Despite having a Billboard chart-topping album and receiving two Grammy nominations, 12-year-old Indonesian jazz prodigy Joey Alexander found yet another way to make us all proud after he performed at the White House for a concert opened by none other than the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama.
Joey was one of the many international jazz acts who performed at the fifth annual International Jazz Day All-Star Global Concert on April 30, this year hosted by the White House in Washington, D.C. Joey, along with saxophonist Wayne Shorter and bassist Esperanza Spalding, performed one of Shorter’s pieces, titled “Footprints”. You can check out their performance in the video above – after they are introduced by the voice of God Himself, Morgan Freeman – at the 48:15 mark.
Amazingly, the New York Times had this to say about the performance and the wonder that is Joey Alexander:
It flowed like water along a creek bed, burbling with inquisitive interplay — a transporting experience in just four minutes, and the most purely musical exchange of the concert. (Mr. Alexander is 12, which is usually the first thing to know about him. He made that fact a distant afterthought.)
Maybe our State Palace should invite Joey to play in front of President Joko Widodo to show the boy that we appreciate him here in Indonesia too. Just sayin’.
But Joey’s not all about performing for VVIPs – he’s actually going to be in Jakarta to play at JIExpo Kemayoran later this month. Read our preview of the show here.
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