Geoffrey Keezer
Programs
Jazz Institute
Geoffrey Keezer is a GRAMMY®-winning pianist, composer, arranger and producer based inNew York City. A native of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, he began playing piano and composing at an early age. After briefly attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Keezer moved to New York in 1989, becoming the last pianist with the legendary Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Keezer has toured and recorded with Ray Brown, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Diana Krall, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Barbara Hendricks, Wayne Shorter, Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Chris Botti, Sting, Joe Locke and Christian McBride.
Keezer’s 2009 album Áurea (ArtistShare) was nominated for a Best Latin Jazz Album GRAMMY® award. Geoffrey’s 2013 solo piano release, Heart of the Piano (Motema Records), seeks to redefine solo jazz piano as a personal and interactive showcase of melody, energy and groove, while his 2018 album On My Way to You (MarKeez Records) is a stunning set of music featuring his trio with the addition of guest vocalist Gillian Margot. Keezer’s album Playdate (MarKeez) earned a 2023 GRAMMY® in the Best Instrumental Composition category for his song “Refuge”.
2024 saw the release of two recordings, Live at Birdland (MarKeez) by the Geoffrey Keezer Trio and Open During Construction, an innovative hybrid of an album and online composition course created in partnership with openstudiojazz.com. Keezer and Margot joined forces again in 2025 for an album of duets, Gillian Margot and Geoffrey Keezer (MarKeez). This sublime duo recital by Margot and Keezer is the fourth release on their eponymous imprint label, and marks a felicitous inflection point in the discographies of both musicians, each an erudite master of their instrument. Keezer has also produced and arranged three GRAMMY®-nominated recordings with vocalist Denise Donatelli, and released a series of collaborative albums drawing influences from Hawaiian, Okinawan and Afro-Peruvian folk traditions.
Geoffrey’s compositions have been commissioned by the Mainly Mozart Festival, Art of Elánensemble, Saint Joseph Ballet, Zeltsman Marimba Festival, Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra and Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. His music can be heard in the films What Happens in Vegas, The Wedding Year, and Inhale, and in numerous TV shows including The Young and the Restless, Parks and Recreation, Casual, House of Lies, Call Me Kat, American Crime Story, Clarice, and The Originals.
Time Magazine wrote, “Geoffrey has more than enough virtuosity and sheer musical wit andintelligence to weave all of his apparently disparate strands of influence into an original and compelling whole”, and pop icon Sting said “In the universe of piano players that I have been exposed to over the years, Geoffrey has proved himself to be not only a superb technician andimproviser, but also above and beyond this, a composer and conceptualist who can maintain the overall line and the DNA of the song in everything he plays. A musician’s musician.”
Geoffrey Keezer is a faculty member of The Juilliard School and is a Yamaha artist.