Ralph Alessi

Ralph Alessi (born March 5, 1963) is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and ECM recording artist. Alessi is known as a virtuosic performer whose critically-acclaimed projects include his Baida Quartet, with Jason Moran, Drew Gress, and Nasheet Waits, and This Against That, his quintet with Andy Milne, Gress, Mark Ferber, and Ravi Coltrane. Alessi has also recorded and performed with artists including Steve Coleman, Uri Caine, Fred Hersch, and Don Byron.

Alessi is known for his work as an educator, and in 2001 he founded the School for Improvisational Music in Brooklyn, New York. He has taught at the Eastman School of Music, NYU, NEC, the University of Nevada, Reno, Siena Jazz University, and University of the Arts Bern.

Early life and career
Alessi was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His parents met as performers at the Metropolitan Opera: his mother, Maria Leone Alessi, sang in the chorus; his father, Joseph Alessi Sr., was principal trumpet for nearly 15 seasons. His brother, Joseph Alessi, is a trombonist with the New York Philharmonic.

Alessi also began as a classical musician, and performed with the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera in his teens. He later attended the California Institute of the Arts, studying with Charlie Haden while earning a BFA in jazz trumpet performance and MFA in jazz bass performance. In 1986, he met fellow CalArts student Ravi Coltrane, who became one of his longest-standing collaborators. JazzTimes describes their "musical bond" as "arguably developing into a rapport on par with the highest echelon of trumpet/tenor combinations"; Coltrane once gave an interview with NPR focused entirely on his favorite song, Alessi's "Who Wants Ice Cream".

As leader

 * Hissy Fit (1999, Love Slave)
 * This Against That (2002, RKM)
 * Vice & Virtue (2002, RKM)
 * Look (2007, Between the Lines)
 * Open Season (2009, RKM)
 * Cognitive Dissonance (2010, CAM Jazz)
 * Wiry Strong (2011, Clean Feed)
 * Only Many (2013, CAM Jazz)
 * Baida with Jason Moran, Drew Gress, Nasheet Waits (2013, ECM)
 * Quiver (2016, ECM)
 * Imaginary Friends with Ravi Coltrane, Andy Milne, Drew Gress, Mark Ferber (2018, ECM)
 * It's Always Now with Florian Weber, Bänz Oester, Gerry Hemingway (2023, ECM)

As sideman
With David Ake With Don Byron With Michael Cain With Uri Caine With James Carney With Steve Coleman With Ravi Coltrane With Scott Colley With David Gilmore With Drew Gress With Fred Hersch With Jason Moran With Enrico Pieranunzi With Lonnie Plaxico With Sam Rivers With Yelena Eckemoff
 * Bridges (Posi-Tone, 2013)
 * Humanities (Posi-Tone, 2018)
 * You are #6 (Blue Note, 2001)
 * Ivey Divey (Blue Note, 2006)
 * Circa (ECM, 1996)
 * The Sidewalks of New York: Tin Pan Alley (Winter & Winter, 1999)
 * Gustav Mahler in Toblach (Winter & Winter, 1999)
 * The Goldberg Variations (Winter & Winter, 2000)
 * Gustav Mahler: Dark Flame (Winter & Winter, 2003)
 * Shelf-Life (Winter & Winter, 2005)
 * Uri Caine Ensemble Plays Mozart (Winter & Winter, 2006)
 * The Othello Syndrome (Winter & Winter, 2009)
 * Rhapsody in Blue (Winter & Winter, 2013)
 * Fables from the Aqueduct (1994, Jacaranda)
 * Offset Rhapsody (1997, Jacaranda)
 * Ways & Means (2009, Songlines)
 * A Tale of 3 Cities (Novus/BMG, 1994)
 * Myths, Modes, and Means (Novus/BMG, 1995)
 * The Way of the Cipher (Novus/BMG, 1995)
 * The Sign and the Seal (BMG, 1996)
 * Genesis (BMG, 1997)
 * The Sonic Language of Myth (BMG, 1999)
 * Lucidarium (Label Bleu, 2003)
 * Moving Pictures (RCA/BMG, 1998)
 * From the Round Box (RCA, 2000)
 * Spirit Fiction (Blue Note, 2012)
 * Architect of the Silent Moment (CAM Jazz, 2005 [2007])
 * Empire (CAM Jazz, 2010)
 * Ritualism (2000, Kashka)
 * 7 Black Butterflies (Premonition, Koch, 2005)
 * The Irrational Numbers (Premonition, 2007)
 * The Sky Inside (Pirouet, 2013)
 * Leaves of Grass (2005, Palmetto)
 * Live from the Jazz Standard/ Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra (2009, Palmetto)
 * Trio plus 2 (Palmetto)
 * Songs Without Words (2009, Nonesuch)
 * Artist in Residence (Blue Note, 2006)
 * Proximity (2015, CamJazz)
 * With All My Heart (1994, Muse)
 * Emergence (2000, Savoy)
 * Inspiration (1999, RCA)
 * Culmination (1999, BMG France/RCA)
 * Better Than Gold and Silver (2018, L&H)
 * I Am a Stranger in This World (2022, L&H)

With Others
 * Peter Epstein, Polarities (2014)
 * Tomas Fujiwara Trio, Variable Bets (Relative Pitch, 2014)
 * Florian Weber, Lucent Waters (ECM, 2018)