Jonothan Alter

As a jazz critic, the first thing I notice with Myriam Alter’s latest release, cleverly titled It Takes Two, is a friendly reminder: Alter is not a jazz musician. The music on It Takes Two, as with most of the music from her releases over the years (dating back to the early 1990s), bespeaks of more elemental musical qualities and less so about altered chords (not to mention chord changes), intricate arrangements or rhythmic complexity, all qualities that are typically found in most of the music we call jazz.

Myriam Alter received classical music training starting from the age of 8. Being very involved with her studies (graduating from high school, then getting a licence for psychology at the University of Brussels), she stopped practising her instrument at the age of 15. After her studies first she worked in an advertising agency for seven years. After that, without really being aware of it, she went back to music by opening a dancing school that she managed for another seven years. This was when she really felt the need to start studying the piano again. Her innate attraction to improvised music brought her very naturally to jazz. She started to study on her own and then later with two Americans, the saxophonist John Ruocco and pianist Denis Luxion. Finally it was Dutch bass player Hein van de Geyn, who had been following her career closely, who became the producer of her first three records…