Joey Alexander: Continuance

Editor's Choice

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

John Davis
Theo Croker (t)
Kris Funn
Joey Alexander (p)

Label:

Mack Avenue

February/2024

Media Format:

CD, DL

Catalogue Number:

MAC1208

RecordDate:

Rec. March 2023

In 2014, when he was 10, the Indonesian piano prodigy Joey Alexander caught the ear of Wynton Marsalis, and the resulting Jazz At Lincoln Center gig made him an 'overnight sensation' in the view of the New York Times. He's made seven albums since, consistently confirming that his imaginative fluency is about mature emotion and insight as much as keyboard touch.

Continuance, like 2022's Origin, features an all-original tracklist, and composition turns out to be an art to which this remarkable performer has already brought the same craftsmanship, musicality and knack for subtle reshaping of familiar materials as he's been demonstrating as a pianist for a decade.

Joined by the exploratory, somewhat Roy Hargrove-like trumpeter Theo Croker and a powerful bass and drums team, these seven tracks include tricksy rhythm-juggling postbop, the catchy bass-led groover 'Zealousy' (a feature for Fender Rhodes) and three evocative ballads including the gliding 'Aliceanna' with the leader mimicking a flute on a Mellotron. 'Blue', the most structurally intriguing piece, shifts an intro of short, darting trumpet/bass fragments into a languidly radiant theme that seems to glimpse 1960s Herbie, triggering Alexander's signature ability to glide over the keys in silvery streams as if dissolving notes into each other.

The elegant ballad 'Why Don't We' initially sounds generic, but shrewdly stretches the form to invitingly free up improv space. The teasingly postponed groove of 'Hear Me Now' unleashes exhilarating breaks from Croker and Alexander, and 'I Can't Make You Love Me' and 'Great Is Thy Faithfulness' are soulful trances infused with haunting gospel harmonies.

Joey Alexander's virtuosity and the warm embrace of jazz's celebrity aristocracy could have made him a retro artist, but he's already streets ahead of that.

Follow us

Jazzwise Print

  • Latest print issues

From £5.83 / month

Subscribe

Jazzwise Digital Club

  • Latest digital issues
  • Digital archive since 1997
  • Download tracks from bonus compilation albums during the year
  • Reviews Database access

From £7.42 / month

Subscribe

Subscribe from only £5.83

Never miss an issue of the UK's biggest selling jazz magazine.

Subscribe

View the Current
Issue

Take a peek inside the latest issue of Jazzwise magazine.

Find out more