Sonny Axel is a pianist and singer born 1982 in St Etienne, France, to musician parents. He showed great interest in music from a very young age, starting piano lessons at the age of 5, and then attending the National Conservatoire Primary School. It is indeed a rare thing that a child, younger than 10, shows such interest in jazz, boogie and getting albums by Erroll Garner, Duke Ellington, and even Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind & Fire, to be played in his bedroom.

The Director of the Conservatoire advised Sonny’s parents for him to also attend jazz lessons at the adjacent music school, creating a precedent as later on the 2 institutions would combine. He took a few singing classes, but finally decided to self-teach, whilst accompanying himself on the piano.

The first professional contracts soon followed and he would eventually meet other musicians with whom he would affirm his own personal style. Incontestably influence by rhythm’n’blues and motown, he appeared at many jazz clubs and private events during the next 10 years. Notably the opening act of the Casino Ruhl in Nice as a trio.

During the summer of 2007, he met an American singer, Sugar Blue, and over the next 6 years he played with him in many venues around the world. Sugar Blue’s music had an enormous influence on Sonny’s style and it was through Sugar Blue’s guidance that Sonny developed his own style of music.

In 2010, Sonny recorded his 1st album in Los Angeles, California, at the Pig Sound studio. Producing this album gave him the opportunity to include original material he had written and to sing them. Then In 2014, he appeared alongside Ute Lemper in the Woody Allen film “Magic In The Moonlight”.

Sonny’s has just released his 2nd album, “Kick Back”, of original songs. Future plans are a tour in both the US and the ret of Europe.

Thanks to Peter Holmstedt at HEMIFRAN