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WORLD EXCLUSIVE AURÉLIA THIERRÉE ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST STUNNING THEATRE SHOWS

BACHSTAGE - ILLUSIONS

CHARLES BACH SHARES THE

IMPORTANCE OF PRE-SHOW

AURÉLIA THIERRÉEInterviewMAGIC TRICKS

LEARN MAGIC - FROM MENTALISM TO

CLOSE-UP TO STAND-UP ROUTINES

NICK LEWIN

THE SECRET OF BEING A

MODERN MAGICIAN1 2 3

December 2013/ January 2014

International Magic Magazine

JAY ALEXANDER: THE ART OF A MODERN MAGI-

In a recent interview Jay took the time to share his story and some of his secrets with me. I am now delighted to pass on that information in the following article about this unique and multitalented artist.

Jay was born in Houston, Texas and at eleven years old he started his love affair with magic in the tradi-tional manner when he received a magic set as a gift. During the intervening years he has honed his skills and perfected a persona that has allowed him to become one of the most successful corporate magi-cians in America.

After Jay had learned to perform the tricks in his magic set, he was lucky enough to find an ideal spot to practice them. His mother owned a shoe store in which she worked, and Jay spent a lot of time there in the next few years performing his magic for the customers. It was here that Jay started to acquire his ‘10,000 hours of practice….’

He credits these beginnings as laying an early groundwork for his later corporate work. “Working in the shoe store taught me quite a bit about entertain-ing with my magic. It was my first lessons in selling product and customer service.” In fact it was there in the shoe store that Jay first discovered a principle that became central to his future approach to magic. “It is all about entertaining the people, it’s not about me. I strongly feel that at the end of the night it’s about me making a great party for my clients.”

When he wasn’t busy performing Jay was influenced

JAYALEXANDERTHE ART OF A

MODERN MAGICIAN

“His mother owned a shoe store ... it was here Jay started to acquire his 10,000 hours of practice ...”Nick Lewin

JAY ALEXANDER

THE ART OF A MODERN

MAGICIAN

“All you need is a sword basket, sword suspension and a sub trunk and you can travel the world forever!”

and inspired by magicians he saw on TV such as Harry Anderson and the late, great Doug Henning. He saw Henning perform live in Houston in those early years. Many years later he was watching Henning in Las Vegas at the MGM Hotel and Casino on the very night the hotel almost burned to the ground. It was truly a night to remember.

At the age of thirteen someone in the shoe store asked him if he performed kid’s shows and Jay instantly responded, “Yes!” This quick response led to his first professional booking at the grand sum of five dollars. After the show he took his five-dollar bill to ‘Archie’s Magic Store’ in Houston to buy a trick.

Wayne Raeke, who worked at the store, was to become Jay’s first mentor and began in this role when he advised him not to spend his money on one bad trick, but to buy a book and learn several good routines. This advice was as sound then as it now. That first book Jay purchased was Bert Easley’s ‘Doing Magic For Youngsters.’

Jay’s second paid show found his fee doubling to ten dollars, and he returned to ‘Archie’s’ and bought a copy of ‘Royal Road to Card Magic.’ He had now officially begun his own Royal Road into becoming the knowledgeable and highly individual performer that he has since blossomed into. Jay is still a voracious reader of every kind of magic book. Talking with Jay it is impossible not to be impressed by the scope of the magical information that he has at his manicured fingertips.

I asked Jay what books he would recommend to magicians and he responded with, ‘The Tarbell Course,’ ‘13 Steps To Mentalism.’ ‘Card College’ and Ken Webber’s ‘Maximum Entertainment For Performers.’ When faced with a new project for a corporate client, Jay returns to these books and other classics to serve as an inspiration for fresh effects and presentations.

SHOW POSTER Jay .is one of the busiest performers in the USA today.

Wayne was a fine tutor for Jay in those early years and helped him develop a dove act that won first prize in the S.A.M. Junior Contest. During a trip to Baltimore Raeke introduced Jay to seasoned pro Denny Haney, who was a very established cabaret and corporate per-former. Denny was another inspiration to the develop-ing performer.

After teaching Jay some card manipulations Haney told him, “All you need is a sword basket, sword suspension and a sub trunk and you can travel the world forever!” While realizing the truth of these words, Jay realized that his path was destined to be that of an adapter and developer, who could take old concepts and cause them to appear brand new.

At age eighteen Jay graduated high school and a couple of days later was on a plane to California where he attended the prestigious San Francisco Art Institute. The Art Institute was the perfect place to fine tune the artistic vision and sense of design that was already shaping his magical vision.

Jay was also attracted to San Francisco because of the thriving street performing scene. It had been instrumental in the development of many of his favorite performers including Harry Anderson, The Raspyni Brothers, Michael Goudeau and Frank Olivier. It proved to be the perfect city, at the perfect time for his future career.

Upon arriving in the San Francisco Jay took his magic to the streets and the famous Pier 39 location, as he continued to develop the distinctive high-energy skills, and longhaired Rock and Roll persona that continue to define him today.

One of the first big breaks in Jay’s career was when he became a favorite performer with the legendary Rock n’ Roll promoter Bill Graham. Graham booked him for repeated performances at the famous Fillmore West and Warfield Theatre, where he performed backstage for iconic rock and rollers such as the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Reba McEntire. Jay quickly became a very popular and busy performer in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area with the help of these ultra hip credentials

“Magicians had always worn suits and ties and looked like sales people when performing for industrial events.” Jay says. “I realized that I could be the hip cor-porate guy, then I could charge more for me because I was the right guy for the market.”

Jay’s long hair and leather motorcycle jacket (with an Apple symbol on it) created a bond with an entire new generation of corporate buyers. Jay quickly became the ‘go to’ guy for the wildly successful high-tech and dot-

coms’ that were flourishing in the area.

Another big break for Alexander was the release of a popular magic DVD-Rom called ‘Learn the Art of Magic,’ that introduced Jay to the national spotlight and result-ed in a series of appearances on major television inter-view shows. This project was a perfect blend of ground breaking technology and performance skills that have remained a personal trademark to this day. It is hard to tell which topic he enjoys talking about most—Apple or Magic!

Jay’s success has continued building from those early days and he is now one of the most successful cor-porate magicians in the market. I was pleased that he shared some excellent and highly commercial advice about this lucrative field of work. Here are some of his thoughts about the after-dinner shows and corporate events in which he specializes.

Jay has a very simple and impeccably correct philoso-phy for improving your performance, “Nothing makes you better than working.” However, we live in a time when you frequently hear performers grumbling that there isn’t enough work out there. The Jay Alexander

datebook is living proof that this isn’t always the case and here are some of his tips to fill up your datebook.

“The first thing to do is give all the people who supply you with dates the tools needed to turn potential dates into signed contracts. Good video, promotional material and photo-graphs are essential. These are the items that will make it easier for your representative to book you to their clients.” This is a simple but incredibly important point for a performer to remember. Sometimes just having a web site isn’t enough.

The visual impact of Alexander’s persona is particularly evident in the photographs that are part of his publicity material. His photo shoots are very pre-planned and he arrives at the photographer’s studio with his ideas firmly in place. His advice to fellow performers is, “Don’t look at photos of other magicians when you are planning a photo session. Check out Entertainment Weekly and the Internet for interesting ideas, and then keep a swipe file of cool photos that can act as future inspiration.”

Jay has great advice on dealing with potential bookers. “Agents aren’t out there just looking for work for you.” Many of them are actually party planners, producers or agents acting as brokers. Rarely are there gigs where someone phones up and asks for a magician. Your job is to turn your agent into a partner, so that if someone phones up and asks them for a comedian they can say ‘Well, we have a magi-cian who is very funny who would work very well for your event, here’s why….’ You aren’t usually competing with another magician, you are trying to win your fee away from a band, singing waiters or the caterer.”

Jay feels that the performing gig begins from the moment you first make contact with the person booking it, and then continues until you send them the thank you note or email when it is completed. He has a really great approach to the ‘thank you’ note he sends to his clients after his appearance. Jay unobtru-sively videotapes all his performances but usually focuses the camera on his audience. If he gets his customary standing ovation, a video clip of it is embedded into the email along with any useful video clips of attendees praising his performance.

The other reason he videotapes his audi-ence is so that later on he can review it and

get visual feedback on how his show is actually being received by the audience. Where does attention begin to drift? Does he need to tighten up his routine at any point? This form of video feedback is a superb way to continuously develop and improve your audience impact.

This was the first time I had heard a performer discuss shooting the audience instead of just their own perfor-mance. It makes perfect sense to use this simple meth-od to strengthen your show. There are even cameras/software that allow you to shoot in a forward/backward manner simultaneously to give a detailed view of both audience and performance. However very often Jay just shoots the video on his iPhone.

“The show has to be strong,” says Alexander, “but the biggest mistake is in thinking that the show is about you. You need to have a really good show, but it is so not about you, it is about your client and their compa-ny.” He adds, “It is also equally important that when you arrive at the gig to perform the show that you have the social graces you need to really make your client happy. Instead of buying another magic book, lot of magicians should think of buying an etiquette book!” Ouch! This is a statement that I know is all too true from my years producing industrial events.

Jay is a proponent of the theory of under-promising and over-delivering on all his dates. He shared an excel-lent piece of information that he credits to Jay Johnson the brilliant ventriloquist and seminal ‘left handed leaguer.’ “Every show should be personalized. It may also be customized.” Hmm, what exactly is the differ-ence between the two you may ask?

“Personalizing a show is easy and just requires find-ing out a few things about your client’ says Jay, “Learn about their product, buzz words, sales team, rivals etc. You can then personalize the show by slotting these elements into your show rather in the manner of a kids ‘Mad Lib’ book.” Customizing your show takes it to another level, when you create a special routine, add logos to specific props, or use a Modern Cabinet to magically produce the CEO during the event.

Alexander feels every show deserves to be personal-ized as a matter of course, while the actual customizing of it should probably lead to an additional fee. I really like this distinction and asked Jay about his feelings on fees and what to charge for a show. I was delighted with his insightful thoughts on the topic.

“There is no such thing as overcharging or undercharg-ing a client. You are worth whatever you can get, as long as the people you work with are happy to book you again at that same price. It doesn’t matter if you charge $10,000 or $100 for a show, if they are not

happy after the show then you charged too much.”

Jay shared a great deal more information that I found fascinating and highly relevant for anyone working in the corporate market. In a future article, if he will let me, maybe I will detail a few more of Jay’s personal techniques, but I think there are enough great pointers and advice contained in this article to constitute a veri-table gourmet meal in the ‘Food for Thought’ depart-ment.

There is a lot more to Jay Alexander than you see onstage, and it only takes a few minutes in his com-pany to feel the warmth and humanity that illuminate his professional persona. His generosity and caring are evident in the way he gives back to his friends and the community in general.

Every January for the last nine years Jay has performed a fundraising show to raise money for Arts & Music programs for schools in his hometown of Novato in Northern California. He began this series of shows when he looked at how many benefits he was appear-ing in and how often the full cash returns were not finding their way to the cause. He has now raised over $80,000 for this excellent purpose, and every year he sells out a 700-seat theatre in which he stages the event.

A really unique and giving person, Jay is the perfect epitome of the smart and skilled 21st Century per-former. Everywhere he travels to perform his shows the audiences are massively entertained not only by Jay Alexander, but magic itself as an art form.

I hope this brief article gives you a taste of the man and his ideas. It was a pleasure interviewing him and I learned a great deal in the process, count me as Jay’s number one fan!