Jazz man Alex Bugnon is a Blues Alley Thanksgiving tradition

A holiday tradition enters its 13th year at D.C.’s Blues Alley Jazz Supper Club with the genre’s devotees gathering like hungry folks to a buffet. And pianist Alex Bugnon wouldn’t miss it for all the turkey and stuffing in the District. “I always play the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving,” he said with the determined anticipation of a man marking his territory. “It’s a big tradition in Washington, D.C., and I wait all year to play there.”

Adding to the excitement tonight is his newly released CD titled “Going Home.” With five of his own compositions and three more by the likes of none other than Herbie Hancock, Bugnon calls the music “totally smooth jazz” and said he feels sure the audience will embrace it.

“Of course I cannot stop [performing] the music people have wanted to hear over the years, but I’d like to introduce some of my newer music,” Bugnon, who started playing classical piano at the age of 6, said.

In the introduction of these new works, he will be joined tonight by drummer, Mark Prince and Vincent Henry on saxophone, flute and guitar.

While it’s nearly impossible to pin jazz artists down to a particular program, the three men will have a set list for the evening to include music from the newest release, as well as from his other albums including “Free,” “Soul Purpose” and “Southern Living.”

Still, when the notion strikes, jazz men almost always go with the flow.

“According to the mood of the room, including my own mood and interaction with the people, I’ll improvise if I think it’s appropriate. I may do ‘this’ instead of ‘that,'” Bugnon said, a bit surreptitiously.

Growing up in Montreux, Switzerland — the home of the Montreux Jazz Festival — and guided by his father, a jazz guitarist in his own right, it was almost inevitable that Bugnon would acquire a love for the music of Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk, among others. But studying at the Paris Conservatory and at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Bugnon finds himself going back to classical compositions for a daily workout.

“I don’t like to be conceited,” he said, “but we have the whole history of music under our fingers and we play always as if it was [our] last hour on the stage.”