{"id":7223,"date":"2016-01-04T21:18:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T05:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=7223"},"modified":"2016-01-05T15:45:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T23:45:16","slug":"joey-alexander-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2016\/01\/joey-alexander-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Joey Alexander: Genius?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7224\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mozart.jpg\" alt=\"Mozart\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mozart.jpg 236w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mozart-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mozart-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mozart-200x200.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>Mozart is the archetype of the child musical genius. Over the centuries, many successors have been proclaimed.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Joey-Alexander.jpg\" alt=\"Joey Alexander\" width=\"198\" height=\"168\" \/> In the long run, few have qualified. The current child-genius nominee is Joey Alexander, a pianist from the Indian Ocean Island of Bali. Whether it is accurate\u00e2\u20ac\u201dindeed whether it is fair to a 12-year-old\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto declare him a genius, is now beside the point. The publicity machinery is in full, inexorable, motion. Last night, CBS Television\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>60 Minutes<\/em> featured young Mr. Alexander. Coverage by that venerable news program is the 21st century counterpart of being on the cover of TIME Magazine. The campaign is underway.<\/p>\n<p>Videos of Joey Alexander have attracted tens of thousands of <em>YouTube<\/em> viewers. In one of them he plays John Coltrane&#8217;s harmonic obstacle course &#8220;Giant Steps.&#8221; Larry Grenadier is the bassist, Ulysses Owens, Jr. the drummer, in this take from a date for Mot\u00c3\u00a9ma Records.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f4V_uaxBVOw?rel=0\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Joey Alexander can play; there&#8217;s no question about that. Does his precocious talent, as Wynton Marsalis asserted at Town Hall in the <em>60 Minutes<\/em> piece, constitute genius? Will it ultimately bear the fruits of genius? Some day we&#8217;ll know. To see the <em>60 Minutes <\/em>story reported by Anderson Cooper, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/60-minutes-joey-alexander-little-jazz-man\/\" target=\"_blank\">go here<\/a>. Fair warning: commercials are part of the package, but so are the interesting sidebars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mozart is the archetype of the child musical genius. Over the centuries, many successors have been proclaimed. In the long run, few have qualified. The current child-genius nominee is Joey Alexander, a pianist from the Indian Ocean Island of Bali. Whether it is accurate\u00e2\u20ac\u201dindeed whether it is fair to a 12-year-old\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto declare him a genius, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}