Jazz Articles about Geoffrey Keezer

About Geoffrey Keezer

Album Review

Saxophonist Brian Landrus created this project with a purpose summed up in its subtitle, Music Dedicated to the Preservation of our Endangered Species. The album was made to create awareness about all the animal species on Earth in danger of extinction, thirteen of which are explicitly referenced here. For most of these, such as the Malayan tiger and the snow leopard, only a few hundreds or thousands are still alive. For the Javan rhino, there were only 67 left at ...

Album Review

Brian Landrus: Red List

by Jack Bowers
July 26, 2022

No matter how one receives his music, there is no doubt that woodwind specialist Brian Landrus' heart is in the right place. Red List, his eleventh album as leader, is dedicated to the preservation of Earth's endangered animal species. Landrus names thirteen, at least five of which--the kakapo, Malayan tiger, gharial, vaquita and Javan rhino--are all but gone, with less than three hundred of each species remaining. In fact, it is estimated that only eight vaquitas (a species of porpoise ...

Album Review

Brian Landrus: Red List

Read "Red List" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 18, 2022

L'undicesimo disco di Brian Landrus è un progetto a difesa di tredici specie animali minacciate di estinzione. Vegetariano dell'età di 12 anni e poi vegano, il sassofonista di Reno (Nevada) ha sempre operato a sostegno del mondo animale. Per sua stessa ammissione è questa la passione della sua vita, assieme al jazz. L'anno scorso, dopo aver aperto una sottoscrizione su Gofundme.com, Brian ha raccolto un settetto base più ospiti, per registrare quindici nuove composizioni dedicate alle specie minacciate, ...

Album Review

Gerry Gibbs: Songs from My Father

Read "Songs from My Father" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
September 13, 2021

Drummer Gerry Gibbs pays tribute to father Terry Gibbs on the amazing nineteen-track double-CD set Songs from My Father featuring a guest appearance by the ninety-seven-year-old vibraphonist on one track, among other surprises, including the last studio performance by the late jazz icon Chick Corea, who also wrote “Tango for Terry" for this homage and is the only non-Gibbs composition on the album. Son Gerry had plenty of his father's music to choose from when contemplating this project but chose ...

Album Review

Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trios: Songs from My Father

Read "Songs from My Father" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 1, 2021

Songs from My Father. What a marvelous idea!—and not simply for the sentiment. Drummer Gerry Gibbs' father happens to be Hall of Fame vibraphonist (and sometime song writer) Terry Gibbs, who is still on the scene at ninety-seven (and, in fact, making a guest appearance on the first disc of this superlative two-CD set). Eighteen of the elder Gibbs' songs, written between 1949 and 1985 (and one more, “Tango for Terry," by the late Chick Corea) are performed by four ...

Radio & Podcasts

Geoffrey Keezer: On His Way to You

by David Bixler
May 12, 2021

As an 18 year-old, pianist Geoffrey Keezer wowed audiences as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with his prodigious technique and improvisations. Describing his own playing, Keezer says that his natural tendency is to “throw in everything but the kitchen sink... all the time." In this episode of LINER NOTES, Keezer talks about his development as a musician over the span of his career as well as the teaching and writing that are occupying his time while he waits ...

Album Review

Christian McBride: The Movement Revisited

Read "The Movement Revisited" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 21, 2020

The spring 2020 release of The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait Of Four Icons is the latest chapter in Christian McBride's inspirational salute to the African American civil rights movement and to four of its heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Embracing big band jazz, small group jazz, gospel, funk and chorale musics, together with spoken word passages, the suite employs an eighteen-piece band, the ten-piece Voices Of The Flame gospel choir, two lead ...