Geoff Keezer
b. Geoffrey Keezer, 20 November 1970, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA. Keezer's parents were music teachers, his father playing drums, his mother piano and French horn, and Geoff began playing piano at the age of three and studied formally from age five. While in his early teens, he became interested in jazz and played in his father's band. He studied at the University of Wisconsin, and during this period won a competition that sent him to the 1987 National Association of Jazz Educators convention in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was presented with the NAJE Young Talent Award. Shortly after this Keezer went to the Berklee College Of Music. At this time, James Williams who had heard and met Keezer at the NAJE Convention, introduced him to Sunnyside Records, as a result of which Keezer made his first album. He became a member of the five-piano group, Contemporary Piano Ensemble, along with Williams, Mulgrew Miller, Harold Mabern, and Donald Brown. With this group he has toured North America and Europe and recorded Four Pianos For Phineas (Evidence) and The Key Players (DIW/Columbia). In the early 90s he was a member of Three Musicians, with Joshua Redman and Christian McBride, touring the USA and Europe. Late in 1992, Keezer performed George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra under the direction of John Mauceri, and he has also performed with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band under Jon Faddis. In 1995, he was commissioned by the CHJB to write a new work, the result being "Palm Reader". Other compositions include "Listen Look" for the Saint Joseph Ballet, and "Variables", a set of variations for piano and string quartet written for the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, California.
Listen to Geoff Keezer
at Finetune.
Albums
- (1997) Turn Up The Quiet
Top Tracks
- Lush Life
- Bibo No Aozora
- Stompin' At The Savoy
- Island
- Lose My Breath
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