This is a matrix in the original sense of "source". It is a "small-world" network, meaning that the nodes (people) inside it are — mirroring human society — within a few steps of everybody else inside it. The matrix was built to allow regional Brazilian musicians to be discoverable steps away from everybody else in the arts world, and by logical necessity this m.o. requires not only that the great Brazilians be matrixed, but so far as possible, all working artists in our time. Ergo:
THIS MATRIX, THOUGH BRAZIL-BORN, IS UNIVERSAL
This Joey Alexander matrix node is steps away from the entire planet by the well-known small-world ("6 degrees") phenomenon dictating that in human society you yourself are within several degrees of Joey Alexander.
1 DEGREE FORWARD: Joey Alexander (node) ROUTES TO THESE ARTIST NODES
Are these Joey Alexander's personal recommendations?
CURATION STATUS
- → Routes by The Matrix via ↴
Who & Where
- Name: Joey Alexander
- City/Place: New York City
- Country: United States
- Hometown: Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia
Life & Work
-
Bio:
A funny thing happened to Joey Alexander over the past five years, a whirlwind period during which he became the most brilliantly precocious talent in jazz history—that is, a renowned festival and concert-hall headliner; the youngest musician ever nominated for a Grammy Award in a jazz category; and a media favorite who’s earned a profile on 60 Minutes, a front-page profile in the New York Times and other premier coverage.
As heard on WARNA, his new major-label Verve Records debut, he’s simply become one of the most expressive and thrilling pianist-composers currently at work in jazz. Alexander’s precocity can still stun concertgoers, but his music, including original work and personalized interpretations of great songs, has now taken its rightful place in the spotlight.
Translating as “color” from Alexander’s native language of Bahasa, WARNA follows four Motéma Music albums that garnered the pianist three Grammy nominations and such honors as historic critics’ and readers’ poll victories in DownBeat and JazzTimes. But whereas those recordings were documents of an extraordinary young musician in development, WARNA is primarily a collection of reflective, moving new music by an experienced, confident bandleader.
Now far beyond the “jazz prodigy” hoopla, Alexander channels what he sees, hears and feels throughout his life and travels into his astonishing melodic gift and natural aptitude for spontaneous collaboration. Joining Alexander on this journey is a cast of musicians who, like the leader, represent the very best of their jazz generations. A core piano trio comprises bassist Larry Grenadier—who recently released a daring solo-bass exploration for ECM, and whose relationship with Alexander reaches back to the pianist’s debut, 2015’s My Favorite Things—and Kendrick Scott, a tremendously dynamic drummer who records as a bandleader himself for the venerated Blue Note label. On select tracks, the proceedings are lifted higher still by either Luisito Quintero, a Venezuelan-born percussion master who has been tapped by such giants as Tito Puente, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette and Eddie Palmieri; and flautist Anne Drummond, a musician, producer and educator whose wide command of genres is staggering.
WARNA unfolds like entries in a road journal. The title track, “Mosaic (of Beauty)” and “Our Story” are testament to the shared joys of music-making. Alexander got the inspiration for “Lonely Streets,” a tribute to America’s forgotten corners and quiet small towns, while traveling from a gig in upstate New York to his home in Manhattan. The tunes “Downtime” and “We Here” were written to honor those special moments that occur off the concert stage, exploring new cities or just hanging out with family and friends.
Joey highlights his deeply felt faith with a couple of spiritually inspired tracks. “Tis Our Prayer” is rooted in the pre-performance ritual that Alexander partakes in with his bandmates, a prayer offering thanks for the opportunity to share music with the audience. “The Light,” Alexander explains, was forged to bring “blessings of hope, courage and joy to people who listen,” especially those in need of healing.
Though Alexander’s original music ranges far and wide stylistically, seamlessly incorporating influences from gospel, Latin music and more, through lines do emerge: a heaven-sent sense of song and form, and a keen ability to generate escalating excitement over the course of a performance. Alexander’s hero and early champion Herbie Hancock is evoked, as are the singable lines of the likes of Pat Metheny and Keith Jarrett. He evinces a similar knack for memorable, enticing tunefulness on a pair of freeform improvisations, “Affirmation I” and “Affirmation III.” Two additional tracks, a cover of Sting’s 1988 hit “Fragile” and Joe Henderson’s classic standard “Inner Urge,” showcase both Alexander’s dynamism as an interpreter and his veneration of masters across genre. As the New Yorker once observed, “He may be young, but he certainly respects his elders.”
In his sweet and understated way, Alexander says of his new album: “I wanted to share with people my original work based on my experiences on the road and onstage playing with different musicians, and the musical conversations.” That might sound like the approach of any number of accomplished improvisers and composers, but of course no other musician has experienced a life in jazz like Alexander’s.
He arrived in New York as a lightning bolt in the spring of 2014, performing at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s annual fundraising gala. At the helm of a packed-out theater containing some of Manhattan’s most elite arts benefactors, Alexander dropped jaws with a remarkably lyrical rendition of “’Round Midnight.” A standing ovation ensued, and Alexander hasn’t slowed down since. The following spring, the New York Times wrote in an enthusiastic profile that “For a jazz pianist, the mastery entails a staggering breadth of knowledge about harmony, rhythm and orchestration, all converging in an eloquent synthesis. Joey Alexander has a handle on a good deal of that.” From there, he went on to receive three Grammy nominations, with two of Alexander’s four previous albums topping the Billboard Jazz Albums chart.
His live performances have been equally celebrated. At the 58th Grammy Awards, in February of 2016, he played during both the pre-telecast and the primetime TV event. That same year, Alexander also performed with Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding for the Obamas at the White House, as part of a nationally televised International Jazz Day special. In 2018, Alexander headlined Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater with a 20-piece string section orchestrated and conducted by Grammy nominee Richard DeRosa. On October 18, 2019, he made his triumphant Carnegie Hall debut to a sold-out Zankel Hall crowd.
Early on in Alexander’s ascent, the trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center leader Wynton Marsalis said that “there has never been anyone … who could play like that at his age.” Marsalis, who essentially “discovered” Alexander via his YouTube videos and invited him to New York, was spot-on in his assessment. But today, in light of WARNA, one could extend their judgment to say that Joey Alexander continues to perform at the highest level.
Contact Information
-
Management/Booking:
Management
Tom Korkidis
tom@imnworld.com
Booking
ted@thekurlandagency.com
thekurlandagency.com - Record Company: Verve
Media & Markets
- ▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://joeyalexandermusic.net/music/
- ▶ Twitter: _joeyalexander
- ▶ Instagram: joeyalexandermusic
- ▶ Website: http://joeyalexandermusic.net
- ▶ YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP9GKAbvDxLBqCcEaw4HDiw
- ▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCCI1GU-HeUPLgxB-uE6jhMw
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/74BbmizCtuM6TZ5ESvLVV5
- ▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/4WHtmqNJCJtXiaQojOHHEC
- ▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/1AxMJlX259UQmCRRsD5jl5
- ▶ Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/7BKfTB8wahfi7HTtN6v58u
- ▶ Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/0Ll77PUk8FUyTY7mordEum
- ▶ Spotify 6: http://open.spotify.com/album/6rMCWaf6ElyNe2iiwnkq2h
Clips (more may be added)
-
Joey Alexander - SALT (Audio)
30 views
-
Joey Alexander - Human Nature (Cover)
30 views
-
Joey Alexander - Affirmation III
26 views
-
Joey Alexander - Ennio Morricone from Cinema Paradiso (Live from Home)
29 views
-
Joey Alexander - Warna
33 views
-
Joey Alexander: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
29 views
THE MATRIX WAS BUILT HERE, inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone... The Brazilian "aleph" doesn't hum...it sings!
Sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes
Stoked and steamed and sensual in the widest sense of the word
Limned in prosody and cadenced song
brəˈzɪl / from "brasa" / Latin for "ember"
w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio
Given the immense untapped power of the small-world phenomenon, from Brazilians the matrix was expanded to include nodes per jazz artists, given jazz's common roots with Brazilian music (nodes based in publicly available information; some artists we informed — Bob Mintzer, Kamasi Washington, David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, Vijay Iyer, Greg Osby — and got thumbs up, others we'll get to), and moved on from there. Artists/academics/"creative people" are welcome to create their own nodes and curate (connect to other artist nodes, so that others may follow). BTW, our logo is a cortador de cana, cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specializes in.
MUCH MORE on all of this in the window below (which, if you are logged in, will instead contain instructions on recommending), and in the window within that window (which includes a "radio" called by The Guardian one of "10 of the best music radio stations around the world"):
