Geoff Keezer
Turn Up The Quiet

Does a rose change its color under the rain? To such a rhetorical question, the answer might be a predictable “get lost…”! However, since it's a question posed on the cover of this album, along with other amusing “characterizations” of the tracks, it makes us say a simple “who knows”? And listen in religious calm post prandium to an album that requires its time and way to be listened to and savored calmly, down to the smallest nuances. Geoff Keezer grew up quickly at the school of Buhaina Art Blakey, Ray Brown, etc. He is a pianist with pure music in his bloodstream: gritty, organized, and melodic. Very personal and not easily comparable to usual models. The album in question is somewhat of a “siesta” compared to his production as a leader or his entries in others' albums. Versatility and intelligence are the key words to enter a world that is, after all, easily accessible to anyone who wants to find what we always seek: beautiful slices of jazz music in a sea of contemporary pianists who may even be good but all similar.

1. Stompin' At The Savoy
   Opens the album with a piano-sax-double bass trio: Geoff, Joshua Redman, Chris McBride for a rendition of the piece in the style of the '40s; a lot of sense of rhythm and keys furiously pounded, to give a bit of a percussive accent. Energy not expected from the title for an album that praises the coming of peace. McBride is a grinding wheel of notes and Redman drags, while the piano constructs a base in the background that then fades into a fragmented and decomposed solo. To be listened to carefully and decoded.
2. The Nearness Of You
   Another beautiful standard, indeed not much visited, but this time rendered with a delicacy and a great sense of notes: very few and just touched, so as not to disturb the vocal proposal of a Diana Krall very focused, intimate, and delicate, like the aforementioned rose. Toward the end, the sax appears for a solo that courts the voice, as only between Lester and Lady Day in the golden days. Geoff has a great musical head. Undoubtedly.
3. Lush Life
   Very short this time: only 3:33 of 'Luxurious Life'. Distilled from the solo piano to ignite calm in your cerebellar alveoli.
4. Island Palace
   Only piano, bass, and voice. The bass (or whatever else it may be!) performs a driven, “off-key” bass line to make up for the absence of drums and characterize the rhythm. Very beautiful.
5. Madame Grenouille
   A bass solo full of technique and heart, the instrument is prominently highlighted in the album, opens this piece with a swinging flavor with brio, where finally, after the sax, a masterful piano solo unfolds that, with only a bass accompaniment aside, does not make you think of interacting with just two musicians, rather gives you the idea of a full rhythm section. The piano is of high timbral quality and somewhat compressed in dynamics, thus well-sustained, contributing to the sense of fullness.
6. Lose My Breath
   With this track we return to the… “peace of the sea nearby”. A piece of solo piano; with an indefinable flavor: between contemporary melody and jazz; with much feeling and ideas. Technique takes second place. But there's plenty of it to spare. You still can't identify Geoff's “role models”.
7. Rose
   An exercise of high acrobatics for piano and soprano sax. Here you clearly identify Geoff's models: Icarus and Bakunin! Surely. And all subjects aimed at 'free flight'. Exceptional touch and control. Redman manages to keep up, perhaps with a bit of effort, with the Keezer cyclone. (And where is the peace?)
8. My Shining Hour
   As the title says, here focuses the pure show of Geoff Keezer: tense and violent at times; disturbing solo piano that breaks the time, trills, arches, and travels to make you drop your jaws and delight your ears, even if spoiled by hours of excellent music. You never get tired.
9. Precious One
   A piece with a more everyday and standardized flavor, but not less valid in the album’s panorama, on the contrary! Very strong and surprising echoes in Joshua Redman of Wayne Shorter: never felt the shadow of Weather Report so close in a piece's global economy and arrangement like in this little jewel: listen to it and you will tell me!!! Perhaps the peak of the album. But I don't want to exaggerate. In the end, it starts to swing, to resume the theme with brio and utmost satisfaction.
10. Love Dance
    A very intimate piece and again it seems like you're disturbing, with your mere listening, this duo of voice and piano between Diana and Geoff. A piece recorded in the '70s also by George Benson; from the text of this song emerges the album's 'catchy phrase' “Turn up the quiet”. Geoff reports in the notes about something Hank Jones told him: “Some songs play themselves…”
11. Bibo No Aozora
    In this piece, we have a orchestral background that enters quietly and then invades the scene, while the piano dominates on a bed of slow and beautiful notes; sliding towards the close of an album that is a truly sophisticated listening experience.

Speaking of Hank Jones: Geoff is one of the few true and dedicated aficionados of what remains one of the most underrated pianists ever in the jazz arena; a prolific author, endowed with great ability to support the rhythmic structure as well as a soloist of great class; for this always requested and highly respected in the circle. Brother of Sam (bassist), Thad (composer, band leader, and trumpeter) and the more famous Elvin (drummer).

As a fitting tribute, Keezer recorded a solo piano album dedicated to Hank, but with various guests, pianists themselves; thus it's an album of… duo-piano-solo (!!!) to perpetuate the Hank-Jones legacy. Turn up the quiet, baby.

Hank Jones:

Album with Charlie Haden by Hank Jones (just to name one)

Sublime: honoring the music of Hank Jones by Keezer