Welcome and Geoffrey Keezer

Geoff 0:01

Hello podcats, Geoff Gascoyne here. Hope you're well. My guest on the podcast this week is Grammy award-winning jazz pianist, a composer and arranger, Geoffrey Keezer. Geoffrey became a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers while he was still in his teens. And since then has worked with so many great jazz artists that include Art Farmer, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, David Sandbourne, Chick Corea, Benny Golson, and notably the Ray Brown Trio, which he was a member of for three years. What a geezer. Geoffrey was in London performing some duo concerts with Tim Garland, and I was lucky to catch up with him at Tim's house in Kings Langley. So thank you, Tim. So I hope you enjoy our conversation. Here we go.

Announcement 1:05

Taking your jazz play along to another level.

Geoff 1:08

Geoffrey Keezer, thanks so much for doing this.

Geoffrey 1:11

Thanks for having me.

Geoff 1:12

I've been making apps for a few years. Yeah. And um the whole point of me making these apps was to create a new Jamey Aebersold.

Geoffrey 1:20

Right.

Geoff 1:20

Because I sort of grew up with learning standards, jazz standards. Can we start talking about how you use standards and what your original standards were that you started learning when you first started getting into jazz?

Learning Standards From Books and Records

Geoffrey 1:32

Sure. With regard to the Aebersold, I mean I grew up with those play-alongs and I learned a lot of songs from those books and those records, even before I even maybe had the original recordings. You know, I grew up in a very educational kind of environment. My dad was a drummer, jazz drummer. He taught at the local university in Wisconsin where I grew up, and he also taught at a jazz camp every summer. So my entire childhood was spent around jazz education and you know, and that sort of form it was in in the 70s and 80s. But um, yeah, Jamey records were a big part of it, and all those play-alongs. And uh I started working as a pianist with my dad's group as a teenager, and we played a couple nights a week in a local hotel uh lounge, and and I had the original edition of the real book, like the illegal one you had to buy off the street, you know, with a lot of the wrong chord changes and you know, all that stuff. But that's kind of how I learned a lot of those tunes and eventually started really collecting a lot of jazz records. I mean, I remember coming home from this is when we actually had a couple of local record stores in my town where you could buy vinyl jazz albums along with all the pop and rock stuff that was coming out. You know, I was just collecting music, and I remember coming home with a reissue of Kind of Blue, shiny cover, and I was so proud of it. I said to my dad, Dad, check out this record, Kind of Blue, this is amazing. And he says, Yeah, I had that record when it came out, you know, in 1959. He said he was in college at the time and they were all trying to learn that stuff. So a lot of a lot of his musical heroes also became mine, and and a lot of them I actually got to play with when I was young as well and learned from an apprentice with, like Art Blakey and Art Farmer and JJ Johnson and Benny Golson and so many more. But yeah, I mean the tunes, whatever standards were sort of in that first real book. I mean, you know, All The Things You Are and Autumn Leaves and all that kind of stuff, and the stuff you would have found on those early play-alongs.

Geoff 3:35

Of course, in those days you had to turn the balance across to lose the piano, didn't you? Bass and drums or piano and drums.

Geoffrey 3:42

But you could do that with some of those records too, like like Giant Steps, the the because it was an early stereo record, and you could turn off, you know, train I think was fully panned right or something. You could turn off train and just play along, or or you could turn off the piano was fully in one side, and you could turn off the piano. Some of the records were like that, but I used to also just play along with a lot of records, even without being able to turn off, you know, without that music minus one effect. I mean, just play along with them.

Geoff 4:08

Yeah.

Transcription Workflows for Real Jazz Language

Geoffrey 4:09

And and that's how I got my time together, you know, playing along with Art Blakey records or Jimmy Smith or you know, whatever Wynton Kelly Trio, because you know, those records were just swinging so hard. You know, you just play along with them and try to try to copy the feel and the and the you know, listen for how Wynton Kelly comps on Freddie Freeloader or you know, anything like that. You just go on the code.

Geoff 4:32

And would you transcribe as well? What what

Geoffrey 4:34

a ton of transcribing, yes.

Geoff 4:35

What was your first steps into transcriptions?

Geoffrey 4:38

Well, I think I met Wynton Marsalis as as a teenager. I was about 15, and and we went to see him play somewhere, and he he sort of recognized that I was a young wanting to be a jazz musician, and he he came up to me and he just said, 'Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe, and start with Monk', you know? Yeah. And I went, Okay, I'll try that. You know, so the first solo I ever transcribed was uh Thelonious Monk on Straight, No Chaser from a live in Japan record. I used to go to my local library in my hometown, and you could check out as in borrow records and vinyl and bring them home. You know, so I would I would bring home jazz records, I'd bring home uh Smithsonian Folkways recordings. So I was listening to traditional southern Indian classical music or or music recorded in in West Africa or wherever. I was really into all kinds of things. Um, gamelon, you know, just anything. Uh my mother was a classical French hornist. So between mom and dad, their record collection was pretty diverse. My dad had all the black American music, jazz, and funk and gospel and everything, and and and that was what he was into. And my mom had all the Beethoven symphonies and the Bach organ, you know, and all that. So I was listening to all of it, and it all whatever made me feel good, I was into.

Geoff 5:55

And you were trained classically as well? Did you did you do all that?

Geoffrey 5:58

A little bit, not a lot. I I get that question because I I have some you know technique on the piano, and people assume that I must have trained classically. I kind of got into that later. I really just was into transcribing jazz mostly, uh equally, I would say, pianists and horn players. Yeah. I did a lot of Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Miles, Cannonball, and and pianists, and and sort of jumping all over chronologically, too. I think I started with Monk, like I said, I think I did Herbie on ESP. Uh I went and did some Oscar Peterson. I tried to do Bud Powell, a little bit of Art Tatum, although I don't think I got very far with it. It was too hard.

Geoff 6:40

And uh it's interesting that you said you started with Thelonious Monk because to me that doesn't seem it doesn't seem a natural person to transcribe.

Geoffrey 6:49

I don't know, it just it was fun. And and I and I transcribe in the grand staff, you know, both trouble and bass clef. Because I think it's really important as a pianist to learn, even if it's a solo, let's say a Herbie Hancock solo or Bud Powell, where it's very right hand -centric, you know, there's still information most of the time in the left hand that's going to help you understand what the right hand's doing.

Geoff 7:11

Yeah.

Geoffrey 7:11

And if you're doing a pianist like Monk, of course, you have to do that McCoy Tyner, or you need to kind of know how those fourths or whatever it is he's moving around in the left hand, how that informs what the right hand is doing. It's a great tool, though. I I really think, you know, I tell my students, you know, you don't have to, let's say the pianist plays 12 choruses of something. I don't think you have to necessarily transcribe all 12, but maybe a couple of choruses, you know, just kind of see the general trajectory, or or even just parts of it. If there's like a the the way that the musician navigates a 2-5-1 or something, if there's just some information in there that you particularly like, then you take that that bit and you know, work it out in all 12 keys, work it out with both hands, transform it, turn it upside down, you know, try uh integrating it into your own playing in different ways. Like let's say you've got uh, you know, a little a little line that Charlie Parker played. Well then try playing your own notes leading up to it and your own notes that come after it, you know, just just to get it into some kind of context because these little riffs and these licks that people play, something in the style of Charlie Parker, it doesn't just stand on its own. It's you know, it's if you looked at a a photograph of uh someone jumping over a hurdle and you just saw them hovering in midair, you know, and if you didn't understand that they had to run up to that hurdle and they kept running afterwards, right? Yeah, all those kind of things I I work on.

Geoff 8:35

Uh you we work a lot with the Open Studio now, I've seen you have some courses and stuff and stuff like that. Is that is that working out well for you?

Geoffrey 8:41

They're a great platform. I actually started with them because I I had my own lessons online uh on my own website for a couple of years, and and then uh Peter Martin, who I've known for a long time, we were hanging out one night and he said, uh Yeah, I've got this new company called Open Studio, and we've got a cool platform. We've they've got this living notation where I mean it doesn't, it's not an auto-transcription. They've got this guy, Max Gamese, who is like a transcription guru, right? You know, he's he's a super computer, this guy. Um he transcribes everything and then they put it up on the screen so it plays along, you know, as as you

Geoff 9:21

I've seen it, yeah, yeah, it works very well.

Geoffrey 9:23

And uh multiple camera angles and all this, and and it's it's great. So I've done now I think five or six courses for them, and uh yeah, they're great, they're doing really well.

Geoff 9:33

I know you compose a lot, um, and I'm a big fan of your compositions as well. How do you balance the standards and the compositions when you're planning, say, a new record?

Geoffrey 9:43

It depends. The latest album I came out with with this vocalist Gillian Margot, we did mostly standards or tunes written by other people. I mean, it's a mixture. There's a Peter Gabriel cover on there, there's some Brazilian, um, but a lot of older standards as well, Lush Life and Thow Swell, Blame It on My Youth, All My Tomorrows. Gilly and I have been performing quite a bit, and because what would happen is we had never really recorded a record together as a duet, and we'd be doing a lot of duet shows. An audience would come up after and they'd want to buy something. Yeah, you know, uh, can I, you know, buy the CD, you know, or the vinyl of you guys as a duet, and we didn't have one. I said, Well, you can, you know, I I played on her record on a couple tunes, and she's on mine. If you kind of put them together, you get something. So we said, we need to go in the studio and just make a duet album. Yeah, and um, a lot of it we were kind of calling tunes just on the spot. How do you feel about this one? Let's try this, let's try that. So there wasn't a lot of new material written, although there was one, uh, the composer Donald Brown, who's a hero of mine, uh pianist composer from Tennessee, contemporary of Mulgrew Miller and James Williams. Uh he wrote a brand new tune with his wife, Dorothy, and hot off the presses, he sent it to us and we recorded it, and that was fun.

Geoff 10:58

Am I right in saying that Gillian is your other half?

Geoffrey 11:01

She's yeah, yeah. She's my my wife. Uh, we're 10 years together this year this year. So, yeah, uh a lot of times our our shows will because she knows a million tunes, and she has a like a photographic memory for lyrics, and you know, you can name a tune as she's something that she sang 20 years ago, and she's got all the lyrics and everything, you know. So sometimes we just call tunes on gigs. But yeah, learning jazz standards. I I still think I think it's really valuable still, you know, in terms of what's you know, what's the relevance of of knowing these all these old tunes? I mean, they're they're just good songs, you know? They're good songs, they've got interesting harmony, you know, and then sometimes the question comes up: well, are there any pop songs being written today that you would want to cover? And there's there's some. I mean, I did about 10 years ago, I did an album called Heart of the Piano, a solo piano record. And it's mostly covers of more contemporary pop material. I did Peter Gabriel, I did Alanis Morissette, Rush, the band Rush, a bunch of stuff on there. And it wasn't a contrived thing, at least I don't think it was. I didn't set out to necessarily just cover pop songs, you know, but it was music that was speaking to me and stuff I I felt I related to either harmonically or melodically, or sometimes just lyrically. I like the message you know that the song was about.

Geoff 12:19

So you've clearly got an open mind for many different kinds of music. Yeah. Which is great, which is you don't always see with jazz musicians. Yeah. I f I find.

Geoffrey 12:27

But these old songs, these old show tunes, all these great composers, Harold Arlen and Gershwin and Cole Porter and and Rogers and Hardin just goes on and on. And I mean, it's just like these are great songs. Indeed. And and and they have lyrics that they make you think, you know, it's good poetry. Some of them are corny. It's the some of the lyrics are pr are pretty outdated and pretty inappropriate.

Geoff 12:51

Yeah.

Geoffrey 12:51

You know. Um

Geoff 12:53

Would you say you had a favourite standard or favourite?

Geoffrey 12:55

Favourite standard. Uh it depends on the day. It really does. I don't know. But probably probably something probably a ballad, you know. And I'm I'm interested in the verses too. I don't know all the verses, but uh, you know, I I did a the year 2000, I did an album with the classical singer Barbara Hendricks, and we did an album of Gershwin with the Guildhall Strings here. We recorded at Abbey Road here in in London. And she wanted the verses to every song. And so I learned a lot of verses for that record, and some of those Gershwin verses are just amazing, beautiful. Not Gershwin, but like the song All the Things You Are, Jerome Kern has a really interesting verse that's almost a completely separate composition. It's in a different key. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know.

Geoff 13:50

Long for adventure. Yeah, yeah. That's the one, isn't it? Yeah.

Geoffrey 13:54

Yeah. Yeah. It's got nothing to do with the the

Geoff 13:58

It's gorgeous, yeah. Of course, there are some terrible ones as well.

Geoffrey 14:01

There are some terrible ones, some ones that are just better left off. You know, some of those Cole Porter ones are just like

Geoff 14:07

Yeah. That's right.

The Real Changes Verses and Evolving Tunes

Geoffrey 14:08

It sounds like Morse code, you know. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, no, it all the things we were talking about, All the Things You Are. If you look at the original sheet music, it's it's interesting how sometimes this happens to a lot of songs, you can get a lot of information uh that's been sort of diluted over the years by jazz musicians or or just you know become sort of the standard way of playing songs that that aren't really what the original chords were. You know, so right? Most people go to C. C open, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's actually uh A flat seven sharp five. So you get this kind of a it's it's the same. I mean it's the same. Yeah. Yeah. But it's where the root is.

Geoff 15:00

Right.

Geoffrey 15:01

And then and then B flat minor, seven flat flat. And this is A flat over E flat. Yeah. A flat diminished. There's a lot of songs like like like the original uh changes, Gershman's original chords on Summertime, I think, are way prettier than what most people play.

Geoff 15:24

The other one that comes to mind is Stella by Starlight.

Geoffrey 15:26

Stella?

Geoff 15:27

Do you know that one with the diminished chords? Yeah, it's gorgeous, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Geoffrey 15:32

Yes. So there's all that descending bass line that moves through like that, you know?

Geoff 15:50

Yeah, I love that. That's gorgeous.

Geoffrey 15:51

A lot of these were, you know, film score, and and they would have these beautiful Arco bass notes that would just move, you know, like uh uh you know, right? So it's just kind of these this these pedal points, you know, that would hang out, and they're really pretty. Yeah.

Geoff 16:25

I think Miles had a lot to do with changing some of these, didn't he?

Geoffrey 16:29

Yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, you know, like on Stable mates, Benny Golston, the original, you know, B flat. The original, was that B flat? Right, you know, altered chord.

Geoff 16:42

Rather than the two five.

Geoffrey 16:43

Yeah, you know. Yeah.

Geoff 16:47

That's kind of ugly, isn't it? If you hear the original,

Geoffrey 16:51

But but but then Benny Golson played it. He's he started playing with the E minor to A later because he just he said Miles did that and he he kind of liked it, so he wasn't he wasn't attached to his original chord that he wrote.

Geoff 17:02

Well, that's great. Yeah, yeah. I worked with Benny Golson once at Ronnie Scott's, quite a few years ago. Yeah. And one thing I remember about him, well, many things I remember about him, but his shoes were so shiny. Yeah. And he would stand on stage and he would go right. That was him counting in, right? And I'll never forget it. It was just like, oh, that's so cool.

Geoffrey 17:22

You know, and he's someone like Wayne Shorter and Ellington, that they weren't attached to what they had written. You know, they kept their music kept evolving, their own compositions kept evolving throughout their careers.

Geoff 17:35

Yeah.

Geoffrey 17:36

And and Benny, like by the by the time I was playing with him in the 90s, he was uh Stable mates, was like he had added like an additional four bars. I don't know if he was doing that when you played. He had that extra four bars on the end. I don't remember that actually. There was two bars of G altered, and then and then a and then a break of a bar, and then it went uh and had this like other two five leading back into the E minor.

Geoff 18:06

I mean, surely that's a sign of a great jazz musician, someone who's evolving all the time, and someone who's willing to change, you know.

Geoffrey 18:12

Yeah, or like uh what's the name of the Five Spot After Dark, is that name? Okay, but then later it just turned into B flat minor. Because Benny said that at some point one of the musicians he was playing with didn't like B minor, found it too difficult, so he just changed it to B flat and it stayed in B flat after that. Yeah.

Ray Brown on Pocket and Tradition

Geoff 18:40

Oh wow, God. So I, I need to ask you what it was like playing with Ray Brown.

Geoffrey 18:52

Yeah. I spent three years in his band. He was the best straight-ahead acoustic bass player you could ask for on every level, you know, and extremely supportive. Uh I mean, you always knew it was Ray's band, Ray called the shots for sure. But when I was playing, I felt he, I mean, he really was accompanying me. He was making me sound good. And that's the thing that that's so I get emotional when I think about it because these great older musicians that I had the fortune to work with, you know, Ray and Ron Carter and and so many others, they they trusted us to take care of the music. They knew we were young and stupid, and you know, we didn't know a lot. You know, I didn't know one hundredth of the music that Ray Brown knew. Still don't. But the fact is they hired us not just because we were young and cheap and available, but you know, over the years gotten to understand that they also liked, I think, sort of youthful energy we brought to things. And and there was something different about what we did. Because every generation brings the culture it grows up in. And uh they trusted us to take care of the music. Ray didn't really give me any much direction musically. The only thing he really said was twice, maybe two times, he actually talked to me about music. And the first was the very first time we played together when we were rehearsing, when I had just joined his band, and he called, he said, let's just play a tune called Stella by Starlight. And we started playing, and I started doing some trying to noodle, you know, and trying to do some Herbie kind of textual, you know, playing a little bit out, whatever, something like that. And Ray just stops. He says, He says, Hold on, all that stuff is cool, but you gotta give me some pocket now. He starts playing a base. He's like, Oh, okay, okay, I get it. Like, don't go too far out. And so I tried to always respect what his concept was about musically, but also tried to take it as far as I could, at least I thought, you know, pushing the quote unquote envelope, you know, which is

Geoff 20:54

Surely that goes from whoever you're playing with now, right? If you've got a drummer that's plays like Elvin, you're gonna play differently with a drummer that plays like Philly Joe, for example.

'Along Came Betty' Play-Along Session

Geoffrey 21:04

Yeah, it's interesting. Like, if I hear a drummer playing like Elvin, the challenge for me, because that that Coltrane quartet, that sound with it is so deeply stitched into my DNA, yeah, that my first instinct would be to be like, It's like, and I have to really fight that urge to play like McCoy. Sure. Not that I ever could play like McCoy, but to do my fake you know version of McCoy. I can't do that. You know, I have to really consciously do something different. Sure, yeah, you know, because I I don't I don't like listening to fake versions of that music. Yeah, it's already on the record. Like I think the best way to honor that music would be to just try to get to the energy level of it and the spirit of it, but not play the exact same vocabulary. Because even Coltrane, his vocabulary, the way he approached his own music, changed through the years and evolved. And even if you listen to you know, if you listen to 1959, Blue Train, then you listen to something from from 1961 or 62, he's playing differently. And 65, which is maybe 64, 65, is maybe my favourite period of his playing, you know. And then and then the you know, the the 66, 67, he's doing something different again, you know, and it's much more, it's kind of more melodic in a way, but kind of weird in a different way. So it's I don't know, you know, you can't even define what that is, you know. So you're doing a Col trane thing. Well, what what version of that? Or what version of McCoy? Are you are you gonna do early 60s McCoy? You know, this sort of delicate, a lot of single, you know, line. You know, are you gonna do a 70s McCoy thing, which is like a hurricane, you know, or what is it, you know, you can't reduce any of them to that. I saw that you had Along Came Betty. I do, yeah. And we were talking about Benny Golson. That might be a fun one to try.

Geoff 22:56

All right, let me let me let me find the it's gonna be two choruses of Along Came Betty, and we'll talk about it afterwards. Okay, here we go. Yeah. Fabulous, yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. That's a great tune, isn't it?

Geoffrey 25:34

That's fun to play on.

Geoff 25:35

How's it feel playing along with the app?

Geoffrey 25:37

It feels good. I mean, you're, you know, you guys are swinging for sure. Uh, you know, it had the natural sort of thing where you you um started in kind of a two-feel and then you you know you went into time on the second chorus, which I appreciated. That's right. Definitely had the energy. I mean, you know, the only thing, obviously, with any kind of play-along ever is that they can't interact with you. You know. But uh other than that, yeah, it's cool. I mean it's definitely a great practice tool for sure.

Geoff 26:03

Wow, that's uh incredible.

Geoffrey 26:04

Benny Golson. Yeah, we were talking about Benny, and that's a tune we also used to play with Art Blakey. This is just a tune that's in my repertoire. And it's an interesting form. It's not uh exactly 32 bars, it's got a little extra on the end.

Favourite Records and Dream Collaboration

Geoff 26:16

Yeah. Fabulous. Right, so I I have some questions, uh, which I ask everyone in the podcast. So we're starting with your favourite album.

Geoffrey 26:26

Ooh. There's a bunch, but uh one of my favourites for sure, top five, is uh by Phineas Newborn Jr. called A World of Piano! I found out about this record from the pianist James Williams, who I met when I was also a teenager, and he became kind of a good friend and a mentor of mine. And he said, Have you ever heard of Phineas Newborn? I said, No. He was a fellow pianist from Memphis, Tennessee. He said, Well, you gotta check him out. Because he technically and everything else on the level of like Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum, not as famous as either of them, but maybe the only pianist besides Art Tatum that Oscar Peterson would really give it up to, you know. But that album World of Pianos! particularly it's deep because the side A is recorded with Miles' rhythm section at the time, uh Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, side B is with uh Cannonball's rhythm section, Sam Jones and Lewis Hayes. And man, I mean Phineas how can I sort of in a nutshell describe what he does? He he somehow uh has two hands but and ten fingers, but he makes it sound like he's got about four hands.

Geoff 27:36

So he does contrapuntal things, doesn't he? Going in different directions with two hands.

Geoffrey 27:40

He does contrapuntal stuff. He's he's a real orchestrator. So what I mean is if you were to take, let's say, a a big band arrangement. For example, he plays Manteca, the Dizzy Gillespie tune, and he plays the entire Gil Fuller arrangement, big band arrangement at the piano.

Geoff 27:58

Right.

Geoffrey 27:58

You hear if you listen to the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band recording, you listen to Phineas's back to back, and you hear all the trombones and the trumpets and the saxes, all the parts are there. It's a it's stunning, really. And he's always just, you know, he's swinging, he's got a ton of blues in his playing. He plays beautiful classical-ish stuff. He uses the Ravel, uh, you know, uh that sonatine as an intro to Lush Life. Just an incredible pianist all around. Uh, very inspiring. When I heard that record, it gave me a real focus, a real direction to go. And I said, I want to be able to play with the kind of technical command and conceptual, just vast, you know, concept and orchestral thing that this whether Phineas does, but uh if possible to update it a little bit harmonically, you know, in terms of you know making it more up-to-date. But man, just a great record. There's there's a few records of his. There's one called Here is Phineas. Looks like Phineas with P H I N E A S, but the locals in colloquially pronounce it finest.

Geoff 29:03

Yeah.

Geoffrey 29:04

There's the great jazz piano, Phineas Newborn. There's there's quite a few of them. And there's uh great footage on YouTube. There was a show in 1961 called Jazz Night. I think it was hosted by the singer Oscar Brown Jr. But you can see about a half an hour of Phineas playing trio. And he plays Blues For The Left Hand Only, which is vierd blues. You know? And again, you know, it sounds like two hands. He's a comp comping for himself, accompanying himself. He's playing contrapuntally somehow with one hand. I don't know. It's pretty incredible. Well, well, yeah.

Geoff 29:40

I have a good friend of mine, his name's Tom Cawley, he's a piano player.

Geoffrey 29:44

I know Tom.

Geoff 29:45

Tom played with Peter Gabriel.

Geoffrey 29:46

He did. I saw him play with Peter Gabriel.

Geoff 29:47

Yeah. I think he's he mentioned that. I'm speaking to him. He lives very close to me in south London. He's massively into Phineas New York, too. Okay, second question. I know you've played with so many amazing musicians, but is there a musician alive or dead that you would like to have played with or would still like to play with?

Geoffrey 30:05

Oh gosh. Um I'd love to play with Paul McCartney. He's still around. Interesting. Yeah. Um bucket list. A lot of them are just people I'd like to play with again, like Ron Carter. I love playing with Ron any chance I get to. There's a few that I missed. I I never got to play with Elvin Jones. I'd people I was around a bit, you know, certainly got to see play, uh, but didn't get a chance to play with. Sonny Rollins, unfortunately, is retired, but I, you know, I got to play with him one time. It was more of a like an audition than anything else, like rehearsal/slash audition. Uh gosh, so many are, you know, I I'd love to be able to sit down and play piano duets with Herbie. We've never done that.

Geoff 30:50

I heard in an interview that you were talking about Herbie and you you're talking about things you learned from Herbie. Yeah. Can you just show me just briefly a couple of things that you learned from Herbie?

Geoffrey 30:58

Yeah, well, just to say first, just how open and sharing he was. I was telling a story this morning about how when I was 18 I went to see him with his trio at the Blue Note in New York. He had a trio with Al Foster on drums and Buster Williams on bass. And it was a trio I'd seen a bunch of times, and I've kind of followed them. And um I went up to talk to Herbie right after just I thought I'd catch him just as he walks off the stage. And and I said, Hi Herbie, I'm Geoff Keezer, a piano player. Oh yeah, you know, friendly guy, you know. And I and I asked him, I had somehow uh the nerve to ask him three questions, not just one. And I said, Can I ask you a couple questions? Oh sure, no problem. I said, What were the, you know, what are the the real last four bars of Dolphin Dance? The real chords. And what was that really complicated chord you play on? Eye of the Hurricane. And I said, What's the right correct turnaround of Footprints? Even though I could have probably, if I had listened and transcribed it, I probably could have figured it out. But I thought I'd ask him, you know, why not? And uh he says, uh, here, I'll show you. And he takes me right back up on stage. People are still paying their bills and you know, putting their coats on stuff. Gives me like about a 15-minute private lesson on stage at the Blue Note. You know, no ego at all. Amazing. And he sits down and he shows me, oh yeah, yeah. You know, sus or D flat major seven. This is like an A-flat diminished with a major seven with an E flat and a bass. And this is the major one, the third chord. A he he thinks of it as an A-flat major seven sharp five with an E flat in the bass. So you get that, you get that flat nine in there. Rising. And then he says about this one. He says, Well, you know, in the 60s, I used to, he lived in New York in an apartment building. He lived in the same apartment building as Phineas Newborn, actually. Imagine that building. Whoa. I think there were a few other great musicians living there too. And he said, I would just sit at the piano and experiment all day. He said one day I was stacking up diminished chords. He said, I played an F diminished, and then I put a G diminished, a whole tone up from that, or a ninth up from that on top on top, and then an A diminished on top of that. So imagine a triple diminished chord. And he said, then I just pulled a couple notes out of each one. So I took the A flat and the D out of the F diminished. He took the first three notes of the G diminished here, and just this F sharp from the A diminished chord on top. And you get this, and then you put this on the bottom. This and that's that chord, and it's kind of got that Ellington train whistle kind of effect to it, you know, but it's a little bit but it's also got the Stravinsky kind of Rite of Springs in there as well, hasn't it?

Geoff 33:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geoffrey 33:41

You know, for sure. Yeah. You know, there's definitely some of that. You someone said that actually they were talking about Thelonius Monk because Monk apparently you could, if you asked him for a lesson, he'd have you over to the house and would just show you everything freely and openly. And they said

Geoff 33:56

Did you know anyone who actually had a lesson with Monk?

Geoffrey 33:58

Brandy Weston really hung out with him a lot. There's a few. He said, you know, he would do that because he wasn't threatened that you would steal his stuff because he knew he could come up with something new.

Geoff 34:08

Yeah.

Geoffrey 34:08

And Herbie's the same way. I every time I hear him play, and I still I try to go see him play whenever I can because he's still, he's 86 or 87 years old, still the top of his game, still playing brilliantly. And every time I hear him play, he plays at least 10 things I've never heard before on the piano. You know, you'd think there's only 88 keys, and what's the but then if you do the you know factor that out, like what are the combinations that are possible? Well, and he's still finding new things. Amazing, you know? Like, wait, how did you do that? What was that? They're talking about someone who's like default, you know, starting point for D minor. He plays Maiden Voyage almost every night, and he starts here, like this is like a D minor for Herbie, you know? It starts here and goes from there. You know, this is like a like a B flat minor, you know, some kind of B flat minor major seven thing. But that's where it starts, you know.

Wayne Shorter 'Zero Gravity' Career Peak

Geoff 34:58

So inspiring, isn't it? It really is. Um, okay, question number three: what would you say is the highlight of your career?

Geoffrey 35:05

Gosh, I I've had a few, but uh in 2009, I got to play with the Wayne Shorter Quartet on three gigs. We played the Hollywood Bowl and Ottawa and Montreal Jazz Festivals. And I was subbing for Danilo who was injured temporarily, and and they needed a piano player, like kind of last minute. And I was already at the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival working with another uh artist, and so they, you know, I think Patatucci and Blade, they said, Well, you know, Keezer's here, you should try him. And playing with Wayne Shorter was something I wanted to do my whole life. I played with him on I was on stage with him one time, you know, with Art Blakey, it was an all-star thing. Yeah. When I was with Art, and and Art brought in a bunch of alumni for one concert, Freddie and Wayne and Jackie McLean and a few others. And so I was sort of on stage with Wayne, but I didn't, it wasn't like I was hired by him and I got to really interact, you know. And I always thought I would love to play in his electric band, like through the 90s, the 80s and 90s. I love that music, Phantom Navigator and Joyrider and Atlantis and High Life and all those. And I knew a lot of that music. I never got to play that music with him. But then when this gig came up in 2009, you know, this is what I've prepared. I felt like I this is what I prepared for my whole life, you know. And you know, and we're talking on the phone before in repertoire. I said, he says, you know, well, you know, we can just play play free for an hour or whatever. He says, hey, do you know Footprints? You know, he's like, I'm like, Wayne, I said, I got you. Like, whatever you want to play. Like, we can, I made sure I knew the repertoire of the quartet that, you know, as it was at that time. And and I came in with a bunch of sheet music that I had written out, and um, there were no set lists, you know, and and he would just play like a few notes of a tune. He would go, play this little fanfare. Yeah. And I'm thinking in my brain, quickly, quickly, like, what is that? What is that? Okay, that that's that's Joyrider, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know? Okay. And I would quickly like, you know, shuffle through my music to try to find it, you know. But he was so generous again, you know. He's in, you know, and Ray Brown was the same way when he when he called me to join his band, he he didn't really expect that I would know his repertoire. You know, it came in handy. I mean, I tried it, I always made it a point to try to learn the the book of whoever I was getting called to play with. I didn't expect them to come in with a big folder of sheet music or send me MP3s or Drop boxes that didn't even exist then, you know. Of course. But I mean I felt like that was the correct work ethic to have. You know, I still do. If if someone calls me for a gig, I try to make sure I know their music. You know, and if I don't have time to memorize it, at least I make lead sheets. You know, I don't expect to be spoon-fed.

Geoff 37:48

Sure. But I mean, playing with Wayne, I mean, it must have felt just incredible, right? It was reacting to him playing.

Geoffrey 37:55

Well, when the first Star Wars prequel came out, the The Phantom Menace, which was a terrible movie, but it was Ewan McGregor in it. I remember reading an interview where Ewan McGregor, someone asked him what it was like to be in Star Wars, and he said, Well, he was on the sound stage the first day, and he's looking around, he's he's wearing the Jedi robes, he's holding a lightsaber in his hand, he sees R2 D2 across the set, and he goes, Holy bleep, I'm in Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, and that's what I felt like. Yeah, like wow, because I'm I'm in it, you know. And it wasn't the first time I'd been on stage with my heroes. I mean, it wasn't, you know, it's done that a lot, but but for some reason to be on stage with Wayne. Yeah, sure. And he just walked over to the piano and he said, Zero Gravity. Yeah, that was all he said. Zero Gravity, you know? Amazing. I was like, okay, wow. I'll try to figure out what that means for the next 90 minutes, you know. Wow, but yeah.

Geoff 38:49

I played with Dianne Reeves probably 20 years ago. Yeah. Her bass player, missed a flight, and had a gig at the Festival Hall in London, big gig, you know. And I got called and I went and sight-read the gig with them, you know, and it was the same thing, you know what I mean? It's just like, okay, I'm here. This is like this is what I've been waiting for. Yeah, you know, and in some ways, and some of the pop things I've done as well. It's I grew up listening to those early Everything But the Girl albums, and and then I found myself on tour with them, and I just like, what you know, and I played with Van Morrison, and you end up playing these iconic things. It's like surreal, isn't it?

Geoffrey 39:21

It's yeah, and it's not just the music, but it's you this the stage presence that they have. And sometimes it's like there's a like uh energetic spotlight that just kind of you know, Freddie Hubbard was like that when he played, it was almost like all the energy in the room would sort of zero in on him. Yeah, he commanded that kind of attention, you know. And you could feel it. It was an energetic thing.

Geoff 39:45

Yeah, but the creativity that came out of Wayne was just that must have been insane.

Geoffrey 39:50

But he also he would He wanted you to contribute. Yeah. You know, you he was uh the whole quartet contributed equally and he really thrived on that, you know.

Lyrics Nerves and Quickfire Questions

Geoff 39:59

Amazing. Next question. What would you say was your musical weakness?

Geoffrey 40:03

I think I could learn a lot more standards. I would like to know more standards. I would like to know the verses to more tunes and the lyrics, especially. Uh my wife, Gillian Margot, you know, she knows a million tunes and all the lyrics, and I would like to have that kind of memory. I mean, I know it's not our job as a pianist or a companionist to know all the words to every song. I mean, we we do have to worry about other things like playing the correct chord changes, and but it helps, you know. And if you're learning standards, I think it's really important if you can't memorize all the words to at least look them up and see what the song is about. So many people, for example, play Love for Sale as this happy Love for Sale, hey, you know, and you and you look at the words and it's it's tragic.

Geoff 40:47

It's about prostitution, it's about prostitution. It's awful.

Geoffrey 40:50

But the one singer that really, and and Gilly hit me to this recording is Carmen McCrae, because she does it as like this slow, funky dirge. And the way that she delivers the story, uh I felt like I really understood it for the first time. You know, she sings it as the madam, you know. She's you can tell I'm the madam, right? Like the way she's she's singing.

Geoff 41:11

There's moments in that tune like like love that's only slightly soiled. I mean awful. I mean, I if I was a singer, I wouldn't want to sing that. That's yeah, yeah, yeah. It's has its has its place, you know.

Geoffrey 41:22

Yeah, yeah, but it's obviously still happens, you know.

Geoff 41:25

Okay. Do you ever get nervous on stage?

Geoffrey 41:27

Sure. Usually before. Once I'm on stage, I feel pretty good, but it's always the you know, 30 minutes or so before I still get the butterflies and and the fight or flight thing, you know. Yeah. And then when I get on stage and I'm like, okay, I can I'm cool, you know.

Geoff 41:43

And where's that come from? Is that surely not lack of preparation, right?

Geoffrey 41:46

No, it's just I still get imposter syndrome, you know.

Geoff 41:48

Come on.

Geoffrey 41:49

I I worry about, or you know, I do. It's you go out there and you're like, I don't know if what I'm doing is any good, you know. Well, it is. But it's thank you, thank you. But uh, but then I also feel like sometimes if I have two sets or let's or or an interval or something, I use I'm usually more relaxed by the second half. And so sometimes I try to fake myself into believing that the first half is already the second half or something.

Geoff 42:13

That's a good idea. Good idea. Yeah. Excellent, yeah. Have you ever been starstruck?

Geoffrey 42:17

Yeah, it it happens, uh, especially around, I don't know, like classical pianists. You know, I'm I'll meet like a great classical pianist and I'm just in awe of them, and I yeah, I get like you know, tongue-tied when you try to talk to them.

Geoff 42:30

Yeah.

Geoffrey 42:30

But I remember meeting Martha Argerich one time, and I went backstage to talk to her after a concert. Such a fan of hers. And I said, you know, I'm I'm a jazz pianist, I'm a big fan of yours. I just want to say how much I appreciate what you do. And she goes, Oh, jazz. She goes, I wish I could improvise. See, you know, yeah, yeah. And all I could think of to say was, please don't, because if you do, then we're all out of a job, you know?

Geoff 42:55

Yeah, everyone's got the chink in their armor, right? Yeah. Everyone has something, yeah. Okay, I have some more questions that are not music related now. That's okay. Starting with what's your favourite sandwich?

Geoffrey 43:07

Ooh. Uh well, it has to be on gluten-free bread, first of all, because I'm a celiac.

Geoff 43:12

Unfortunately, I just bought a loaf of bread.

Geoffrey 43:14

I saw that, yeah. Well I can't have any of that. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I do eat meat, so it depends on the day, you know, but something with you know. Put some veggies on there, at least some some some lettuce or something. Yeah.

Geoff 43:26

Okay. Yeah. Um Do you have a favourite movie?

Geoffrey 43:30

One of my I just saw the movie Sinners. It came out, Ryan Kugler movie. Uh, it was brilliant. And I'm not generally a fan of uh horror movies. In fact, I didn't even know that it was gonna be like a vampire movie at all.

Geoff 43:43

It's had a lot of attention, isn't

Geoffrey 43:44

it? Yeah, but it's just so well done, and the music is so great in there. There's probably some older ones that are.

Geoff 43:50

Do you watch a lot of movies?

Geoffrey 43:52

Not really. I don't have time. I I'll watch them on planes mostly. I'm watching The Crown right now, the series. Oh, okay. A little bit. Learning a lot. I'm learning a lot.

Geoff 44:02

Is there a favourite venue or favourite type of venue you like to play in?

Geoffrey 44:05

It depends, but really anywhere where the audience is really into it. You know, where you feel a real sense of community. Like, and sometimes it'll it'll be uh a little club somewhere. There's a beautiful venue in in California called the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. What a name. The place is situated right on the ocean. So and there's a giant window. And so as you're playing, and the concert starts about 4 p.m. and the sun sets during your concert and you're looking out. Anywhere where I can look outside like the Dizzy's Club in New York City, it's right over Central Park and Lincoln Center. And well, it's one of the few places where the windows are open. And the so as a pianist, typically we're sitting with our back mostly to the audience, and we're looking at most of the time a wall or a curtain. But you know, there you're actually looking out over the city and you can see the city lights, and it's it's pretty much.

Geoff 44:54

Is there a favourite city that you like to visit? I mean, I know you traveled an awful lot, but

Geoffrey 44:58

oh gosh. I love Tokyo. Wish I got back there more often.

Geoff 45:03

I'm going there in two weeks, actually.

Geoffrey 45:04

Really? Oh, I miss it. I I just I love going to I love the clothes of Paris is great, you know. There's so many. I don't know. I know Montreal isn't great.

Geoff 45:16

Uh window or aisle.

Geoffrey 45:17

On the plane? Aisle, I have to get up and walk around. I hate having to climb over people or tap them on the shoulder.

Geoff 45:26

Cats or dogs?

Geoffrey 45:27

Dogs. I'm allergic to cats. Uh I'm not allergic to dogs. I have a dog. I have a standard poodle puppy. She's one year old. She's like my favorite thing in the world, after my wife and kid.

Geoff 45:39

Yeah. Um, what's the most used app on your phone?

Geoffrey 45:43

Probably probably a map or uh unfortunately, I'm on social media way too much. Probably, you know, Instagram or something. But

Geoff 45:54

do you use voice notes? Do you do make things?

Geoffrey 45:56

Not much. Occasionally, if I have to write a piece of music, sometimes I'll sit at the piano and turn on a voice memo and just improvise for a half hour or something and just hope something might come out of it. Um, or if you get a nice little idea, might sing something or play something into voice memo, but I don't use it as much as I maybe could.

Geoff 46:16

And the last question: what's your favourite chord?

Geoffrey 46:18

Huh. Favourite chord. I'm a kind of a fan of these uh extended major things like you know, something like if you stack up a major seven, D major on top, these sort of things.

Geoff 46:34

So it's D major seven over C major seven.

Geoffrey 46:36

Yeah, or maybe even E major on top of D major. I like these, you know.

Geoff 46:41

And how would you use that in an improvisational kind of way?

Geoffrey 46:44

It might be just in terms of a reharm, somewhere you find a way to drop one of those in. They're just these sounds that they feel really open and kind of bright and sunny.

Geoff 46:53

In your compositions, have you used that sound in in any of your compositions?

Geoffrey 46:56

Uh yeah, there's one where I had a chord like this. Um, I don't know why. There's a song of mine called Palm Reader. This is the bridge. Uh this is where it comes in. This is a nice, nice Wayne liked this one. It's like a I don't know, like an A flat 13 with a D flat at the base or something like that. You hear that? That kind of stuff. So I I kind of mixed that one. I did that. So that's like G major 7 over F major 7 with a C sharp in the base. You know. Lovely, yeah. I didn't invent any of it.

Closing Subscribe and Find Quartet

Geoff 47:46

I just it's all in the piano. You know, it's waiting waiting to come out, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that will do it. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And um after today, you can take away the apps as well if you if you'd like to. I can I can put them onto your phone for you and uh transpose some keys and transpose some and have a play with it. Lovely to stay in touch, yeah. And and I'll see you very soon.

Announcement 48:09

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