![]() How many of us watch and wish we could call ourselves one of the best at what we do? How many of us even know someone like that? Rarer than hen’s teeth are these people. Whatever the case, it is amazing to watch, knowing as adults the possibilities that lay ahead for such youngsters, secretly just a little envious we were not blessed with the same gifts. Did her body catch the spirit of some long-gone professional drummer? Maybe just a piece of something divine floating through the ether? Then again, maybe this otherwise unobtainable amount of talent is the result of the union of two perfectly matched people whose combined genes could not help but create a little one with such skills. ![]() I swear I was never a believer in reincarnation until watching a four year old girl play the drums like Elvin Jones. And we wonder, as we watch with our eyes open as big as saucers at these wunderkinds, if that isn’t the case. Perched on the edge of a drum throne at a mountainous drumset set up for an adult as they play with precision something Buddy Rich would struggle to play, arms and legs moving independently as if the child is possessed by a soul much, much older than their own. My personal favorites are the child drummers. ![]() Runs that would break, twist and mangle the fingers and hands of those who have played these instruments for most of their lives, fall easily under their miniature counterparts. Awestruck, you watch transfixed as they play these complicated passages easily. They seem impossibly agile as their limbs and fingers flow, creating sounds even veteran musicians wish they could come up with. The Joey Alexander Trio perform at NYUAD’s The Arts Centre, in the Black Box, on Wednesday, April 27, at 8pm.While occasionally scrolling Facebook or checking Youtube during your downtime you run across videos of these amazing child prodigies playing a guitar or bass bigger than their hands could possibly fret or maybe even seated at a piano with the spread of the keys seeming impossibly wide, too wide for them to possibly reach all of them, yet they play their instruments as if they’ve been playing them for forty years."The whole album consists of all my favourite tunes – so the title is My Favourite Things," he says.īoasting a subtle sensitivity as well technical virtuosity, the album sounds like the work of a far more mature talent, and was rewarded with two Grammy nods at February’s ceremony for Best Jazz Instrumental album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. Last year marked the release of debut album My Favourite Things, an assured set of small group readings of the standard songbook, including Rodgers and Hammerstein's title track and John Coltrane's Giant Steps. “I miss my grandmother, musician friends, and the beaches and mountains in Bali,” he says. Alexander and his family emigrated to the States that year. At the age of 8 he was asked to play for Hancock, who was visiting Jakarta as a Unesco goodwill ambassador.Įncouraged by the American master’s kind words, Alexander called it “the day I decided to dedicate my childhood to jazz”.Īfter seeing Alexander play on YouTube, trumpet great Wynton Marsalis invited the youngster to make his American performance debut in 2014, with a gig at Jazz at Lincoln Centre. The connection was instant – inspired by his father’s jazz collection, Alexander was soon a fixture on Bali’s club scene. The 12-year-old Indonesian prodigy – who performs a free concert as part of the Abu Dhabi Festival at New York University Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, April 27 – first encountered a piano at the age of 6. Jazz pianist Joey Alexander has played for Bill Clinton and Herbie Hancock, released a Billboard-charting album, and bagged a couple of Grammy nominations – and he is not even a teenager.
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