Alex Singer

Pat Boone's In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy was a tongue-in-cheek affair that few were willing to acknowledge. How else was one to explain a 63-year-old pop singer (who hadn't had any hits for over 30 years) suddenly covering '70s hard rock classics? By contrast, guitarist Alex Skolnick, who had enjoyed considerable success as lead guitarist for Testament and later Savatage, deserves kudos for essentially scrapping his rock & roll career to study, learn, and play jazz. Upon leaving Savatage after Handful of Rain Skolnick enrolled in the jazz department of New York's New School University. It was there that he began to formulate his notion of applying jazz arrangements to hard rock songs by Kiss, Aerosmith, Scorpions, Black Sabbath, and the Who.

At the time when neo soul is booming with innovations, guitarist and songwriter Alex Scheuerer is releasing his second album featuring singer Najwa Ezzaher (The Voice). "The French Jukebox", a cover album, pays tribute to the French classics by revisiting them with touches of Neo Soul. A Franco-Swiss musician, Alex Scheuerer was strongly influenced by French chanson, the poetry of which, and evocative nature of its word he particularly appreciates. From Aznavour to Gainsbourg, Johnny and Françoise Hardy, he revisits 10 timeless titles, mixing them with the music he discovered in London, Neo Soul Jazz.