Alvin Queen in Dachau, 2001
Alvin Queen is an American-born Swiss jazz drummer born in the Bronx, New York, on August 16, 1950. At 16, he played for Ruth Brown and Don Pullen and with the Wild Bill Davis trio. He played with trombonist Benny Green and guitarist Tiny Grimes in 1969 and replaced Billy Cobham in the Horace Silver quintet. He also played with the George Benson quartet before rejoining Charles Tolliver in November 1971. During the seventies, he lived in Canada, before settling in Switzerland in 1979 and creating the label Nilva, an anagram of his first name.
He has also played with Michael Brecker, Kenny Drew, Oscar Peterson, Bennie Wallace, Duško Gojković, Johnny Griffin, and George Coleman.