He also played in a concert with students of the Juilliard School, the proceeds of which funded his continuing stay in New York City. His performance at the University of the District of Columbia garnered viral attention on the internet, drawing more than 500,000 views on Facebook. Joey Alexander played at A Great Night in Harlem at the Apollo Theater, a performance honoring Herbie Hancock. Moutoussamy-Ashe introduced him to Gordon Uehling III, founder of the CourtSense Tennis Training Center, who allowed Alexander and his family to stay at his estate in Alpine, New Jersey. I loved everything about his playing – his rhythm, his confidence, his understanding of the music." Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, widow of tennis player Arthur Ashe, invited Alexander to perform at the Arthur Ashe Learning Center gala, where he played for a crowd that included former U.S. He played his own solo variations on 'Round Midnight' with a breathtaking precocity and mastery of several decades of piano style." Marsalis said of him: "There has never been anyone that you can think of who could play like that at his age. Allen Morrison of DownBeat magazine said of the performance: "If the word 'genius' still means anything, it applies to this prodigy. The New York Times said he became an "overnight sensation" after the performance. He received positive reviews for his performance, particularly for his solo version of the Monk song " 'Round Midnight". It marked Alexander's United States debut. Marsalis praised Alexander as "my hero" on his Facebook page, and invited him to appear at his organization's gala in May 2014, when he was 10. Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, learned about Joey Alexander after a friend suggested he watch a YouTube video clip of him playing compositions by Coltrane, Monk and Chick Corea. In 2014, he and his family moved to New York City to pursue a career in music. At the age of nine, he won the Grand Prix at the 2013 Master-Jam Fest, an all-ages jazz competition in Odessa, Ukraine, which included 43 musicians from 17 nations. Hancock told Alexander that he believed in him, and Alexander later called that time "the day I decided to dedicate my childhood to jazz". When he was eight, he played for Herbie Hancock when Hancock was visiting Jakarta as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. ĭue to the unavailability of jazz education in his hometown, Alexander participated in jam sessions in Bali and Jakarta, where his family moved after disbanding their tourism business so he could live near Indonesia's top jazz musicians. He cites as influences John Coltrane, Harry Connick Jr., Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock, and he particularly admires Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Brad Mehldau, Lee Morgan, Horace Silver, and McCoy Tyner. He later said learning the instrument came naturally to him, and considers his ability "a gift from God". By age six, he had taught himself to play piano using a miniature electric keyboard his father brought home for him, learning by ear compositions such as Thelonious Monk's " Well, You Needn't" and other songs from his father's jazz collection. He learned about jazz by listening to classic albums his father gave him. He is the nephew of the rock singer Nafa Urbach, and the Indonesian musician and songwriter Alam Urbach. His father was an amateur musician, and both parents were fans of jazz, particularly Louis Armstrong. Josiah Alexander Sila was born in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, to parents Denny Sila and Farah Leonora Urbach, who ran an adventure tourism business. Alexander played at the Montreal and Newport Jazz Festivals in 2015 and has performed for Herbie Hancock, Bill Clinton, Wendy Kiess, and Barack Obama. His first album, My Favorite Things, was released in 2015 when he was 11 years old. In 2014, Wynton Marsalis invited him to play at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He won the Grand Prix at the 2013 Master-Jam Fest when he was nine. Widely regarded as a wunderkind, Alexander taught himself to play jazz at the age of six by listening to his father's classic jazz albums. He became the first Indonesian musician to chart on Billboard 200 when his album My Favorite Things debuted at number 174 and then peaked at 59. Josiah Alexander Sila (born 25 June 2003), known professionally as Joey Alexander, is an Indonesian jazz pianist.
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