Conversations with Alex Otey

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Otey.

Hi Alex, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I began my musical career with classical training in trumpet and percussion, starting lessons at age 7 and adding piano and singing to my skill set as a teenager. My father, Orlando Otey, was Executive Director of the Wilmington Music School during my youth which provided me with an early formal musical education. I appeared with the Wilmington Symphony as an early teenager and participated in music competitions, continuing to study trumpet with Seymour Rosenfeld of the Philadelphia Orchestra until the age of 18.

I began performing “piano man” style entertainment while in high school inspired by players like Billy Joel, Elton John, Harry Connick Jr., and others, and I’ve continued this since. I performed with jazz bands and orchestras, and formed small ensembles, performing in and around Philadelphia through college. I performed with several prominent jazz musicians over the years and recorded with sax players Grover Washington Jr and, later, Richie Cole. In the 1990s, I got into production and engineering music and produced many recordings, several of which I also performed. Becoming a member of the GRAMMYs® in 2006, I produced and submitted music annually. I arranged, performed on, and produced a GRAMMY® Nominated album and was included as a participant artist on a second nominated project, as well as on a GRAMMY® Winning collaboration.

In parallel to production work, I focused my original music over the past 15 years within a popular jazz format in the Alex Otey Trio, as well as released music in a more Americana genre, along the lines of Dr. John and Leon Russell. Today, I’m continuing to create music that blends jazz with popular styles of music.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As with many musicians, I’ve raised a family and worked various jobs over the years to support my music pursuits. This slowed down my creative progress but always incentivized me to write music, gaining perspectives for songs along the way.

The birth of my first son in 1996 was a challenge, as he was premature and a lot of attention was devoted to his well-being early on – today he’s doing very well, I’m glad to say. My second son ran into some severe health issues along with my wife starting in 2013, and that was not only distressing and puzzling, but resulted in another long set of distracted years – again, glad to say they are both doing very well today. As my day job for several years was in the medical industry, I was able to find resources to help remedy both situations, and am now much better able to focus on writing, performing, and producing compared to the roller-coaster of the past 25 years.

Musically, I feel I’ve been in demand as a musician, particularly as a pianist/singer. A sort of odd example of this was coming out of COVID I was getting a ton of work as a solo ‘piano man’ musician because I could be on stage while limitations were restricting bands as ‘too many people’. But, that was more of a unique circumstance. I’m glad to say I was getting a lot of bookings prior, and still do, without great effort. In that way, I feel very blessed. I look forward to expanding bookings to bigger venues now that I’ve built up my catalog of original music and have had many years of polishing my performance skills.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I studied Classical music but found I have much more of a passion for Jazz. I enjoy Popular music, be it from the 1920s (Fats Waller, Gershwin, Cole Porter) or current, R&B, Ambient, Electronic, or even Dubstep. I also love to play straight ahead Jazz (Oscar Peterson or Brubeck), but this depends on the crowd. I’ve also performed Broadway Showtunes in that style, accompanying dancers or whatnot, with good results. Music can be so diverse, and the process of creating new sounds by blending genres is fascinating to me.

However, the root of all of this is Jazz, in my humble opinion. Jazz, compositionally, can manage the fusion of various harmonies and rhythms more extensively than Classical, and so I focus on playing, say, a Beatles song with Jazz extensions. I call this “Popular jazz”, but it works well with Bach or Chopin (though Chopin was the first Jazz composer in my opinion).

My compositions have a foundation in Jazz, and I’ve attempted various blends over the years (Country-Jazz, Hip-hop-Jazz…), some more experimental than others. I find my Popular-Jazz renditions likely get the best response, almost predictably, and so in my current original music I try to follow that model (be it like a Billy Joel-Jazz or Green Day-Jazz reflection).

I hope to bring my X-Jazz blends to wider audiences. Introducing Jazz through familiar music to many is somewhat of a goal for me.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
I was fortunate to be born into a musical family, though as talented as my father was (an exceptional pianist) he was well-known only in limited Classical music circles. So, my venturing into Jazz was a ‘solo endeavor’. Nevertheless, I’ve been fortunate to get work performing over the years and meeting wonderful musicians. I’ve shown up at other band’s gigs with my trumpet and had the good fortune to ‘sit in’ with them, which is also a good experience for on-the-spot ear training.

I’ve often felt I’ve had to create my luck by persevering in such ways, and, certainly, not all risk-taking pays off. There have been plenty of times when things didn’t turn out as hoped. I was pulled in to perform at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center through networking activities. So, again, showing up to be in “the right place at the right time” has for me often been more a calculated risk than sheer luck.

I am thankful for where I’ve gotten to so far. And, though I’ve not had a huge break to, say, become nationally known for my music, I feel there are still good things coming for what I’ve worked towards. Good luck has its place, but I’d say, you can’t count on good luck for all the winnings.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.alexotey.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/AlexOtey/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlexOteyArtist
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexotey/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexotey
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexOtey
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/alexotey