“This guy is like dynamite!” exclaimed Frank Sinatra when he heard jazz pianist Monty Alexander play at the age of twenty. Monty had just arrived in New York from Jamaica via Miami, and soon he had become an integral member of the Big Apple’s swinging jazz scene. In his home country he had learned his craft in R&B, calypso, and ska bands, and had already acquired the reputation of someone who possessed fabulous piano technique and virtuoso swing. With his joy of music making, he immediately established a direct rapport with his audience. No less than the great Oscar Peterson was so convinced that he took Monty Alexander under his wing; soon, the protégé would be compared with his Canadian mentor. The comparison was not unfair: soon “Alexander the Great” – the title of his first album – would be forming trios along the same lines as Peterson, even featuring former Oscar Peterson trio members such as Ray Brown on double bass and Herb Ellis on guitar. At the same time, the jazz man from Jamaica continued to return frequently to his Caribbean roots, playing calypso with steel drummers, or reggae with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Jamaica’s most well-known rhythm team. At the Ruhr Piano Festival he is now guesting for the fifth time, presenting Caribbean-flavored trio jazz with an impressive swing drive.