BIO

As a multifaceted musician, educator and visual artist, Alex Dyring creates his art as a way to connect with people on a visceral level, while providing a canvas for processing and expressing sentiments of justice, equity, and celebration of cultures. Alex is primarily a bassist, specializing in electric bass, upright bass, and (Ampeg) baby bass, and he is also an accomplished guitarist, vocalist, producer, engineer, composer, arranger, and musical director. While maintaining a diverse musical skill set, Alex’s true passion lies in his work as a bassist, shaping the lens through which he approaches all else. Rather than regarding the bass as a singular confined instrument, he believes that the role of the bass exists as a sonic space and a grounding rhythmic foundation for any musical setting. 

Growing up in Seattle, Alex was raised listening to his mother’s native Colombian cassettes and CD’s, as well his parents’ worldwide music collection. As a bilingual Colombian-American, surrounded by a multigenerational family, connecting with and studying these styles of music from an early age was deeply personal in terms of celebrating and shaping his understanding of self and culture. Alex’s father, a violist in the Seattle Symphony, inspired him to pursue a career in music. Alex grew up in the symphony hall listening to classical music and tagging along to recording studios while his father recorded film scores, which normalized a lifestyle of creativity and devotion to practice and craft. His early influences also included the classical and jazz styles interwoven in soundtracks of cartoons, such as Looney Tunes and Hey Arnold. Alex began playing violin at the age of two, studied classical piano at age six, guitar at age nine, and began studying the bass when he was twelve. 

As a dedicated guitar player by the age of fourteen, Alex was drawn to the blues and was deeply inspired by the greats of the genre, such as B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix (a hometown inspiration). Studying improvisation and swing rhythm through the framework of the blues laid a foundation to the next chapter of his musical development as a jazz upright bassist. Alex was a part of the Edmonds Woodway High School Jazz band program–one of the top student ensembles in the U.S.–and participated in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition in New York City. He participated in the 2010 All-Northwest Jazz Band, and upon graduating from high school, received the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award for outstanding musical achievement. Outside of his academic environment, Alex spent his time skateboarding to his mixed playlists of pop punk, hip hop, and funk, while significantly furthering his music career by playing guitar, bass and keys in rock bands, learning to play gospel in church, R&B and jazz in clubs, performing in his father’s Classical-Latin fusion ensemble, recording and engineering out of his parents’ living room, and writing large-ensemble horn and string arrangements.

Alex graduated with a degree in Bass Performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, studying under notable professors Oscar Stagnaro, John Lockwood, and Lincoln Goines. In his second year, he studied at Berklee’s Valencia campus in Spain, where he had the opportunity to learn from and perform with Program Director and Vibraphonist Victor Mendoza, as well as bassists Mario Rossy and Alain Perez. During this period, he was deeply steeped in the musical intersection of Latin jazz, flamenco, and Middle Eastern music.

Alex frequently draws from the rhythmic structures of folkloric Colombian and Cuban music as a way to celebrate the shared lineage of Latin American and Black American music. He strives for authenticity and aims to highlight and uplift diverse voices and cultural histories. Alex draws his influence from the rhythmic patterns of West African derived music within Hip Hop and funk combined with the harmonic and improvisational elements of jazz. During his time as musical director for Seattle Hip Hop label OTOW Gang, Alex played and recorded with prolific artists such as: Slum Village, Fatlip & Slimkid3 (The Pharcyde), Bambu, Prometheus Brown (Blue Scholars), while additionally billing with legends: Pete Rock, Warren G, and Salt n Pepa.

After leaving Seattle in 2016, Alex moved to New Orleans, which was a rich and formative period, as it initiated a realignment of his sense of self and love for jazz through immersion in the traditions of the city and the music it birthed. Through studying and performing in New Orleans, he was able to internalize and absorb the essential nature of social connection and the spirit of innovation and improvisation embedded in swing, R&B, gospel, blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and Caribbean music, which remains at the forefront of every style of music he plays.

In 2017, Alex moved to The Dominican Republic, between two periods of living in New Orleans, to fulfill the position of Academic Coordinator at Fedujazz, a non-profit music school. He taught music classes in Spanish to children of all ages, designed curriculum, and assisted with the production of the Dominican Republic Jazz Festival. Alex performed and recorded original music with local artists all over the island, drawing on inspiration from Dominican and Haitian folkloric traditions. Living in the Dominican Republic re-contextualized his time in New Orleans in terms of understanding the connection of rhythm and culture that the two regions share, while exploring the facets of his own heritage. 

After Alex returned to Seattle in 2021, he was highly sought after in the Latin music scene as an upright and baby bass player, performing with Cuban cuatro virtuoso, Kiki Valera, Carlos Cascante (Spanish Harlem Orchestra), Jovino Santos Neto (Hermeto Pascoal), and Orquesta Nueva Era, who backed up prolific salsa artists, Jose Alberto “El Canario,” Herman Olivera, Armando Davalillo (Adolescent’s Orquesta), when they performed in the Northwest. 

Alex lives and works in New York City as a freelance multi-instrumentalist, educator and visual artist. Since moving to NYC, Alex has quickly established himself as an in-demand musician and recently performed with reggaeton legend, Yandel, on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Alex primarily plays Latin and Afro-Caribbean music, R&B, and jazz locally, as well as hip hop, rock, pop, folk, and experimental music. He tours regularly, accompanying a diverse array of artists nationally and internationally. Alex simultaneously maintains an active studio schedule as an audio engineer, producer and musical director.  He continues to interweave his artistic disciplines, striving to generate a seamless flow of creative expression through his personal work as well as in his collaborations with other artists.