By Ed Diokno>
Joey Alexander has the world at its fingertips.
RELATED: Who is Joey Alexander and why is he up for a Grammy?
When jazz great Wynton Marsalis first heard Joey Alexander play the piano, he was blown away. “I’ve never heard anyone who could play like him,” he told Anderson Cooper on a 60 Minutes  piece aired last December.
For Marsalis, Joey’s genius at such a young age remains a mystery. “Why? We don’t know why,” he tells Cooper. “I once asked Miles Davis about sound. ‘Man, how you get the sound you get?’ He said, ‘Man, nobody knows about sound. Sound just is.’ And I think that about his (Joey’s) abilities. They are.”
IN OTHER GRAMMY NEWS:
- Mark Ronson’s and Filipino American Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” was nominated in three categories: Record of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella. Surprisingly, the Filipino American pop artist’s video was snubbed in the Grammy’s Best Male Video category despite winning the MTV awards in the same category. Uptown Funk” has a good chance to win in one of these categories after spending 14 weeks as No. 1 in the Billboard charts. But don’t count out Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” and “Bad Blood.”
- The Filharmonics, the Filipino American a cappella group from Southern California, are featured in the movie Pitch Perfect 2, which is up for a Grammy in the Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media category.
- The King & and I 2015 cast album is up for Best Musical Theater Album and that features a host of Asian American cast members.
(Ed Diokno writes a blog :Views From The Edge: news and analysis from an Asian American perspective.)
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RE: 12-year-old prodigy up for Grammy: Well, he called a 'Prodigy' for a reason. Congratulations to Joey. Keep going!