(Motéma 233988)
John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, a striking composition which travels through three key changes in swift succession, is a rite of passage for jazz players, and worthy of exploration by the most experienced. This album opens with it, played solo on piano, sophisticated harmonies tumbling from the keyboard from a player with a sure touch. Larry Grenadier on bass and Ulysses Owens Jr. on drums soon join in. But who is Joey Alexander?
Well, he is from Bali, first picked out Thelonious Monk’s Well You Needn’t on the piano at the age of six, has had no formal jazz education and can number Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock and Bill Clinton among his fans. He is now 12 years old.
This debut album is filled with jazz standards, Monk, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Billy Strayhorn among their composers, and Alexander plays them with amazing technical facility and emotional maturity. If his own composition, Ma Blues, sounds a little too like Comin’ Home, we shouldn’t really hold that against him.
If you listen really hard in the knowledge that he is 12 you can hear he isn’t yet in the league of all those more mature, more experienced jazz pianists. But, hell, it’s a pretty impressive start. A real jazz prodigy.
Categories: CD review
thejazzbreakfast 
Joey is 12 this month, when he is 14 in 2 years he will mature even more.
Apologies! Now corrected.
Were my eyes and ears deceiving me? 12 yrs. old?!
You don’t get to invite artists of the calibre of Larry Grenadier to record with you unless you have something really good to offer. So well done Joey!