Mika Stoltzman, Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Mike Mainieri, Geoffrey Keezer
Biography Mika Stoltzman, Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Mike Mainieri, Geoffrey Keezer
Mika Stoltzman
has been described by The Los Angeles Times as a “high-wire marimbist... an amazing, energetic performer ready for major exposure,” and a “Japanese Marimba Maestro,” by Time Out New York. All About Jazz raves, “Mika Stoltzman is beyond category, to use Duke Ellington's signature compliment.”
"Mika Stoltzman plays her transcription of Bach's Chaconne with greater rhythmic rigour, yet her interpretation feels similarly contemplative, and her delicate touch brings an unexpected and touching fragility to this monumental work." -by Gramophone
"The most spectacular aspect is perhaps Mika Stoltzman's imagination in realizing Bach's polyphonic thinking in shimmering textures in the transcription of the great Chaconne, from the Partita No.2 for solo violin, BWV 1004. Absolutely superb, an unexpected masterpiece. by Allmusic
Mika has toured to 19 countries and 65 cities around the world. She has performed ten times at Carnegie Hall (Zankel and Weill Hall), as well as at PASIC 2005 and 2007, the Blue Note in New York, the Tokyo and Cairo Jazz Festivals, and the Rockport Jazz Festival. She regularly performs around the world in a duo with her husband, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, at major venues in New York, Boston, Austin, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany and many more.
Mika has performed as soloist with the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra, Kumamoto Symphony Orchestra, Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, Kracow Philharmonic, and Szombathey Symphony Orchestra. In 2013, she gave the world premiere of Chick Corea’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on marimba with the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra in Mexico, and performed the work again with Orchestra Machiavelli in Italy in 2018.
Mika released her first album Mitsue in 1998, followed by Marimba Phase in 2003. In 2010, she released a live DVD, Marimba Madness, on Big Round Records, and new CD, Mikarimba, on Video Art Music (Japan). In 2013, she released If You Believe with Steve Gadd on TeeGa Music (Japan). In 2017, Mika and Richard Stoltzman recorded a duo album titled Duo Cantando with producer Stephen Epstein, guest artist Chick Corea, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), released on the DENON label (Nippon Colombia, Japan and Savoy record, US). In addition, Mika’s arrangement and performance of Tokyo/Vermont Counterpoint appears on Steve Reich's album Triple Quartet (Nonesuch). She has also appeared on Richard Stoltzman's album Goldberg Variations (BMG Japan) and Jo Hisaishi's Asian X.T.C. (Universal Japan). Her next album, Palimpsest, will be released worldwide on AVIE Records in June 2019.
In 2022, CD Spirit of Chick Corea released on the Disc Union,Japan and Richard Stoltzman's CD Last solo Album on the Nippon Colombia,Japan.
Mika Stoltzman is from Amakusa, a small island in the Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan. Her grandparents played traditional Japanese instruments, while her aunt taught piano and her father was a Kendo master. She began studying piano at age three, and in junior high became fascinated by the drums. At eighteen, she found the marimba, a perfect combination of piano and percussion. She studied marimba at Toronto University with members of NEXUS, and later moved to New York in 2008. She now resides in Boston.
Steve Gadd
was born in Rochester, NY in 1945. At the age of seven, Gadd began drum lessons. Just four years later, he sat in with Dizzy Gillespie. By the early 1980s, he had recorded and toured internationally with an extensive roster of artists, including Chuck Mangioni, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, Herbie Mann, Paul Simon, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Steely Dan, James Brown, Dr. John, and Eric Clapton. Frequent collaborator Chick Corea has called Gadd's drumming "perfect," and the notoriously hard to please Buddy Rich said that "out of all the drummers I've heard, Gadd has the most class behind the drums." Gadd continues to be one of the most sought after session musicians in popular music, performing recently with BB King, Al DiMeola, and James Taylor. When not recording and touring, he resides in Arizona with his wife Carol.
Eddie Gomez
was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in New York, where he attended Julliard. Upon graduating, Gomez had stints with Rufus Jones, Marian McPartland, and Gerry Mulligan before joining the Bill Evans Trio. Gomez and Evans played together for a total of eleven years, winning two Grammy awards in the process. Additionally, Gomez has performed with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Chick Corea. Today, he continues to record, tour, and produce his own music.
Mike Mainieri
Born on July 24, 1938, in the Bronx, New York, Mike Mainieri started to learn vibraphone from the age of 12 and made his professional debut at the age of 14. After performing as a member of the Buddy Rich Band, he served as a pioneer in the New York style fusion movement as a band leader of legendary groups, including White Elephant, L'Image, STEPS and STEPS AHEAD together with Steve Gadd, Michael Brecker and other artists in 1970s. Thereafter, he recorded with renowned musicians, including Paul Simon and Billy Joel, while continuously providing significant impact on the music scene through such initiatives as handling the arrangement of the 60-member Symphony Orchestra for rock band Aerosmith.
In 1994, as Mike Mainieri was sensing the limit of the expressive capability of the vibraphone as a musical instrument, the relationship with Yamaha and Mainieri began. Mainieri contacted Yamaha via a New York-based vibraphonist Dave Samuels to find out if Yamaha was capable of producing a custom-made vibraphone. Hiroaki Ohmuro, a great fan of jazz and also Yamaha's designer at that time, combined the opinions of Mainieri and Samuels to customize a vibraphone. Mainieri was extremely delighted with the result and commented, ""The sound it creates is sophisticated, like the piano."" The reputation of the resulting 3 1/2Oct vibraphone spread via word of mouth and became a hot topic among jazz circles. The instrument was generally marketed thereafter as the YV3910 model and is currently well established as the next-generation vibraphone.
Geoffrey Keezer
was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on November 20, 1970. Born into a musical family, with both parents teaching music, he began studying piano at the age of three. In 1989, at the age of 18, after completing his first year at the Berklee College of Music, Geoffrey joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Since then, Geoffrey has worked with virtually all of the living legends of jazz and has appeared on countless recordings both as a leader and as an accompanist.
His professional career has spanned many projects and genres. In 1992 Geoffrey performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra under the direction of John Mauceri. In addition to his 11 solo releases and constant touring, Geoffrey has also had compositions commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, the Saint Joseph Ballet, the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, and the Zeltsman Marimba Festival, and he was a recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2007 New Works grant. He has also played bass in a rock band and contributed artwork to David Mack’s comic Kabuki.
Geoffrey continues to work in partnership with world-class musicians from all genres. His 1998 release Turn Up The Quiet featured Grammy-winning vocalist Diana Krall along with Joshua Redman and Christian McBride. His partnership as musical director and arranger with world-renowned classical artist Barbara Hendricks produced It’s Wonderful – A Tribute to George Gershwin with subsequent touring in Europe and Japan. His two releases in 2003, Falling Up and Sublime: Honoring the Music of Hank Jones, were both collaborative efforts. Sublime is an ambitious set of piano duets with Kenny Barron, Chick Corea, Benny Green, and Mulgrew Miller. Falling Up features several pieces on which Geoffrey worked in tandem with the Hawaiian slack key guitarist Keola Beamer. His 2005 release, Wildcrafted, captures the fire and raw energy of Geoffrey’s trio live in concert at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. And in 2006, Geoffrey teamed up with traditional Okinawan singer Yasukatsu Oshima for a groundbreaking album of duets.
Geoffrey’s latest musical adventure, ÁUREA, is a multinational Afro-Peruvian/jazz recording project featuring some of today’s hottest players from New York City and Lima, Peru. Please visit geoffreykeezer.com for more information.
