03/09/2021
Friends of Nanaimo Jazz Society promote arts and culture through music and provide a nurturing environment for young jazz musicians to reach their full potential. Check out their virtual Jazz series...next concert is March 20th!
To continue our Virtual Series, we are excited to announce a very special at home performance from Geoffrey Keezer (piano) and Gillian Margot (vocals). This intimate set is one you won't want to miss.
With his highly regarded discography, unique compositions, and acclaimed performances in a variety of configurations, multiple GRAMMY® nominated pianist Geoffrey Keezer commands the attention typically reserved for the living legends of jazz. A native of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Keezer was playing in jazz clubs as a teenager, holding down the piano chair for Art Blakey at age 18, and touring in the company of Ray Brown, Joshua Redman, Diana Krall, Art Famer, Benny Golson and Barbara Hendricks in his 20s. More recently he has toured with Wayne Shorter, Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Chris Botti, Sting, Joe Locke and Christian McBride; produced and arranged three GRAMMY® nominated recordings with vocalist Denise Donatelli, and released a series of albums drawing influences from Hawaiian, Okinawan and Afro-Peruvian folk traditions.
Following her acclaimed debut Black Butterfly, Toronto native Gillian Margot builds on her unique and emotive interpretations of American Standards with Power Flower, a deeply soothing homage to her influences in the Jazz, Pop, and Funk of the 70s and 80s. Margot spent two and a half years building the work; selecting seasoned titans Billy Kilson, Seamus Blake, Ingrid Jensen, and Mark Whitfield Jr, and working the arrangements and recordings to her complete satisfaction. Gillian Margot is a singer with a rare gift that makes people sit up and listen. She possesses an exquisite voice, a disarmingly wide range and a style that eschews jazz singer clichés in favour of an original, interpretive delivery grounded in a song’s lyrical and emotional content. A native of Toronto, Canada, Margot studied under a generation of jazz legends including Oscar Peterson, Freddy Cole, Carol Welsman and Norman Simmons. Equally at home in the musical worlds of jazz, R&B, chamber, and pop, she embodies a stage presence and confidence honed through years of performing in major venues worldwide with top-tier talent, including rock icon Sting, jazz trumpeters Chris Botti and Jeremy Pelt, pianist Robert Glasper, famed soprano Kathleen Battle, conductors Wayne Marshall (London Philharmonic) and Jukka-Pekka Saraste (Toronto Symphony Orchestra). Additionally, her voice can be heard in commercials and in film and television programs.
