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Alex Navarro

Alex Navarro has a lot of sneakers in his closet, and you can blame none other than soulful singer Queen Latifah.

“She always had the coolest shoes every day,” said Navarro, who toured with Latifah on her Trav’lin’ Light tour from 2007 to 2009. “That started my addiction to unique sneakers.”

But there’s more to this talented pianist than just a penchant for stylish footwear. There’s also a fascination for arranging, musical textures, melodies and stories within songs, evident in Navarro’s debut album “Closer Than You Think.”

An eight-track collection of melody-centered compositions varying in style and sound, the project is a fusion of Navarro’s musical experiences. His classical influence can be heard on the songs “Prelude” and “Somewhere Far From Here, while “Closer Than You Think” and “I’ll See You in my Dreams” embrace the present day pop music the artist encountered during his professional years in Los Angeles. In contrast, “November” is influenced by his musical upbringing as a church pianist. A native of Peru, Navarro even taps into his Latin roots with “Marisol” and explores African rhythms in “Life Is Beautiful.”

The focus of the album is on the writing, arranging, textures and layers of the songs, illustrating Navarro’s style of letting the music breathe and not saturating every measure with sound.

“I just didn’t want it to be a collection of notes, and anyone who knows me musically or has heard me play knows I like to explore space in music,” Navarro said.

What’s more, each sound on the album is completely organic. Navarro incorporates a wide spectrum of electric and acoustic instruments including live strings, horns, acoustic and electric bass and guitar, vocals, and his personal 1963 Wurlitzer, along with three different pianos that really capture the mood of each song. Although a fan of some of today’s leading synthesizers, Navarro avoided them to preserve the live integrity of the project’s overall sound.

“I think there’s a realness to the record because of that,” Navarro said.

The record offers the listener a retreat from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, just as it did for the musicians on the project. Navarro and his ensemble escaped Los Angeles and spent three days in Oceanside, California just outside of San Diego, recording the initial rhythm tracks.

“We really got to live the songs for those three days, without the distractions we might have had being in L.A. in a studio,” Navarro said.

The pianist added that the project is a good representation of his career. He landed his first major tour in 2005 with Carly Simon, where he played keyboards and got a real taste of what it meant to be “on the road.” Two years later he joined Queen Latifah on tour to promote her jazz album, expanding on his skills in keyboard programming and sound sampling often used in R&B and hip-hop.

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