Recorded when Alexander was only 11, the album featured the pianist backed by bassists Larry Grenadier and Russell Hall, drummers Sammy Miller and Ulysses Owens, Jr., and trumpeter Alphonso Horne. On the heels of this recognition, he released his debut album, 2015's Jason Olaine-produced My Favorite Things, on the Motema Music label. Many of these performances were widely covered, with viral videos of the proficient Alexander popping up online. Several more high-profile shows followed, including appearances at the Apollo Theater, Juilliard, and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. In 2014, he relocated with his family to New York City, where Wynton Marsalis invited him to perform at a Jazz at Lincoln Center gala. The following year, Alexander won first place in the Master Jam-Fest in Odessa, Ukraine. By age eight, he was jamming with local professionals, and in 2012 he had the opportunity to play for Herbie Hancock, who was visiting Jakarta, Indonesia as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Without formal training, and initially only playing on a small keyboard his father had given him, Alexander achieved a high degree of proficiency.
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By age six, he had taught himself how to play piano by listening to albums by Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and others. He has also regularly landed in the jazz Top 20 as on 2018's Eclipse, 2020's Warna, and 2022's Origin.īorn Josiah Alexander Sila in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia in 2003, Alexander was introduced to music by his father, an amateur musician and jazz aficionado. Alexander has continued to mature as an improviser and composer, leading his trio with veteran bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Kendrick Scott. Championed by veterans, including his idol Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis, Alexander emerged to wide acclaim in 2014, earning several Grammy nominations including for 2015's My Favorite Things and 2016's Countdown, both of which also hit number one on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. The Joey Alexander Trio is at the National Concert Hall on July 12.Indonesian-born pianist Joey Alexander is an extremely gifted jazz musician who first came to the public's attention as a ten-year-old prodigy.
I think I am still being normal, you know. But nonetheless, he insists: “I do play video games, I watch movies. Life for young Joey now consists of performing, traveling and recording, with home schooling added in too. It is exciting, for sure, but of course, I am thankful to be able to travel around the world too.” It is the centre of jazz, that’s what people would say. “It’s has a different energy, and there are a lot of great musicians here that I’ve had a chance to work with. “I thought, being in New York, I could express more with the music I was playing than back home,” he says of the big move. Both that record, My Favourite Things, and Countdown, were nominated for Grammys. He played the Newport Jazz Festival that summer, moved to New York, and released an album that made him the first Indonesian to enter the Billboard Top 200. Having shown what he’d got, Joey and his family were soon in demand at the top table of US jazz. “I was a little bit scared of it but I was thinking positively: it was this one opportunity for me to show what I had got.” With the impetuousness of youth, Joey chose to play Monk’s ‘Round Midnight’, and his world changed overnight. In 2014, when he was just 10 years old, Marsalis invited Joey to play the the Jazz at the Lincoln Centre gala. This maturity beyond years was what struck the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who says he’s “never heard anyone who could play like him.” He gave Joey his chance to impress a big American audience. “I think of it as composing the moment, that’s what you are trying to do.” “It’s the freedom to express myself,” he says of jazz improvisation.
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His playing, especially on his new album Countdown, has a mastery of understanding and expression that any professional player would be proud of. With jazz, precocity usually runs into the brick wall of improvisation, which limits the depth of playing of most young players. The phrase ‘child prodigy’ is common for young pianists, but more in the classical realm than in the jazz one.
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