non-Latino, was that a problem, or has been a problem during the development of your career?
Another aspect of Latin music that attracted me is the generosity and openness of the majority of musicians from Latin America living here. As a young musician learning about Latin music, I was always very well received and encouraged along the way. So my answer is, no, it has not been a problem me being a non-Latino. As a mixed race, British/African with a complexion very similar to many Latinos, I have made a point of not pretending to be anything else other than myself — I hope this reflects in my playing and my music productions.

Your influences, who are they and who do you think are the leaders exponents of Salsa nowadays
As an arranger and producer I am influenced by is Sergio George — when I was learning how to play and arrange salsa I was constantly checking out the approach he took to creating music. On the piano side (in addition to Sergio George) I would say that Papo Lucca and Eddie Palmieri records were the ones who showed me the route to playing salsa piano.

Explain the R&B Latino project, because you were more into more Cuban music than NY and the Latin musicians experimenting with R&B were the Newyoricans more than the Cubans
I was given the opportunity to record the album in Cuba — Anglo-Cubano — which set me on the Cuban side of things, and being a Latin jazz artist this worked well as Cuban styles (such as guaguanco, danzón) fit with jazz very well. However, as I said my pianistic and arrangement/production influences have always been from the Puerto-Ricans and I drew on this when putting the R&B Latino project together. In summary, you have R&B loops, programmed by Craig David’s musical director Frank Tontoh combined with Puerto Rican salsa and also elements of Van-Van influenced music which put together provides the backdrop for R&B Latino.

The most difficult thing for a band is to find their sound, a sound that is unique, do you think you have found yours?
It would be perhaps arrogant of me to say that the Alex Wilson sound is the sound but I can say that I have been working on and refining my musical concept constantly over the last 7 years and if this is appreciated then all the better!

Your new album is coming out soon, tell us about that…
Aventuras is an acoustic Latin-jazz album, specifically not salsa, designed for the jazz club and concert hall. We rehearsed for 4 days, recorded for 4 days and then mixed for 4 days and the album was recorded. I did take a month off work to practice the piano and compose the music. We will play the material at Ronnie Scott’s from the 27th June — 2nd July. The next album will be uncompromising salsa R&B Latino style — the hit single ‘Show Me’ will be included and there’ll be more in that vein!

Latin Splash, your show, how is it going to be?
We are opening up the show at Latin Splash and are going to hit the audience with a single power-set. In an outdoor gig such as this, there’s no time to mess around with subtleties and we’re going to perform our strongest songs and heat the place up!

Photo by Leticia Valverdes

Win a free ticket to see Alex play at Latin Splash ‘05 on July 1, Clapham Common