I wanted to get into the experience of being there and the energy of the other musicians playing with me the freedom and the conversation, even though I was still learning about the music and I still am how we interact and how we understand each other’s tendencies. I didn’t go to all the jam sessions, but when I did I would just sit in and play. “But there were places that had jazz and my parents would take me to see musicians. “My father was my exposure (to jazz), just by listening and going to see live shows even though, where I was born, in Bali, there was not a big scene,” he says. Eventually, a YouTube clip made its way to Marsalis. While in Jakarta, he performed for Herbie Hancock. Within a few years, he was being taken to jam sessions in Bali and Jakarta. According to a New York Times profile, Alexander began playing at the age of six and could pick out a Thelonious Monk piece by ear. Not unlike many young composers, the Bali-born musician’s introduction to jazz came from his father’s record collection. Not as a struggle but more of an inspirational moment for me to create music, the gift that God has given me to share with people.” It was me looking, not at the future, but looking to the days we are in and how I can use music and maybe the experience of being in the pandemic as a source of inspiration. It was a moment in time when there was uncertainty of what lies ahead. This album, Origin, has to do with what I was experiencing. I wanted my audience to also focus on me as a young composer. I decided that maybe I should just put the focus on myself as a composer.
“I feel like being a composer has made me a better player,” he says. But Origin is a completely original work, a concept album of lively, complex compositions that were mostly written in New York City during the pandemic.
It’s a followup to 2018’s acclaimed Eclipse, in which he wrote six of the 11 pieces. Released in May 2022, Origin is Alexander’s sixth album and his first to focus solely on his own compositions. Article contentīut it could be argued that he has now safely arrived at a new phase in his career. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. I guess that’s the thing I want the most, (for) people to focus more on just the music. “All I can say is that I want the focus to be on being a composer and just a working musician like any other musician, striving to get better in their field. “Actually, that’s a good question,” says Alexander, before taking a thoughtful pause. J oey Alexander has a handle on a good deal of that.”īut, as is often the question with child prodigies, how comfortable is Alexander with the label? Now that he is a young adult, is he looking forward to a time when his age is not the main topic of conversation? “For a jazz pianist, the mastery entails a staggering breadth of knowledge about harmony, rhythm and orchestration, all converging in an eloquent synthesis.
#JAZZ PIANO PRODIGY ALEXANDER FULL#
Veteran New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen wrote a profile about him in 2015: “Jazz prodigies rarely have full command of their artistry,” he wrote. One of his online bios states “ Not many jazz musicians can boast three GRAMMY Award nominations before age 16″ and “At only 10 years old, he was hand-picked to mentor under jazz heavyweight Wynton Marsalis.” At the age of 11, a year before the 60 Minutes special, Alexander had dazzled crowds at the Montreal and Newport Jazz Festivals. Of course, at that point in his career, the focus was almost always on his youth. When reminded of the clip earlier this week in an interview with Postmedia, the now 19-year-old pianist says he has fond memories of the interview and spending the day with Cooper and Marsalis. “No one has ever seen a person play with that type of sophistication harmonically, knowledge of the music, and the type of formed identity to invent something cohesive in the context of (that) time,” Marsalis says, as young Joey sits in silence. He is told that there has never been anyone like him in the history of the genre. The newsman asks how rare it is for someone so young to possess these talents in the world of jazz. During the clip, which is just over a minute long, Marsalis is quizzed by Anderson Cooper about his protege. The jazz great is sitting at a piano with 12-year-old Indonesian jazz prodigy Joey Alexander.
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