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BIOGRAPHIE en Français-BIOGRAFIA en Espanol : www.alexandre-destrez.com
French pianist, composer and improvisator Alexandre Destrez,now aged 38, was born in the western suburbs of Paris. He discovered music on his mothers old piano when he was 9, and learned to play by himself. He quit school at the age of 16 to become a musician ; he left home and started working to make a living, doing various small jobs and practising his instrument.
He entered the American School of Modern Music of Paris at the age of 20, in order to acquire greater skill and knowledge in harmony, composing and musical arrangements. During that period, he also met Philippe Bestion, who helped him improve his sense of improvisation, and made him discover Bill Evans, Mac Coy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock
At 23, Alexandre Destrez toured for the first time as a professional musician, with French singer Brigitte Comard.
One year later, Ludovic Navarre (aka Saint-Germain) heard Alexandre Destrez play, and offered him to work on his next album ; Alexandre recorded Deep in It which became one of the most remarkable tracks of the Boulevard album. Alexandre Destrez then toured with Saint-Germain in France and Europe, (1996) and continued working with Ludovic Navarre for several years. Alexandres touch and sense of melody became part of Saint-Germains style, and helped build the success of the next album, Tourist (Blue Note Records). More than 3 million copies of this album have since been sold throughout the world, and Tourist was n°1 on the US charts (jazz), while in France it received 3 " Victoire de la Musique " rewards.
Also working under the name of Alejandro Del Abelgam, Alexandre Destrez took part in Shazz first house music album, Shazz which was nominated for the " Victoire de la Musique " ; he then played on the EP El Camino Project and on Shazz and Alexandre Destrez Hermosa Maria (Sony Epic Records) appearing for the first time as an artist and not only musician Alexandre Destrez and Shazz then composed and arranged two songs for young Japanese star singer Aco
More was still to come and in 2000, Shazz came up with a second record : In the Light (Sony Epic). Alexandre Destrez played all the piano parts on this album, and took a major part in the composing and the arrangements, also directing the other musicians during the recordings. In 2004, Alexandre Destrez interpreted the track Beautiful, in a very cool and jazzy style, on Shazz latest album (Beautiful, Ulm-Universal).
In 2000, Alexandre Destrez played the keyboards with the new French pop group Overhead, also taking a major part in the arrangements and composing. The groups first album, Silent Witness (Naïve Records) was unanimously praised by the critics (Les Inrocks, Libération, ffff Télérama, etc). The concert at La Cigale, and the live concert on French National Radio France-Inter (Black Session, Bernard Lenoir) are still remembered as two great moments in the story of this group.
In 2002, David Hachour and Florent Sebaston (aka Oscar) asked Alexandre Destrez to play the piano for their first concert at the Rex Club. Since then, Alexandre has become part of Oscar and has worked on the groups maxi LPs, and on its two first albums, Parisian Soul, (2003), Portrait Robot, (2004) (Denote Records, a label created by Oscar).
In 2004, Alexandre Destrez composed and played Echoes and Echoes Extended Version (piano solos) for Oscar and for Blank Project. He also appeared as a guest star with Oscar, on the track "Mon plus Beau Matin", on the Japanese version of Portrait Robot. He also did his first remix for Shazz : Latin Break Revisited by Alexandre Destrez, coming out in January 2005 (Universal-Ulm).
Alexandre Destrez is currently composing and recording the sound track of Souriez , a movie by Alexandre Zanetti, which will come out in France in 2007. He's also taking part in Oscar's third album.
Last but not least, Alexandre is working on first ALABAMA 65 album's.
To be continued
