Ever since he was a young child, Solomon Alber (‘17) has always been a musician at heart. He has never stopped and continues to pursue his passion as a jazz musician, filling his life with accents and melodies.

Alber started his musical journey like many others– with the piano. After joining his elementary school’s band, Alber soon discovered the saxophone, which would later turn out to be his true calling. 

Upon entering middle school, Alber joined the Harvest Park jazz band, which would later encourage him to join the Amador Valley jazz band a few years later. 

“I’m lucky I got to work with Mr. Aubel, the jazz band director for Amador. He really helped me get started in playing orchestral music and playing in a lot of different musical settings and situations. He’s a really awesome teacher,” said Alber.

After graduating high school, Alber studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He now plays all over New York while finishing up his master’s degree at Rutgers University.

“Recently, I’ve also been playing with a lot of great musicians in New York, so that’s been really an awesome experience for me to be able to meet a lot of musicians here and to really start to play a lot of music,” said Alber.

It has always been Alber’s goal to be able to meet all sorts of people around the world.

“I would love to travel and take my own music and start to work with different musicians. Since high school, I’ve always wanted to travel and go see the world, to go meet as many people as I can. Thankfully music helped me do that a lot, and I just hope it continues for years,” said Alber.

However, the journey has not always been easy. Especially with Covid-19, it has been hard for musicians like Alber to play their music.

“Recently, the last few years haven’t been the easiest for musicians, for people in creative work. Thankfully nowadays, it’s all coming back. More places are having musicians play. There’s more art. It was kind of tough though, especially those early on years,” said Alber.

Despite the struggles, Alber stayed optimistic and used his time to try something new. It was during this time that he started learning about music production and the technical side of music. 

“If you give me something to learn I know nothing about, I’m happy because I get to learn something new. You get to learn how to be creative at the same time as you’re learning, so I started to get into music production. It’s a wonderful thing that’s now part of my life—audio engineering and all of that side of music,” said Alber.

Not only have famous jazz musicians inspired Alber, but the people around him including his friends and teachers have also served as an inspiration. 

“One of the first people I ever heard was Louis Armstrong, and it was a song called ‘What a Wonderful World’. That song is so simple but so beautiful. Hearing that song for the first time and not really knowing much about jazz, was a really good way for me to start to listen a little more. There have been all sorts of influences after that. Just people I’ve met have influenced me including teachers like Mr. Aubel and Mr. Perazzo,” said Alber.

For Alber, the journey of a musician may not always be straightforward, but it’s the jazzy tunes that keep him going. 

“I’d say the journey of a musician is never so clear, but there’s always music. That’s what I found. I may be finishing up with school, but I’m always going to be learning. It’s just a part of the life of an artist. You’re just always learning, always trying new things, always trying to find something new that you’ve never done before,” said Alber.