Joey Alexander: An Old Soul in a Young Body

The vast majority of musicians I see in concert are in the autumn of their years. In recent months, I have seen my share of septuagenarians (The Monkees, Spinal Tap), octogenerians (Gordon Lightfoot) and nonagenarians (Tony Bennett).

This evening was a significant change of pace as my Dad and I went ventured down to the Blue Note Jazz Club in The Village to see 15-year old Joey Alexander play piano. The Indonesian born Alexander taught himself to play piano at the age of six and eventually came to the attention of Wynton Marsalis who invited him to play at Lincoln Center in 2014 and has been based in New York ever since. Like many people, I first became aware of Alexander during a 60 Minutes profile of him back in 2016.

Dad has sung his praises from quite some time. He tells people unfamiliar with Alexander that he has an old soul in a young body who has an innate collection with the likes of Dave Brubeck, Glenn Gould and Oscar Peterson. My father is hardly alone in his assessment as I overheard a gentleman at the table behind me say almost exactly the same thing.

Alexander, who turns 16 later this month, has already recorded four albums and has been thrice nominated for a Grammy Award. Despite these achievements, he retains a grace, a warmth and a humility which endears him to his audiences. Most of his selections this evening were his own compositions from his 2018 Eclipse. He was joined by Larry Grenadier on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums. Grenadier is a solid side man while Scott's playing occasionally drowned out Alexander's piano as if he were in competition with him rather than in collaboration. Scott, however, did make innovative use of the cymbals later in the evening. The trio was also joined for two songs by flautist Anne Drummond. While I enjoyed her presence as the flute is an underutilized instrument in jazz, Dad said the others in the audience were tuning her out.

Nevertheless, Dad was impressed with the proceedings and went as far as to say that musical history had been made. I don't know if I would go that far, but Alexander plays the piano and with an extraordinary intensity. His candle burns brightly and yet hasn't reached its full glow.