Kazzrie Jaxen

Kazzrie Jaxen is an improvising pianist, vocalist, teacher, and composer.  Known for her playful exuberance, originality, virtuosity, and ability to transport an audience, her musical expression ranges from free improvisation to jazz standards, from original songs to vibrational journeys into the dreamtime. She has recorded for the Jazz Records and New Artists labels, as well as independently.

Kazzrie began improvising spontaneous songs when she was four years old.  A year later her parents bought a player piano.  Kazzrie loved it, and spent many hours singing along to the piano rolls.  (Recently she's been drawn back to the sounds of stride, boogie-woogie, and other kinds of "happy jazz," and wonders just who she was hearing as a child!)  Trained classically on the piano from the age of six, she eventually found her way to jazz in her early twenties.

Kazzrie's performances have included concerts at Carnegie Recital Hall, Town Hall, Faust-Harrison, The Greenwich Village Jazz Festival, DeSingel Concert Hall in Antwerp, The Philly Fringe Festival, The Blue Note, Sweet Basil, Birdland, The Stone, The Space for Deep Listening, Ford Piano, and The Tusten Theater.  Her one-woman shows, combining original music, artwork poetry and prose, have been presented at theaters and colleges on the East Coast. In 2006 Kazzrie was the winner of the Best Music Award at the Digit Festival in Narrowsburg, NY for which she created "Roebling Resonance," a multi-tracked piano and vocal piece that was performed outdoors at the historic Roebling Bridge.  In 2008 she created the solo piano soundtrack for the award-winning film "Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn," directed by Ragnar Friedank and starring Joanna Merlin.

Kazzrie has a deep interest in the transformative power of music, and is the originator of a vibrational modality entitled "Dreaming In Music."  Her clients (dreamers) lie underneath her grand piano, journeying into the dreamtime as she plays into their bodies.  This work has been evolving since 1994 and is the direct result of Kazzrie's life experience and personal healing journey under the tutelage of Nature.  It has been presented in workshops and performances around the country as well as in private sessions. Kazzrie is also a student and teacher of the 3,000-year-old movement art of Qigong and has created a new form called "Earth Beauty Qigong."  She is the author of a forthcoming book chronicling her adventures with Jazz Improvisation and Qigong entitled "Changing Keys."  

Kazzrie has been honored to play and/or record with many great musicians including Eddie Gomez, Lenny Popkin, Roger Mancuso, Ratzo Harris, Thurman Barker, Harvie S, Andy Fite, Charley Krachy, Woody Mann, Gary Levy, Richard Tabnik, Bob Keller, Connie Crothers, Dori Levine, Carol Liebowitz, Virg Dzurinko, Kai Monde, Bud Tristano, Carol Tristano, Warne Marsh, Cameron Brown, Bill Chattin, Don Messina, Pete Scattaretico, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, Nick Lyons, Chris Aiello, Adam Caine, Jimmy Halperin, Dean Sharp, Robert Kopec, Tom Whaley, and Miles Brown.

Her jazz mentors include Lennie Tristano, Connie Crothers, and Harvey Diamond.