Geoffrey Keezer Trio with Yasushi Nakamura and Billy Kilson

Geoffrey Keezer brings his piano trio to Birdland with Yasushi Nakamura on bass and Billy Kilson on drums. The GRAMMY-winning pianist and composer leads this three-player set, pairing two longtime jazz collaborators in a focused club performance. It is a chance to hear Keezer’s writing and improvising in the piano-trio format, with bass and drums given equal space in the conversation.

A native of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Keezer has been a major presence in New York jazz since becoming the last pianist with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in 1989. He is also known as a composer, arranger and producer, with touring and recording credits alongside Ray Brown, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Diana Krall, Wayne Shorter, Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Sting and Christian McBride. Time wrote that Keezer has the virtuosity, wit and intelligence to turn disparate influences into “an original and compelling whole.” Sting called him a “superb technician and improviser,” as well as “a composer and conceptualist” who preserves a song’s overall line and DNA. Reviews of earlier Keezer trios have called the group “a band of equals” and “sinewy, energetic, deep-delving and almost symphonic in approach.”